Week 6

Kris Banes taught on Colossians and Jonah this week. He is a very good teacher. We also finished the video series on the life of Joseph. Here is my journal entry.
- All scripture is God-breathed, God worked in the author’s bodies in natural ways to produce supernatural results. For this reason, I need to ask the Holy Spirit to reveal the meaning of the scripture to me. In God, I will find my self-worth (but not my self-esteem as this is not productive in my walk with Christ), and the assurance of my salvation. In order not to be deceived by false teachings, I need to know my shepherd so that I recognise His voice. I need to spend time in His word and in prayer so that I will know Him so well that I will recognise any counterfeit. I need to have a premeditated plan as to how I will live out my faith and be kept accountable. This is especially important as I am going to university next year. I need to be careful not to get caught up in university life but make a plan ahead of time of how I will live out my faith.
- Mercy is not getting what I deserve; grace is getting what I don’t deserve. God doesn’t just shower me with mercy, He also offers me unimaginable grace! And it is only standing in God’s grace that I can find true peace. Grace is getting what we don’t deserve, so what are we getting.
- Colossians 1:9-12 presents the prayer that God will answer. This is not because it has the ‘magic’ words, but rather because it is prayed according to God’s will. Although God does on occasion answer by yes my prayers that are not of His will, it is in order to teach me. God has, however, a ‘best’ for me, and that is only in His will. For this reason, I want to walk totally in God’s will (although self tends to get in the way) because He works ALL things together for good (His good, not necessarily mine) and for His glory. Also, as I learned form the story of Shadrak, Meshach, and Abednego, it is better to be in the fire with Christ, than out of the fire without Christ. If God can hold the entire universe together, I need to ask myself if I trust Him to hold my life together.
- The only way I can walk in a way pleasing to God is if I walk in faith. In this way, once I have accepted Christ’s sacrifice as the precious gift of the cleansing of my sin, I can come into God’s presence, but He doesn’t see me, He sees the lamb who is without sin and  He is smiling at me – an ear to ear smile!
- I have the same power as that that raised Christ from the dead sin because Christ lives in me. But it is a quiet power, a power that enables me to be humble, forgiving, longsuffering, and joyful.
- There is a danger that legalism will lead to pride and self righteousness in my life. I tend to be one to focus on the rules that need to be followed so I need to refocus and realise that ALL my sins, past and future, are nailed to the cross and I need to stop trying to take them down again. I need to de to my old self, and then I need to stop feeding my old self (with wrong images from the media) and start feeding the new self (with the word of God and fellowship with Him).
When I work, I need to work as for Christ, not for man. I need to work diligently, even when no on is watching.

On Monday, the Te Mapua staff came for lunch. It was supposed to be a surprise, but the word got out and we were all soooo excited (or at least I was :P)! I heard them come in while we were still in class and I was sitting there thinking “Hurry up Dale, I want to get out of class!” When we finally got out of class (:P) they were all in the living room and they had one of the praise songs playing and they were all dancing to it. It was really cool! For lunch, since it was raining, we spread out, some of us eating at the tables and others sitting on blankets on the living room floor. After lunch, we sang som of the songs and they taught us the action to “In the Light.” I was so excited to be ‘rocking out’ to the praise songs again! While talking to Miss Jai about the possibility of continuing to serve with Te Mapua, Miss Jai said that she went to one camp and she was addicted. It thought it was a really good description! Te Mapua has been on my mind ever since leaving. It is such an awesome ministry and I would love to serve with them again.

On Tuesday, we had our ministry (Bible in Schools). I think it went much better this time since we knew what we were doing. Basically, the government has allowed volunteers to go into schools and teach the Bible since there is no religious education. Officially, the school is closed down during the teaching time so that parents have the option of taking their children out of school if they don’t want them receiving the teaching. Ben, Cara, Bryan, and I are part of this ministry. Bryan and I are working with the equivalent to a kindergarten class. One of the reasons one of the teachers at this school is so open to the project is because most of the kids only know Jesus as a swear word. My prayer is that God will use us to plant a seed in the kids’ hearts and that we will be able to teach (without offending any parents or teachers) effectively and truthfully.

For workday, I cleaned the entire student lounge (which is our classroom). Once again, I really enjoyed workday!

Our Progress of Redemption project was due on Friday so everyone was scrambling to get theirs done on Wednesday and Thursday. Adam even pulled an all-nighter on Wednesday night. I had finished mine on Sunday of last week (although I did have to make a few adjustments after showing Dale) so busied myself with reading and getting ahead on other projects while most of the other students finished up their projects.

On Friday evening, Dale and Patti invited a couple of us up to their house to play risk and other board games. First, I played connect four with Isabelle and then I made origami boxes with Patti. I joined in on the second game of risk which was really fun! I was so tired though (since it was 10:30) that I didn’t bother using any strategy and I took all the other player’s advice (which was a bad idea :P) so I did not end up winning, but I had tons of fun anyway!
On Saturday, I went into town early with Ira (who stayed for the week to help Joseph out with the grounds work), Michael and Jonas to go to the farmer’s market. Michael and I each bought a loaf of fresh bread. It is soooooo good! We then met up with Dale and Patti so we went up to their house for tea and coffee (I had Chai tea, which I have discovered to be delicious!). I babysat Justus and Isabelle for about half an hour so that Dale and Patti along with a couple Crossing boys went out to get the Epp’s new piano. Apparently, Michael played the piano, which was in the trailer at the back of the car, all through Geraldine as they drove back! I played dress-up with Isabelle while Justus played air guitar at our “ball.” They are great kids and so much fun to hang out with!

Saturday afternoon was the light party (as an alternative for kids for Halloween) at the local primary school so a bunch of us helped out with that. We made crafts, had supper, and danced with the kids and they all had fun! Once back at the crossing, we had a pumpkin carving contest and we made caramel popcorn balls. I was on a team with Ben, Cameron and Robert and our pumpkin won. We made one of those funky pumpkins with an “uber complicated” design of a dragon on it. One of the other teams made a barfing pumpkin and the third team made an image of possum hunting (it was really funny!).

On Sunday, I went to the traditional service with Hanna. It was really nice and I got to talk with a lot of the people from Geraldine. I even got invited up to one of the lady’s house for afternoon tea at some point in the future! After the contemporary service, Michael, Cameron, Cara, Jordan, Adam, Jonas and I went out for a picnic lunch with a family from the church! It was tons of fun getting to know them and their four wonderful children!

When we got back, Cara, Cameron, Michael, Patti, Dale, Isabelle, Justus and I went out to pick elderflowers to make elderflower Champaign (it’s not an alcoholic drink, It’s just called Champaign because it’s fizzy). We made up the juice today, we will be bottling it up tomorrow and it should be good to drink in about two weeks! We might go out and pick more flowers to make more juice later this week since most of the flowers were not yet in bloom today

Since we had supper at the light party on Saturday, Adam, Amber, Jordan, and Kelsey are making pancakes with bacon and eggs and fruit pizza for desert. It smells delicious!!!!