As the end of the World Race draws closer, thoughts of my
future back in the U.S. keep coming to mind. I often think of; what will be
different, will I be different, where will I live, what job should I go into,
should I stay in full-time missions? Well God has answered most of these
questions or given me an idea of what life will look like for me after this
journey.
Will I be different? I' am not the same man I was before the
World Race and I can never go back to the mediocrity that once ruled my life.
I' am no longer a man who is ruled by anger, malice, and hated towards those
who I feel have wronged me. What I have become is a man who is filled with
compassion, grace, and love for any and every one that I come in contact with.
I' am no longer a man who shows how much I love someone by just my actions. I
now show love with words of encouragement, acts of service, and a heartfelt
embrace. I' am no longer a man who is only concerned with my own needs and
wants; selfishness is no longer my portion. By God's grace and love I am a man
who wants to push others into the destiny that God has for them. I' am man of
sacrifice. I will use my time, energy, possessions, money, Spiritual Gifts, and
voice for the Glory of the Lord.
Where will I live? I have really learned the value of living
in a Christian community and I don't want to back home and not have that. My
best friend Tyson Payne is also on this trip with me and he feels very similar
in that a Christian community has been a huge part in the sharpening and
transforming that God did in us this year. His parents have agreed to let me
live with them in Amarillo Texas until I can get back on my feet and support
myself again. They have blown me away with their generosity! They told me that
they were planning on buying me a bed already! How awesome is that! Amarillo
only has a population of about 200,000 which is nice because I think there's
more opportunity for intimacy with a smaller population.
What job should I pursue? In Ghana I decided to look into
what Job opportunities there were for mechanics in Amarillo, Texas. I just
googled local car dealerships and wrote down which ones stood out to me. I pray
about which ones I should contact and felt like I should email the Service
Manager of a Toyota dealer in that town. I just sent him an email saying who I
am, what my qualifications were, and what I'm doing presently. He responded
with a short email saying he would like to talk to me and he wrote his number
down. I called him the next day and we talked for about 45 min. Within the
first 15 minutes or so he told me this "There's something different about you
young man". Then he began telling me how his dealership is owned and operated
by a Christian man and that he is also a Christian!! This was an answer to prayer! One of the
things I hated about being a mechanic is the corruption of the trade. We talked
for a bit longer and he offered to hold the job for the next 4 months until I
returned home to America to take my place there. I' am thrilled at this
opportunity! I have spent the last 2 months praying for my future boss. I pray
that I can honor and respect him as my authority. I pray that I will work for
him as if I were working for Christ himself. Once a month I send him emails
asking how I can partner in prayer for him or his family. God is soooo Good!
Should I stay in full-time missions? I believe that God has
created for something big in this world and that it will involve some sort of
ministry. I don't know what that looks like, or even where to go from here but
I know that I' am destined for creating change wherever God places me. Because
of financial debt from student loans I cannot go into missions again until this
is paid off. So my desire is to work as hard as I can and take advantage of the
fact that I don't have a rent payment and pay off my debt as soon as possible
so that is no longer hindering me from going where God asks me to go.
What will be different? I don't want to just fall back into serving my church on the weekends or whenever I feel its convenient for me. I really want to invest every part of me in whatever church I go to back home. I think I want to get involved with orphanages (children homes) when I get back. My experience in Cambodia really put orphans on my Spirit and I want to be the best older brother to them that I can be. I've had thoughts of becoming a youth pastor, or holding some sort of college age bible study/community group. God has given me so much favor and respect amongst men it would be dumb of me not to use it. Other than that I really just want to be "set apart" in whatever community i belong to, not so much that people feel I can't relate or that I'm not interested in them. But I want to be "set apart" in a way that people can see the God inside of me, so much so that they are instantly comfortable and their guards down and the real person can be seen. I want to be someone who people bring their darkest secrets and I can speak truth to those hurt areas and they bring their hurts before the throne of Grace.
I hope this blog brings about a healthy conviction as to what you are doing with your life right now? Are you settling for mediocrity or seeking what the Kingdom has for you?
I pray to God that when I return I can find an Acts 2 church
in America. I want to go to a church that truly represents the church of the
New Testament. I want to find a body of believer's who go to church to worship
a merciful and Just God in one mind and one spirit. I want to go to a church
that prays for one another. A church that exhorts, prophesies, and speaks life
into one another. A church that truly cares about what's going on in the lives
of their brothers and sisters in Christ. I want to go to a church that doesn't
put off praying for one another, but seizes every opportunity to lift one
another up in prayer. I want to go to a church that lives in true community. A
church that walks out their journey in life together, and pushes one another
into the destiny that God has for them. I want to go to a church that sacrifices....
In Acts 2 Paul describes such a church, the original church.
I yearn to find that church. I want to be part of a body of believers that
changes the atmosphere of their city or town through prayer, and worship, I
want my church to be known for their Love. Jesus said in John 13:35 "Everyone
will know by this that you are my disciples- if you have love for one another."
I want my church to be known for how much they sacrifice for the people in
their community. Sacrifice their time, possessions, finances, labor, and wisdom
for the sake of the cross. I want my church to be more concerned with raising
up those in the church to be sent out than how many came into the building. I
do not believe God is impressed by the number of people who attend our churches
but concerned about their hearts.
God has been convicting me of representing the church that I
want in daily life now. I want my life to line up with the desires of my heart.
If this type of church is what we want then our lives need to reflect that. Is
this what you want? Will you fight for it? What will you give up for it? Be
blessed church
We were blessed with an opportunity to speak at a pastors meeting in Nigeria recently. Each of us were alloted ten minutes to give an encouraging Word to uplift the pastor's. We were told the local pastor's were becoming discouraged because of the lack of growth in their ministries. I had something prepared but right before it was my turn God gave me a different message. If you got 15 min, listen to what God had to say through me. It may apply to the situation your in now.
Campus ministry has been going great! The men in the dorms
have really opened up to us and allowed us to speak into their lives. Josh and
Weston decided to start a bible study group with the men in Kwame Nkrumah Hall
and somehow I became the one to lead it! I prayed a lot about what God wanted
me to show them. The first time I taught 12 guys showed up! It was awesome!
People would walk by and hear what I was talking about and stay to listen. I
could feel the Holy Spirit show up every time we had this bible study.
Especially when God had put it on my heart to talk about the misconceptions of
Christianity in Ghana.
Many people here in Ghana believe if you take part in the
following you are not a Christian: tattoos, Dreadlocks, alcohol, etc. Some
people even take it as far as if you do these things you negate your salvation,
many people feel like you can lose your salvation. It was very difficult for us
to get them to see truth in these matters. So many Ghanaians have fallen into
condemnation of their brothers and sisters in Christ because of these
fallacies. Thanks be to God that He has given us favor amongst these people and
they truly listen to what we have to say. On the day I was supposed to teach
again God put these matters really heavy on my heart. When it came time to
speak I was filled with the Spirit and God's love and grace flowed from my
words. On some things I rebuked them openly about what they were doing, but out
of Love and not out of a spirit of condemnation. I ended up speaking for 1hour
and 20 minutes, and at the end some of the guys confessed their sins openly and
asked us to pray for them.
This is a video about what a man named Cornelius learned
from our time together. I believe Cornelius to be a man who will change Africa
for Christ. It was an honor to speak truth to him and bring light into areas he
didn't understand.
While we were evangelizing on the Cape Coast Campus we found out that the students have a theater department and were putting on some plays, so we went to a few. This play was about the colonization of West Africa by the British, and how they mistreated and tricked the Africans. The play was hard to understand because although Ghanaians speak English their accents are really heavy and deep. It was quite funny for the most part the play was made to be a comedy. This is a clip of some of the Traditional African dances in Ghana. Enjoy!
Sometimes you need to take time out to just have fun and
enjoy your surroundings. The Ghanaian students have been studying for their
upcoming finals and just looked exhausted. So we decided to take them swimming.
What we didn't know was that the majority of Ghanaians cannot swim. So it
turned into us holding swimming lessons for our new African friends. Here's a
little fun video on our prestigious swimming class.
The best food that I have had on the race has been in
Thailand and Vietnam. I loved Thai food, my favorite was their Sweet and Sour
Chicken/Sweet and Sour pork dishes. It's consists of fried vegetables and
sometimes fruits like green peppers, onions, carrots and most of the time
Pineapple. I don't know what the sauce consists of, some of the people on our
squad said they saw people use ketchup for the sauce. In Vietnam we went to a
restaurant called The Black Cat in Ho Chi Minh city. There I had the biggest
burger I've ever eaten in my life. It was 500grams of beef, 4 slices of cheese,
six slices of bacon, three tomatoes, 1 onion, 1 head of butter lettuce and 1
pickle on a gigantic sesame bun. This burger was intense. If you ate the burger
you would get your picture on the wall of the restaurant. So being the men that
we are Mike Sanders, Josh Woodmanse, and
I challenged each other to eat it. Josh finished it in 26 min! Mike and I did
it in about 50 minutes. When we got back home Mike couldn't hold down the
burger and got really sick for a while. I held the food down but couldn't go to
sleep because the burger had stretched my stomach so far that I could feel
stomach touch my rib cage!! We had a great time! Lol
The weirdest thing I've eaten on the race is Dog meat. In
Cambodia they practically will fry up anything. You can buy beetles,
tarantula's, and Dog meat just about anywhere in the city. Jory decided he
wanted to try Dog meat and one of the Cambodians went out to get some for him.
About an hour later the he comes back with about 1 pound of greasy meat in a
plastic bag. Jory gets excited and eats some then decides to walk around
offering some to everyone. So I tried a couple of pieces, it wasn't bad, kind
of like a bland steak. I asked what kind of Dog it was but nobody knew,
supposedly it's a specific breed of dog that they raise in Cambodia to just be
eaten when they get older.
The worst thing I've had was in a village in the northern
part of Thailand. It was during what we call "Manistry" where all the guys on
the squad spent a month together doing ministry in northern Thailand. We went
up to those villages to put on Christmas dramas and have a worship time with
the villagers. When we arrived we were greeted and asked to sit inside the
church they built. We go inside and sit on the floor (that's how most people
eat in Southeast Asia) and they start bringing in bowls, plates, and containers
of food for us. We pray and start to dig in, after a few minutes somebody asks
why the rice they served was so red.... Never ask what's in the food folks! The
villagers killed 7 pigs for us that day and cooked up the meat, but they didn't
want to waist the blood of the pig so they cooked the rice in with the blood of
the pig. After knowing what I was eating it became quite difficult to finish.
