Monday, April 18, 2011

Heading for Outreach

In just about 6 days I head for outreach, to two villages in Sabah for 3 weeks and to peninsula for another 5 weeks, before coming back to Sabah for another 3 and then home in July :)

It has been a while since any email/update has gone out from me (I apologize for that), it has been busy and crazy here and sometimes it has just been impossible for me to sit down and write a proper update but it will come!

First off, I just want to take this time to thank you guys so much for your support (be it through prayer, financially or by any other means), you guys are totally awesome and I am truly grateful, thankful, appreciative (and all the other thank you words). Your support has truly impacted the students here at YWAM Sabah, and I am here to convey their message of thanks to you J Quite a significant amount has come in from peninsula for the students, who have now been able to pay for their school fees and support has also been coming for their outreach fees. Praise the Lord! Your reward is truly in heaven

A brief summary of how the past few weeks went (it went really fast!) We went to a Kampung for a week to do ministry and build relationships with the locals, that was a pretty crazy experience of harvesting rice, surviving with no proper toilets, no clear running water and electricity sometimes and so forth, but it was really good experience :) We also had a night of All night prayer and intercession, and other ministry opportunities with Boys brigade, Rumah Sayang and National service camp! God has been good!

Will send a proper update when I can!!

Japheth

Friday, April 15, 2011

Are you Jesus?

A few years ago a group of salesmen went to a regional sales convention in Chicago . They had assured their wives that they would be home in plenty of time for Friday night's dinner.

In their rush, with tickets and briefcases, one of these salesmen inadvertently kicked over a table which held a display of apples at the airport. Apples flew everywhere. Without stopping or looking back, they all managed to reach the plane in time for their nearly missed boarding. ALL BUT ONE !!! He paused, took a deep breath, and experienced a twinge of compassion for the girl whose apple stand had been overturned. He told his buddies to go on without him, waved good-bye, told one of them to call his
wife when they arrived at their home destination and explain his taking a later flight. Then he returned to the terminal where the apples were all over the terminal floor. He was glad he did.

The 16 year old girl was totally blind! She was softly crying, tears running down her cheeks in frustration, and at the same time helplessly groping for her spilled produce as the crowd swirled about her, no one stopping and no one to care for her plight.

The salesman knelt on the floor with her, gathered up the apples, put them back on the table and helped organize her display. As he did this, he noticed that many of them had become battered and bruised; these he set aside in another basket. When he had finished, he pulled out his wallet and said to the girl, 'Here, please take this $40 for the damage we did. Are you okay?' She nodded through her tears. He continued on with, 'I hope we didn't spoil your day too badly.'

As the salesman started to walk away, the bewildered blind girl called out to him, 'Mister....' He paused and turned to look back into those blind eyes. She continued, 'Are you Jesus?' He stopped in mid-stride, and he wondered. Then slowly he made his way to catch the later flight with that question burning and bouncing about in his soul: 'Are you Jesus?' Do people mistake you for Jesus? That's our Destiny, is it not? To be so much like Jesus that people cannot tell the difference as we live and interact with a world that is blind to His love, life and grace.

If we claim to know Him, we should live, walk and act as He would.

Knowing Him is more than simply quoting Scripture and going to church. It's actually living the Word as life unfolds day to day. You are the apple of His eye even though we, too, have been bruised by a fall. He stopped what He was doing and picked you and me up on a hill called Calvary and paid in full for our damaged fruit