Week 3- Freedom

Week 3 has been yet another awesome week here in Kona. Our teaching this week was all about finding freedom and our identities in Christ. This was a powerful week for both Jody and I and an area where we have both had a lot of breakthrough. Here are a few things from this week's teaching that stuck out to me.

1- God loves us with his perfect love all the time! Obviously God is showing me a lot about his love because I seem to write about this every week, but this week was just a deeper revelation of how perfect and complete God's love is and how he washes that over us all the time. He is not moody and he doesn't hold grudges or offences at us. When we sin, that doesn't mean that he stops loving us or that we are somehow on the outs with God. Of course our sin saddens God, but his perfect and complete love is still loving us even in our sin- wow, that is a huge revelation for me.

2- Repentance is a joy and a gift from God! I was so reminded this week that I have freedom in Christ to repent and move on. The cross has done all the work in redeeming my soul and making me right with God. Therefore, when I mess up I have freedom to repent and know that God has wiped it away and casts it away as far as the east is from the west! I have let sin cause me so much separation from God- but I am redeemed and the cross was enough and I am no longer separated from God because of the blood of Jesus! So when I make mistakes and have a bad attitude for example, I can simply acknowledge it, thank God  that he revealed my bad attitude to me, repent, ask God to change my attitude and move on in freedom. I no longer have to go to bed beating myself up about how I had such a bad attitude today, yet not repenting and feeling like I am getting farther and farther away from God.

3- I feel like God reminded me this week that he has given me spiritual gifts that he intends me to use to build up the body of Christ and that he wants to see me walking in those giftings. I was reminded that he has given me the gifts of prophecy and encouragment and it was amazing to walk in freedom of using those gifts this week. It is amazing to step out in faith and pray for someone and see how God begins speaking through you right to the person and telling them exactly what they need to hear.

4- God continues to increase my burden and love for Southeast Asia and the countries we are going to. I am SO pumped to be able to share with people about Jesus who may have never even heard his name before. As I learn more about these countries and their culture I am just so excited to emmerse myself in their culture and learn from them as we also get to share the good news. In case you're wondering, "Why the secrecy?" its because one of the countries we are going to is closed to the gospel so it is not wise to say that you are going as a missionary to this country. We will be going to this country on a tourist visa to volunteer in a children's home and also to do volunteer language classes and friendship evangelism at the university. The other country we are going to is Thailand and we are able to talk about that openly as it is open to the gospel. There are however, many places in Thailand where people have never heard the name of Jesus so we will be able to hand out Thai bibles and tracts and maybe even show the Jesus film in Thai. We will also be serving in an orphanage in Thailand.

5- Another huge encouragement this week has been to see Asa grow in his own walk with God. He is in a preschool class called Foundation School and he absolutely loves it. He is becoming so much more bold in praying for people and talking about God. I'm so proud of my little guy and how well he's doing with everything here. Jonathan and Jonah are also doing great and loving life here on the base.

If you are reading this blog and thinking, "Who is this crazy lady and why is she speaking so much Christianese?" I would love to talk to you more about Jesus and how amazing he is and all that he has done in my life. I understand that there are friends reading this blog who follow Jesus and those who don't. So much of this journey for our family is about learning to seek God, hear his voice, and follow his call to bring the gospel to the ends of the earth. This does NOT mean that we will ever force anyone to hear or believe the message of salvation in Christ. We are only going to be a blessing to people and love them whether they are open to hearing about Jesus or not. I also understand that missonaries have done horrible and culturally insensitive things throughout history and I personally appologize for any acts done in the name of God that brought shame or destruction to any people group. We seek to go serve other nations and peoples with love and with the understanding that we have as much to learn from them and their culture as we have to give. We desire to lift up and celebrate the nations just as God does! Love you all friends!!!

Jonah is now 6 months and here he is eating his first bites of solid foods :) 

Here we are on our weekly walk to church. Asa loves having so many adults that love on him. That is me on the right and our awesome friend Lindsay on the left who is also from BC.

Stroller update!!! Last I mentioned I had ordered new wheels for our Phil&Ted stroller in the hopes that it could be fixed. Well, the craziest thing happened and accidentally switched the shipping and billing addresses when I was ordering them and the wheels ended up getting shipped to Chilliwack >:( After getting over the frustration and praying about it, we felt that the phil&ted was a sinking ship that needed to die lol! So we looked online for used strollers in Kona and this awesome BOB duallie happend to be for sale. The lady came right to the campus to show it to us and then gave it to us for $100 less than what she was asking!!! It is such a sweet stroller and it is SO nice to be able to get around again! Thank you to all who prayed because we feel like we got a major uprgrade with this stroller from our last one and payed very little for it! Thank you Jesus for your provision!

Now that we have a stroller again, we can get to the beach much more easily!!!

We had many amazing prayer times during classes this week. Here are some staff and students praying for each other and anointing each other with oil.

Monday morning all campus worship. Here the boys are colouring with some of their friends. 

Gotta end off with one more pic of the stroller since I seriously love this thing SO much lol! I can load all 3 on here and get anywhere!!! You become so thankful for transportation when you go without for a while! I miss my minivan, but I am also loving that we walk all the time here and how it seems to slow life down a little!