How Beautiful are the Feet that Bring GOOD NEWS

What a week! We were given many opportunities this week to Bring the GOOD NEWS of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ to many here on the other side of the world, and we are pumped!! But before I share about that, allow me to share a quick soap box story that we forgot to tell awhile back.

We were in a city that took 7 misearable yet joyful hours to get too where we were going to share Christ, and hang out with many students of many ages. One of the days we were there we were going to do a VBS for the second striaght day with 5 year olds up to 11 year olds. When we arrived this second day, on our way into the Church we walked past a man who looked a little troubled and had only shorts on. While the team past him I looked at him and we met with eye contact. But nothing happened as we got inside ogf the church. When we got inside, we began to gather the children, but one of our translators said that that man was crazy, literally. The very next second we heard a bang on the side of the Church. Low and behold he was beginning to throw rocks at the Church. All of the children got scared and were crying, it was a very strange incident and unusual one for them and for the community.

So the girls and a few natives got the kids upstairs, the man kicked in the door and he looked almost demon possesed, and the pastors wife and Anthony got the door closed again, Bryce grabbed pvc pipe to hit the man, I got the kids upstairs and came back down with my bazooka gun arms ready to do waht was needed (lol). But in the meantime what was happening, and what will always happen in this culture, is the neighborhood all began to gather around the man to keep him from doing any more damage. He had already broken a few window panes, and also knocked down a motor bike, and so they were fed up with this man and were going to teach him a lesson and the rest of the people that you just don't do this. So, they gathered around him and they were throwing rocks at him, and they hit him on the ground with their knees in his back, and they hit him with a 2 by 4 in the head until he was out cold. Then the police came and got him.

The way they think is this man could possibly do this again, or maybe he has done it before, and they don't want that, and they don't want any more of it so this keeps the crime rate down in the city as well as many other things. It is very interesting. So anyways, good things that followed though is that the community gathered around the church after that, also because of us funny looking white folk, but they heard us singing to Jesus, and sharing Bible stories of trusting in Jesus, so it was a very interesting thing that happened, and overall it turned into being a good thing for ther name of Jesus!!

Ok, so back to the meat of the email, no more milk!! So, we got to spend some time with a few more M's that we hadn't met before to go and meet people, get to know them, ask them many questions about them, and about their religion, and see where God allows the conversation to go. Well the best part is that I believe that 90% of our conversations went as far as sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ in a very kind and gentle way that does not demand a response or a decision to be made, but simply allows the Good News to be heard and planted into some very blinded and jaded eyes and hearts that have never heard of Jesus before. We were also able to give gifts, gifts= Gospels of Luke, and other little booklets that share the Gospel in true and effective ways.

This was amazing and such a blessing to be a part of and to see what God is doing. Another positive thing was how beautiful the beaches were that we got to talk with people on. We can all say now that we have been in the Indian Ocean! The scenery was absolutely amazing, and the people were really neat. The beaches we were on actually got hit by a pretty severe tsnuami 2 years ago, and we could still see some of the distruction caused.

The M's we were with said that they have seen many people come to know Jesus through this beach ministry and that God is doing great things in this very real, tangible, and friendship approach to sharing the Gospel. This was our best week of our trip, and it was the most ministry packed week as well. We only hope now that in the future we will be able to come back as a Church and make a strong covenant with our bro's and sis' here to annually come back and be a part of sharing the Gospel here as we were able to so that those here can hear and believe.

"For I am not ashamed of the Gospel for it is the power of God through the Gospel which saves live!!" Romans 1:16

We also have had very fruitful and edifying times with our bro's and sis' here over the past few days with just spending time with them, gaining much wisdom from them, and loving on one another! You guys would all love them as much as we do! And us guys were able to play a game of 3 on 3 Basketball with some bro's here and we had a blast and were able to lose some of the weight we have gained from eating fried everything, especially fried rice, for every meal! It was a blast!

Andrea and I have still no idea what we will do when we get home in many things, and at this point we especially don't know what kind of jobs we will have when we get back. Many doors have closed for jobs that we thought we might get, and we are simply not understanding. BUT, we trust in the Lord and know that He is good, and we are submitting to our prayers that His will be done and that He knows best! So, it has been hard, but we are standing on that rock, and we ask that you join us in prayer that He will reveal to us jobs and the will He has for our future life! We are also back to feeling very strong about going to Kentucky where I would finish getting my Masters in Theology and Bible, and where she would possibly get some Bible schooling as well, and possibly a Masters of Arts of some sort. Please pray for us in that as well.

But most importantly, please pray for the people here, first the natives that do not know Jesus. Many got to hear the Gospel, pray that God would grow that seed into belief for them! Pray for the M's and their strength in God to grow, their love for Jesus to grow and be seen, and for God to show them fruit of their labor that would encourage them to press on! Thank you guys all so much, we love and miss you, and we will be seeing you all very soon!!

We only have 4 more days here and they will be filled with teaching some English at a local school and helping with a kids camp that should be fun. We get into LAX late Thursday night, but we should be able to post again before that!

P.S. we are very sorry we have not been able to post pictures! We are going to try to do that on our next update!!