Sweet Surrender

Worship this morning was awesome. I've really loved being able to recognize and immediately join in with the other Living Bread staff because I listen to a lot of the music they sing daily: Leeland, the David Crowder Band, Hillsong United, Misty Edwards... Its been awesome! We usually worship for an hour or so and then Karen or Tristan will give a short message. We've really been focusing on fully following God with reckless abandon. Some of the things we've gone over since Sunday have been:

• Life will swallow death in victory!
• We are merely pilgrims passing through this life - if you're too comfortable, somethings up.
• We really can attain death of the flesh and total life in the Spirit because we are crucified with Christ.
• If anyone suffers as a Christian, let him be thankful and accept the trial with open arms.
• Believe it or not, we're not going to die...But rather, live forever.
• We're all going to suffer, of course, and God will allow it. It is not a work of ours, but a work of the Spirit to bring us to Himself. We can respond in two ways. Firstly, we can shrink back and say "no" to trial, pain, and suffering, and miss the blessing. Or, we can accept the tribulation and grow intimately close to God as a result. To obey is better than to sacrifice.
• To get to that next realm, we've got to press in and continue to praise God, following the incredible example of Job. He was able to praise despite the horrible agony God allowed in his life, and as a result, was rewarded double blessing.
• We must learn to bless His name when He gives, but more importantly, when He takes away.
• The more we give to the Lord, we become less, enabling Him to fill the gaps.

I was able to go to Yeriho again today for a Bible study with Rachel, Cay, Geoff, and Kat. Before the study at the Prophet's house though, we went to the Education Directorate of Jericho. We met with the head of education in the whole Jericho district! Ahh! How incredibly exciting. We met to discuss the possibility of Living Bread offering English classes to the students of Jericho. He was very receptive, asked questions, was open to change, and was aware that we were Christians and respected us nonetheless. In Jericho, there are 10,000 students within the 30 schools of the area. Us at Living Bread being able to teach conversational English would be awesome. They would learn English, and at the same time, we would pick up Arabic. Right now, because of the limited staff, LB is thinking of having a monthly workshop just for starters. I would love to be able to go and help every week though. But then I immediately convicted "do not despise the day of small beginnings." And that was that.

After the meeting, I went to the Prophet's house and we had a Bible study with three Arab/Palestinian men. I was having a hard time keeping my attention on Rachel and Isa as they spoke because I obviously don't speak any Arabic! Haha. But it was good regardless and I was happy to be able to pray Psalm 37:4 over Isa.