My second week in Brazil is over and it has gone so quickly.
It was our last week of foundational training this week so
had a lot more teaching and more challenges to equip us for the following year.
Learnt more from Paul Gibbs about the kingdom principles such as “reaping and
sowing” and humbling and exalting. All of these principles revolve around the
idea that life gives us these lines in life. That we should do this or not do
that and how far can I go before that is bad. But Jesus teaches us that it
shouldn’t be about asking “how much do I have to do”, but “how much can I do?” It’s
about being so far into God’s will that these lines become dots to us, we are
so far into his presence that we are in the clouds! (he uses the names “the
line and the dot, and the line and the cloud for both his books)
“The kingdom of God is in the extra mile”
So on Wednesday we had an Oath ceremony were we were asked
if we want to make that promise, if we wanted to not just live in the lines of
the old covenant but in the extra, giving Jesus everything and we were given
these necklaces to remember it!
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| "the line and the cloud" |
A couple who have been working with Pais for 8 years (Chris
and Emma) and are taking a sabbatical this year, join us in training to give us
some really practical, useful information about mentoring, living with host
families and doing talks in front of people. It was nice to hear a British accent again!
We hung out with them after training some of the days and
went to a kebab restaurant and a really fancy “Churrascaria” (basically were
there’s a lot of barbecued meat!).
At the end of the week we headed to “INCAMP” which was like
a church weekend in a beach house 40min outside of Natal. Was a beautiful place
and had great opportunities to get to know some of the guys from the church
more and to play some great games (camiseta for example you take off your shirt
tuck it in your trousers and try and other people’s shirt from them, definitely
bringing that home!). Was a challenging time as the services were very very charismatic
and a lot of us as a team weren’t used
to that sort of thing but we talked it out and was really encouraged by the
team through the experience! Due to my lack of language I struggled a bit with
being able to connect with people but God has blessed me with two things, music
and football (not that I’m any good at the later). They both opened up doors
for me that could otherwise have stayed closed so I praise God for them both!
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| view from a hill above the camp |
We’re heading into our first real week now and I am so
excited about putting what we have learnt into practice. God has great plans
for this year and I pray that I may be able to dive into whatever his will is
for me this year.
Prayer:
- · Pray that we may put on the full armour of God as we go out from training and into the real battle, we will need to be equipped spiritually as well as physically and mentally for the challenges that lie ahead.
- · Pray for our (real) families that they and we may become “settled” into our lives for the year and that they might not miss me too much!
- · That God would bless our host families as they continue to give all they have to keep us comfortable and safe.
- · There is a new principle coming to the school we will be working in so pray that God will have his hand on his/her life that they may be open to what we want to do.
- · Pray for us as a team that we may grow closer and closer in love that others might see our love for each other and say “i want that”.
- · That God’s will will be done in what we have to do here in Natal
Ate logo Amigos
Mark
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