Strength/Weakness Nugget

**We need to cast our weaknesses on God**

Here in Ethiopia, in the Guest House, each morning we have devotions together. Each person is on the rotating schedule, and a couple mornings ago it was my turn. The list was made up for that week on Sunday, and I had it on Monday. And I didn't find out I had it the next morning until late afternoon, if not later(perhaps 7:30ish). Well, on Sunday nights we have Home Church with New Zealand and so through the course of Home Church(I can't remember if it was in a prayer or in a statement) Asaua made the comment of us throwing our weaknesses on God.

And God worked in my to develop that into the next morning's devotional.

So, the first verse that naturally came up was 1 Peter 5:7: casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.

So, because God cares for us and loves us, he wants our anxieties, our worries, our cares, our fears.

Sometimes our weaknesses are public things like not being able to lead a ministry, teach a class, help in a Bible Club, etc. But other times they can be private weaknesses like sin weaknesses.

2 Cor. 12:7-9

So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited.

Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me.

But he said to me, “My grade is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

God's power comes to show—to its perfection—when we are weak. When we can't do something. It's when we absolutely need him that God's power shines the brightest and most powerful. And when we realize our weakness—that we can't do something—then God's power can rest on us. And it's then that we have power over our weaknesses, when Christ's complete power rests on us.

Isaiah 30:9-15

For they are a rebellious people, lying children, children unwilling to hear the instruction of the Lord;

who say to the seers, “Do not see,” and to the prophets, “Do not prophesy to us what is right; speak to us smooth things, prophesy illusions,

leave the way, turn aside from the path, let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel.”

Therefore thus says the Hold One of Israel, “Because you despise this word and trust in oppression and perverseness and rely on them,

therefor this iniquity shall be to you like a breach in a high wall, bulging out and about to collapse, whose breaking comes suddenly, in an instant;

and its breaking is like that of a potter's vessel that is smashed so ruthlessly that among its fragments not a shard is found with which to take fire from the earth, or to dip up water out of the cistern,”

For thus said the lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel, “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.” But you were unwilling,

It is in returning to God and resting upon Him that we will be saved. And it is in quietness and trust that we gain strength.

But...sometimes we are unwilling to return to Him, to rest on Him, to be quiet and to trust. And because of that we fall “victim” to problems. Like the children of Israel in the rest of the chapter. They suffered battle loss, one thousand would flee at the sight of one, and etc.

The next chapter begins:

Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help and rely on horses, who trust in chariots because they are many and in horsemen because they are very strong, but do not look to the Holy One of Israel or consult the Lord!

And yet he is wise and brings disaster; he does not call back his words, but will arise against the house of the evildoers and against the helpers of those who work iniquity.

There is woe on us when we resort to other people above God for help. When we rely on horses(speed?), numbers, and strength, but don't consult or look to God Jehovah, then we are in a worse place. God is wise. God brings disaster to our opponents(in context with this passage), which means He brings strength. How can the opponent be devastated without a greater strength opposing them?

Isaiah 40:28-31

Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.

He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength.

Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted;

but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.

God is everlasting. He is the Creator of the entire earth(which exemplifies His strength). He does not faint or grow weary. He has immense understanding. And because He is so powerful, he can actually give strength to the faint and weak. If He weren't strong Himself, we would be utterly powerless in life. But He is omnipotent, and He offers us to tap into His power, to partake of His strength. And the way to do that is by waiting on the Lord. We will have a new-found air about us; a strength to lift us into the heavens. We will be able to run and not be weary, and walk and not faint.

Think about it. Running, here, could be taken to imply a work; a continual process that we do: teach a class, lead a ministry. Walking, here, would then imply a life, a day-to-day living. So, when we wait on God, we won't faint despite what temptations come, or difficulties, or circumstances. We can walk—live--and not faint.

Psalm 55:22

Cast your burden on the LORD, and he will sustain you; he will never permit the righteous to be moved.

God wants us to cast our burdens on Him—our weaknesses. And when we do, He will sustain us, never allowing us to be moved, shaken, or faltered.

Ephesians 3:14-19

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father,

from whom every family in heaven and on earth is names,

that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being,

so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth,

and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

God allows us to be strengthened with power through God's Spirit within us. And with this strength, Christ may dwell within us through faith, and that we(having been rooted and grounded in love) may understand the enormity of God's love that surpasses knowledge. That we may be filled with -all- the fullness of God.

His entirety can be in our soul. His love, His attributes. The natural response to this would be to walk with Him in His Spirit. To abide in Him, to relish Him.

Galatians 5:16

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

So, when we have God's fullness in us, we will respond by walking in His Spirit. And when we walk by the Spirit, we will not gratify the desires of the flesh, we will not give in to temptation. God can empower us and indwell in us so that we will not be weak to sin and give in to it. We just have to accept His strength. (Remember, His strength. Not ours.)

So, to end this:

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. (Ephesians 6:10)

Be strong in the Lord (not us) and in the strength and power of His might(not ours).

Blog#2

So, today marks day 13 of being here. It's shocking how quick it all has passed. I'm enjoying homevisits. About the middle of last week I decided to buy some groceries for the families we visited. The first family I bought 2 packages of spaghetti noodles, 2 pounds of elbow macaroni, and 2 bars of soap. The second family, I had to buy at the Corner Shop by the Guest House because there wasn't a shop near the house, or so I understood the social worker to say. They didn't have spaghetti so the social worker replaced it with sugar.
After being at the house for a while, we decided to head back to the Guest House; and right before we left we handed the groceries to the mom. She got really excited and explained to the social worker that that morning they had used the last bit of their sugar and she had told her girls there would be no more sugar for anything, and that they'd have to pray that God would provide. Then she praised God for His provision.
It's really interesting to be used of God that way. It's not like I had any idea of their needs; nor did I choose to buy sugar above spaghetti noodles. God worked it out so that we would get sugar, not spaghetti. Because they prayed for sugar out of faith. And God was pleased with their faith and answered it.

Another interesting story is the first visit of that day we went to this house that was smaller than my parents' bathroom. And it housed at least two people. Luxurious house, right? Well, that didn't stop the mother from praising God for the house they had, that it was OK.

How often are we ungrateful for what we have, always wishing we had something bigger, something better, something different? How often do we overlook the fact that we have a multi-room house, running water, consistent electricity, enough food?

It's definitely a smack in the face to live in a life of ungratefulness for big things, when people are living with small houses and are thankful for that.

~~
I'm really glad I'm staying here for four months. Despite the fact that I haven't done anything of my main mission(which might play in this forthcoming expression), I wouldn't be ready to leave in two days if I had come for 15 days. Like, if my mission vision wasn't that of teaching music and ASL, and just come to be a 2-wker, I'd most likely would want to stay here longer.
I think if I ever go on other mission trips to other countries, it'd have to be for at least a month at a time. You can't really experience the culture, or all of the potential lessons ready to cultivate. Like, with the Spain trip I feel like it was more of what I can do for missionaries(which isn't bad nec.). But I think in the area of missions, I'm more called to the people, not the missionaries. Saa...
And being with the people, learning their stories, learning their love, learning their faith, will give me greater experiences on which to act. Like, to see my lack of faith in “big things” that are in reality little things, while these people have faith for everything.

I've been here 13 days. :O I really hope the rest of the time doesn't fly so fast without at least something amazing happening per day. Like God working in my life or seeing God work in another's. Or even both.

~~

Oh, so on my way to Addis on Christmas I sat next to this mother and her 3 year old son, Yared(?). He started talking to me, and I couldn't understand anything obviously. So Jonnett leaned over and told me to ask him what his name was in Amharic. She then tells me how to tell him what my name is. And then I ended up finding out how to count to 5 from him. I had a bag of gifts for Mussie's nieces and nephews and one of the gifts was a “my first 1000 English words” so I showed him some things like bed and sugar and rice. And then I taught him how to count to five in English. :D It was rather cute all together.
Like during one time of lull, he stared at me and we had a conversation out of raise of eyebrows for a couple of minutes. :p


It's lunch time now and I leave for more homevisits in an hour and my thinking for blogging isn't coming fast enough, so I'm going to end it here.

First days in Ethiopia! (redo)

So I’m writing on the second or third day of my being here. It’s weird for the days to blur and me to have no idea what day of the week it is already, but it’s happening to a degree.

The plane ride was OK. The US Airways flight was the worse of the two flights: longer flight, less leg room, and I was in the middle-ish seat. The Lufthansa flight had spacy-er seats. I slept mostly on the Lufthansa flight for a couple of hours out of the 13-hour flight time.

My first full day here Jonnett and I worked on making sugar cookies for the kids at BCI for their Christmas program. We had to make around 400(or was it 200?). It was ridiculous. So, the oven here isn’t like ours, obviously. It’s a gas one, so the only heat source is from the bottom and it doesn’t circulate well, so the bottoms burnt while the tops barely were cooked. It was enjoyable, though. Two of the New Zealand kids came over to help, so that was a time-reducer greatly. (Since we were making them from scratch, not store-bought junk.)

We also made icing(though apparently it didn’t taste good—I didn’t think to/want to taste it, so I don’t know firsthand). But something from that is that you can make confectioner’s sugar with regular sugar by grinding it in a coffee grinder.

(BTW, my thoughts are very sporadic as I type this, so bear with me.)

Last night(late) a team from Wisconsin(I think it was) came. Today all of us went on a tour of the churches.

It feels weird for me right now around them. I mean, They’re 20-weekers and are doing normal 2-week things(home visits, whatever are they want to work in, etc) whereas for me I’m short-terming not doing the same things as they are. (Well, once the ball gets rolling.) But it’s my first few days here so I need information as much as they do, but it’s weird ‘cause I’m not with them, they’re not my group.

And that’s another thing. I haven’t done anything related to my “mission vision” or whatever. It’s somewhat obvious not to be thrust into it all on my first couple of days, but from what I understood((*Note to be mentioned in a few*)) it seems like I might be starting teaching at the Academy Monday, but I’ll go to the end of the week which is the end of their finals and then they have a 15-day break. So I think Mussie said I’ll be doing home visits then.

So, for that note earlier. Obviously when habasha’s(nationals) speak english, it’ll be thickly accented depending on the person. Well, Mussie supposedly is the best to understand(or at least he is to Jonnett), but it’s hard for me. I think it’s because my brain shuts off focus to foreign languages(unless I’m trying to speak/understand it) and how he speaks is like Amharic but with English words. So my brain fluctuates focus and I miss a lot.

So Mussie asked me when I wanted to start working at the Academy, and I told him any time. He then went to say something that sounded like I’ll be teaching for a week and then go on a 15-day hiatus until schools lets back in.

As for teaching Fekerite, it seems like it’s going to be in the evening time((which would co-work with my home-visiting during the 15-day school break since home visits, tmk, are done during the day)) because she is working on sewing as a trade. And learning a trade is highest priority for her. Without a trade, there is no livelihood for when she graduates out of BCI. As of yet I haven’t met her or her brother(though Jonnett pointed out Adana as he was walking past at the Christmas Party).

I tried injera and wot for the first time today. The injera was alright, but it was much thinner than expected and tasteless. The wot was good, but the ratio of spiciness and meat was weighing too heavily on the spicy side. It wasn’t incredibly hot, but it was more like eating a mild hot sauce packet from Taco Bell than eating a stew. I think if there were more meat it would be fine. Or if I had a thicker bread to sop it with. Jonnett got some kinda of wot chicken tips or something that was good. I’d probably prefer that over the wot(unless it was thicker or had sopping loaves).

First days in Ethiopia!

I'll try to fix this one...

So I’m writing on the second or third day of my being here. It’s weird for the days to blur and me to have no idea what day of the week it is already, but it’s happening to a degree.

The plane ride was OK. The US Airways flight was the worse of the two flights: longer flight, less leg room, and I was in the middle-ish seat. The Lufthansa flight had spacy-er seats. I slept mostly on the Lufthansa flight for a couple of hours out of the 13-hour flight time.

My first full day here Jonnett and I worked on making sugar cookies for the kids at BCI for their Christmas program. We had to make around 400(or was it 200?). It was ridiculous. So, the oven here isn’t like ours, obviously. It’s a gas one, so the only heat source is from the bottom and it doesn’t circulate well, so the bottoms burnt while the tops barely were cooked. It was enjoyable, though. Two of the New Zealand kids came over to help, so that was a time-reducer greatly. (Since we were making them from scratch, not store-bought junk.)

We also made icing(though apparently it didn’t taste good—I didn’t think to/want to taste it, so I don’t know firsthand). But something from that is that you can make confectioner’s sugar with regular sugar by grinding it in a coffee grinder.

(BTW, my thoughts are very sporadic as I type this, so bear with me.)

Last night(late) a team from Wisconsin(I think it was) came. Today all of us went on a tour of the churches.

It feels weird for me right now around them. I mean, They’re 20-weekers and are doing normal 2-week things(home visits, whatever are they want to work in, etc) whereas for me I’m short-terming not doing the same things as they are. (Well, once the ball gets rolling.) But it’s my first few days here so I need information as much as they do, but it’s weird ‘cause I’m not with them, they’re not my group.

And that’s another thing. I haven’t done anything related to my “mission vision” or whatever. It’s somewhat obvious not to be thrust into it all on my first couple of days, but from what I understood((*Note to be mentioned in a few*)) it seems like I might be starting teaching at the Academy Monday, but I’ll go to the end of the week which is the end of their finals and then they have a 15-day break. So I think Mussie said I’ll be doing home visits then.

So, for that note earlier. Obviously when habasha’s(nationals) speak english, it’ll be thickly accented depending on the person. Well, Mussie supposedly is the best to understand(or at least he is to Jonnett), but it’s hard for me. I think it’s because my brain shuts off focus to foreign languages(unless I’m trying to speak/understand it) and how he speaks is like Amharic but with English words. So my brain fluctuates focus and I miss a lot.

So Mussie asked me when I wanted to start working at the Academy, and I told him any time. He then went to say something that sounded like I’ll be teaching for a week and then go on a 15-day hiatus until schools lets back in.

As for teaching Fekerite, it seems like it’s going to be in the evening time((which would co-work with my home-visiting during the 15-day school break since home visits, tmk, are done during the day)) because she is working on sewing as a trade. And learning a trade is highest priority for her. Without a trade, there is no livelihood for when she graduates out of BCI. As of yet I haven’t met her or her brother(though Jonnett pointed out Adana as he was walking past at the Christmas Party).

I tried injera and wot for the first time today. The injera was alright, but it was much thinner than expected and tasteless. The wot was good, but the ratio of spiciness and meat was weighing too heavily on the spicy side. It wasn’t incredibly hot, but it was more like eating a mild hot sauce packet from Taco Bell than eating a stew. I think if there were more meat it would be fine. Or if I had a thicker bread to sop it with. Jonnett got some kinda of wot chicken tips or something that was good. I’d probably prefer that over the wot(unless it was thicker or had sopping loaves).

Tomorrow!

It's finally here, and it's all surreal. I'm taking a trip halfway around the world, following the calling of God. I'm nothing special; I've had my screw ups. I don't have formal training for anything of what I'm doing over there. But, God equips the called. And it's not what I can do, but what I allow God to do through me and in me.

It may be cliche to say this to any missionaries(~2week, short-term, or full-term ones), but it feels really all of a sudden. It's like...for a year I've been in the mind set of in the semi-distant future I'm going to Ethiopia. But it isn't the distant future anymore. It's isn't a week from now. It's tomorrow. In 24 hours I'll be in the airport holding on to my two carry-ons waiting to board my flight. 24 hours!

(Lol. I began this at around 3pm. It is now 7...so it's less than 24 hours now. :) )

I'm excited for the experience of everything. The trip there(First time I've flown alone, let alone alone out of the country.); the living in a different culture, environment, thought-processes; the opportunity to serve God in an area I at least have a little knowledge.

It's going to be an experience. And I hope I don't miss a lesson. Perhaps I should write and record everything so when I get home I can read it all and watch it all and learn lessons I might have missed in the moment.

God is good. And God is powerful. It's amazing at what He has done to prepare this way and enable my steps.

Thank you for your prayers, support, and love. I hope that God doesn't just work in my life through all this, but that something somewhere in someway touches your heart to, to make you a better Christian.

--

Smile Before You Go Crazy,

Kevin.