Monday, July 03, 2006

Wow, life has been so crazy busy lately! But in a good way, I think. It's really hard to realize that I'm only here for 10 more days (9 really) and then I'll be back in Canada. So I'm packing them very full and enjoying every single day I have. Helps that the weather has been gorgeous lately!

The other day for cleaner time we were reading about Jesus healing the man with the legion of demons. We've been going through the book of Luke, so the day before they read about Jesus calming the storm, and so when we were sitting there Michael said, "Today we read about the demon!" and Steven said, "Really? How did you know to talk about that? I was thinking about demons this morning!" so that was pretty cool. After we read the story Steven asked me if he was demon-possessed. He was very relieved when I told him that the bad things he does are because of his sinful nature, not because he has a demon. That man is so hungry and thirsty, and it's exciting to listen to his questions and help him find answers...Last night he gave his life to the Lord and wants to get baptized within a few days. I asked him why he thinks he needs to be baptized right away, and he said because he read that in the Bible and he's been hearing so much about it lately (2 staff members got baptized yesterday). All evening he kept coming up to me in the kitchen with his Dutch/English New Testament asking me, "What does this mean? What does it mean here when it says this?" so it's really neat to see him eating up the Word. But he still has a lot of issues from the past that are influencing him right now...things he needs to give over to Jesus. So pray for him, that he may be healed and set free, and that he will learn to recognize when it's God's voice speaking to him, and not some other voice.

That same day Steven asked me if he was demon possessed, Arijaan and I had a really interesting conversation with a girl named Claudia. She's a Christian Science believer, and I've never really encountered one before, so it was very interesting to learn what she believes. It's so sad, though, because she's so close...her beliefs are so close, BUT, and the but is a pretty key issue every time. I'm excited for what God's going to do in her life though, because her boyfriend is really searching (and thinks her religion is scary) and his best friend recently became a Christian which completely changed his life, so he has a good influence and someone who can show him who Jesus is and what he did and is doing for us. So keep Claudi and her boyfriend Justin in your prayers...I know God has great plans for them.

Also, yesterday Anne and Jonathan got baptized (along with 2 others from the Zolder) and it was heel mooi...perfect weather! And afterwards we (I use the term "we" very loosely) went bridge jumping. Ok, I didn't make it off the 20 meter bridge...I'm a chicken and I will freely admit it. Too much to think about...trying to maintain balance on the way down so as to land feet first while attempting to keep the skirt from flying up (hey, we were really planning on going swimming when we left that morning) and plugging the nose. Yeah, and the height scared me. I think if I could have worked up to that height from smaller ones first it would have been ok, but oh well. So Eric was scared too and we climbed back down and jumped off a little mini fence thing in the water. Not quite high enough, but the only thing between the ground and the huge bridge.
Anyways, I'll post some pictures of the baptism and bridge jumping here.

2 comments:

Dave Stoffer said...

now thats excitin

Sarah McAllister said...

Megs, I miss the shelter. It's definetly harder at home than you'd expect,, just as a warning. I miss you guys a ton. It's rad to read the encouraging stuff happening there!! God is amazing!!