Life is weird. But God is good.

So… the blog has been quiet for a while - a lot longer than I meant for it to be. Some of you may be wondering, if a thought of me crosses your mind, “How is life there?”
 
Well... Life is weird. But God is good, gracious, overwhelming in mercy.

This semester – now finishing the sixth of 15 weeks – has come in roaring like a lion. I feel like it is a semester of pruning, where the Lord is revealing more and more in me that needs to go - or needs to grow. Sometimes the revelation comes clearly: “(fill in the blank)’s time is done.” And then comes the choice – because God tends to let us make a choice about it.

Release. Surrender. Submit.

And sometimes it’s not so clear… all I know is that something is not right between me and the Lord. Those times may be harder, because they start with confusion and pain.

Reveal. Release. Surrender. Submit.

The lesson that seems to be consistent this semester is that God doesn't waste anything, but that “all things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose” So what is that good? It’s spelled out in the verse right after the more famous one: it is to be conformed to the image of Jesus. I have lots of conforming to do. But it’s been encouraging to me – and I hope to you also – that if God is for us, who can be against us? Not only is God “for us” in general terms, there is no condemnation for those who are in Jesus, because the only one who has the right to condemn is the one who gave up the glory of heaven to take on our sin! And not only does He not condemn, He stands at the right hand of God, making intercession for us. (See Romans 8)

Wow.

Think about that for a second – Jesus didn’t stop at trading His purity for your sin. Yes, He bridged the gap of sin between you and God with His own body (which He took on for that purpose) and yes, if you believe and accept that gift, God sees you as sinless. But even then, we are not on our own – Jesus stands and makes intercession for us. He goes to God on our behalf.

I don’t deserve that.

But because of it, there is nothing – not even the weirdness of this life – that can separate me from His love. (See Romans 8 again.)

So how is life? Well… it’s not separating me from the love of God… and God uses it all to conform me into the image of Jesus. So it must be alright. :-)

Until next time -- May the Lord bless you and keep you all – may He make His face shine upon you and give you peace.

Prayer requests:
*for me – for good health and sleep! Both have been hard to come by.
*please also pray for me as the Lord is teaching me a lot in this time
*our 10-day outreach to Split, Croatia leaves next Friday
            -we have 16 people going and we’ll be doing street drama
            -please pray for our team, for unity and health and for the Lord to be glorified
            -and for the people in Split

Thank you to all who pray!

"Prayer does not fit us for the greater work; prayer is the greater work."
-Oswald Chambers

september update from Lydia

Hello to you from Hungary! I hope that you all are well and enjoying the first few weeks of a new season. With the changing colors outside and the new beginnings we are experiencing here, it seems like the right time to send out an update. My summer has been officially over now for a few weeks and even before Fall semester started the weather was changing. I love the crisp feeling of autumn, so it was a welcome change for me. The month of serving at "the castle" during conferences this summer was a time of rest and transition that I rather needed after a two-month outreach. After being able to process what I saw and learned this summer, I am excited to be in the second semester of the missions program at the college - and yes, I found rest even in the middle of cleaning bathrooms and stairwells for a month. :-) The Lord is good and has many ways to recharge us and draw us closer to Him. This semester I'm enjoying greater discipleship and fellowship with the people here. Having spent a semester and part of a summer here already has made friendships here much deeper and sharing life and struggles and joys that much easier. Also this semester, I'm putting more of a focus for my own growth on reaching out and taking part in weekend outreaches and ministry learning. The first one is this weekend, so please be praying for us to keep the focus on Jesus, showing His love and reflecting Him to the people we will meet. We are doing a hands-on ministry project in a very impoverished community and some of our group will be running the service to give the local church leaders a restful Sunday.  My classes this semester (it is still college, after all) are Biblical Missions, Missionary Leadership, the book of Acts, Inductive Bible Study through the Gospel of Mark, the Life of Paul, and language study in Romanian. It seems to me that after getting a taste of missions practice over the summer, I'm more able to understand the issues brought up in missions classes now - and more able to ask the questions that will help my learning. Today we were blessed to have a visiting speaker, who spoke in two classes and our evening service - John Dekker, who was a missionary from 1960-1981 to the Dani in Papua New Guinea, a people that he describes as being still from the stone age. It was fascinating and challenging and encouraging to hear how many of the Dani people received the gospel in its simplicity and depth, without the complications that "modern" people try to put on it - the simplicity that we are made in the image of God, to reflect his glory, but our sin broke our relationship with God and so Jesus (the Son of God) became one of us to live as a human but still fully God and with the power of God to not sin, and even more amazing, he then took all our sin upon him at his death so that we could be restored to a right relationship with God. But death couldn't keep him, because he is still God and it is the same power that brought him back from death is the power that works in our lives if we allow him to work in our lives. We make it so complicated... but it doesn't have to be.     So, that's what I'm up to lately.... I haven't updated the blog in about a month, but I plan to write another one sometime next week with details about this weekend's outreach. Thank you for all of your prayers and encouragement! God is working. Please keep praying for the work that he is doing here. In His grace, Lydia www.glo-worm.blogspot.com