Learning from others

"A tiny group of believers who have the gospel keep mumbling it over and over to themselves. Meanwhile, millions who have never heard it before fall into the flames of eternal Hell without ever hearing the salvation story."   -K.P Yohannan 

As I think back on these past couple of weeks, I can't seem to find a word to describe them. My teammate, Adrien, and I have had both spiritual highs and spiritual lows that have challenged our faith. God has been teaching us so much. 

First, He is teaching us that He is truly indescribable. He is not a God that will "fit" into our lives and He is not someone we can even begin to try to define. Our God requires so much more than the words and the thoughts we attempt to give to Him. Yet, by the grace of God, He is approachable. He desires us to have faith in Him, and He desires His people to see that He is life. 

Being in a place with so little knowledge of our Lord, God has given us glimpses of the lack of hope all over the world. Countless men and women are dying without any knowledge of Jesus, and we are held accountable for this tragedy. 

During these past couple of weeks we have been reading short biographies of men and women who have surrendered their lives for the sake of the gospel.  I have been challenged with the idea of the Lord's yoke being light. So many people in the world are suffering for the sake of Jesus. How can the Father allow those who love him to go through such grief and still say that the weight of his yoke is light? 

After struggling with this idea the Lord showed me John 17:20. In this passage Jesus talks about His desire to make us one with him and the Father. He desires to fill us up completely and to give the love and glory to us that God has given to Him. The Lord showed me that when we are stripped of ourselves, we are able to be filled with Christ. This filling is unlike anything in this world. It is true joy and it lasts in all circumstances. When we make ourselves His, we can have peace and rest in our Savior. He is the one who carries our burdens and He is the one worth living for. 

Another thing the Lord has been reminding and teaching us is the power and the importance of prayer. Jesus has instructed us all to pray fervently and faithfully. He has showed us the importance of praying persistently. James 5:18 says that the Elijah prayed "again" and the heavens rained. Before this, Elijah prayed 7 times. As followers of Jesus, to be able to proclaim His message, we are called to pray earnestly. 

Thank you all for the prayer and support. God is working here in Cambodia. 
-Gabrielle

"Enlighten our minds that we may know thee as thou art, so that we may perfectly love thee and worthily praise thee. In the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen." A.W Tozer 

Let the little children come

I really had hoped to work with children this summer... but came to the field not expecting to. The reality... I get to teach English to little children. 

We walked around the town handing out fliers for people to come learn English. We heard many small voices coming from up high yelling "Hello!!" We looked up & saw around 5 children in one house trying to get our attention. We asked them to come, and they grabbed our hands and walked with us. They have not missed a lesson yet! 

The group we are working with and teaching English in does not want our classes to be about the Book. This was hard to hear. He said he doesn't want people to feel pressured but wanted us to make a relationships with them first. 

It has been about two weeks and we have not gotten to share what we believe... not even once... to a non-believer. We have been praying a lot for opportunities. 

Today in my children's class, I talked about creation. Gabby came up with this idea. At first I was not going to talk about Him, but I asked the class, "What is creation?" I used the example of a house... Someone built the house, they created it. "Who created us? Who created your parents, humans?" The children were so interested. I answered & said it was "the Father." 

Through this, He allowed us to share the story of Adam and Eve. It was so cool to see the children's faces!! All but one of them did not know the story. The last thing I told them was how Adam and Eve did a bad thing... sinned... and no longer had a relationship with their Father. I told them the next time we will see what happens next in the story! They were all cheering and excited. (Thursday is a holiday so we don't have class.)

• Please pray for the children and for the Father to speak through the lessons.

• Pray that He will tell us what to share and when to do it. We do not want to get in the way for His great Word. 

Praise God for the Unexpected

I thought I was going to be working in the city and working with college students. To be honest, I did not want to come. I hate large cities, and I really wanted to be working with children. Another fear of mine was not working out on a regular basis. Since I play volleyball at my college, the fear of not being ready for next season was hard and I didn't want to disappoint my non-believing coaches.

Praise God! First off, the city is nothing like what I expected. It is run down. We drive on mostly dirt roads or run down pavement. There is no western toilet or hot water, we sleep on the floor, and there is no air conditioning. This is awesome!!! We get to live with 2 college students that cook for us every night. They hardly know English, but we already love each other. We all speak through many smiles and laughter. They are also sisters of ours!! 

Pray that we will be faithful to look for opportunities to develop

relationships in our area.