Looking Up.

Of love…
This special day in all of our journals started off with a mini sharing session, followed by the glorious worship time at the park.

Looking around the park about 20 minutes into the awesome worship time, there were at least four conversations about God with random people at the park going on, all at once.

Being greatly encouraged, I couldn’t help but be amazed at how God was at work, and on top of that, many passers-by were magnetized by the beautiful music God was making through Jake and Matt. I wish you were here, you would have been blown away by the astonishing scene like the rest of us did.

Strolling and praying just seem to go pretty well together especially when you’re in a park, so that was exactly what I did. And then God led me to talking to an elder man named John, whom Andrew (Roger) got to share with while we were worshiping. Yes, God knew what He was doing, like He always does.

I had a extremely lovely (literally) conversation with him which truly encouraged my soul and undoubtedly prepared my Spirit for all the sweet stuff God put on the path later on.

By God’s grace (and purely by that), I was able to understand what he was trying to say to me despite his thick (more like super thick) Irish accent+15-words-per-second speed (just a little exaggerated)+constant repetition. He told me about his family and a little bit about his life in the nursing home with all his children living in the city.

Praise the Lord for His sovereignty. During the mini sharing session in the morning, Kerry shared something about the importance of selling the Gospel in light of God’s passionate love for each and every one of us, and how that should be our motivation. And with that reminder set in my mind beforehand, it was a great opportunity for me to just transfer God’s love to him through being attentive to what he was sharing which opened a door for me to share my story, in which God’s love changed my entire life.

Sometimes, love means listen, understand, share.

If the Lord’s willing, Andrew and I will go see John at the park again before we leave, with a hope that his emptiness would be filled with God’s unfailing love through the precious gift of salvation that we graciously enjoy… every day in our lives.

“Do everything in love.” - 1 Corinthians 16:14

Of salvation…
Boy this one’s crazy.

So we had a pasta party. With some unbelievably luscious choc chips cookies and raspberry swiss-rolls.

The dinner opened up MANY doors for quality conversations with people about God. It was pure madness.

Five minutes into talking to Ana and Claire from Austria whom I’d been having breakfast with for the past few days, my mind was set on having an immensely fruitful conversation about salvation with them; especially Ana, because I truly sensed that she had a soft heart, which led me to expecting for her salvation, on this very night, even. Plus, Sasha was there laboring with me.

And then the two German girls Uli and Elisa walked in each with a can of beer in their hand. Since they were not familiar with most of the brothers and sisters, who were pretty much engaged in different canversations at this time, they came and sat by me and started talking to me like machine guns.

“I just want to talk to Ana!” I thought.

The Lord is sovereign.

Then it became clear to me that I should just obey God with the opportunity He’d laid out right in front of me, and that I should have a focus aimed at these two girls who seemed pretty confortable talking to me.

And this was where the craziness detonated.

They asked some questions about what our group is going here after I told her we’re on a mission trip. As the conversation developed, Uli was going on and off because something was wrong with her can of beer; there was some weird object in it or something. Praise the Lord this happened.

Because of that I got to talk to Elisa more in depth about the need for a Savior and the urgency of it, as well as how God’s love satisfies our famished souls.

As I dug deeper and deeper I realized that she came from a broken family, and her mother had been going through some really difficult times and their relationship was marked with cracks.

God led the conversation into the intense zone when I started sharing my detailed testimony with her, highlighting the part where Christ’s love overwhelmed and changed my life, and how my hope was found in Him. And most importantly, how God revealed Himself to be real to me through His consistency in answering prayers and guiding my steps through the Word and the Spirit.

She admitted her resentment toward Christianity caused by all the evilness (priests molesting little boys claiming that to be the ticket to Heaven, etc) that has been going on in the Catholic churches in her country.

And by God’s grace, my deperate passion for her to be saved shone through the words God spoke through me, her hearts was instantly changed, and she was impressed by how one could receive salvation on their own without being forced to do so, like the way it was done in most churches in Germany.

She said because of this conviction she had in her heart and the magnificent hope she saw in the Gospel, she wanted Jesus Christ to be her Savior to claim the free gift of salvation.

On this special day in history, the angels in Heaven threw a special party for Elisa.

Let’s celebrate our new sister accepted into His Kingdom.

Please keep praying that the Lord would make her heart a good soil for the seed to grow and mature. Protection from Satan’s plots for destruction.

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” - John 15:5

PRAISE THE LORD.