Post World Race I flew back to Africa to see my love. I met Allan the Australian, in Jinja, Uganda this May when he was training men in the community to drill wells. He has an amazing ministry and travels all over the world empowering men and women to help themselves and their communities. Not only is he a 'water man' but he carries an anointing from the Lord that is contagious. Please support his ministry!!! livingwaterdevelopement

Also, notify me if you are interested in supporting orphanages. Emily, in the video, runs Care 4 Kids with three other daytime care takers. She lives at the orphanage with 65 children.

 

phenomenon |fəˈnäməˌnän; -nən| noun ( pl. -na |-nə|)

 

 

Words can't express the feeling of The Phenomenon. Yesterday, my boyfriend's mother, Linda told me that she wanted to take me to see The Phenomenon, (not an official name, just a term). When I first heard ‘phenomenon', I thought of something foreign and maybe a little scary but this was neither. Many phenomena are such because they are something that we can't fully explain and in a world of logical thinkers and concrete evidence it's hard to accept the unknown. It's almost like faith- believing in a God that is The Redeemer when we don't always see and feel that redemptive love reflected by the world. Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we cannot see. Hebrews 11:1

Suddenly, the world stopped and I knew that The Phenomenon was actually God himself. He is mystery. He is what we can't explain but what we see in situations and people everyday, as we were made in his image. His truth is what changes the hearts of men and works transformational and physical miracles in people all over the world. I can't begin to understand His full power, authority, and love but I know what it feels like to walk in it.  It feels like a thousand fireflies in the dark.

 

continued on the following blog...

 

Hi! I'm Sara, a Chicago native who has fallen more in love with Jesus and the nations over the course of the past 11 months. Since leaving on the World Race in July 2008, I have been preaching, teaching, praying and serving around the globe. The amount of financial and prayer support I have received up until this point has been incredible. However, with just two weeks left on my adventure, I am still $2800 short of my total financial goal. This is where, I hope, you come in.

      thank you Jess for writing an update>>>

 

Wrapping up my last few days of ministry is somewhat surreal. I started this trip almost 11 months ago and to think that I only have a mere few days left is hard to comprehend. I came into this month exhausted and with the mentality that I just had to "get through" it in order to finish. To my surprise, ministry this month has probably been my most favorite out of ALL of them. Myself along with five other girls are working alongside Forrest & Darcy Ferdon and their two adopted Ukranian children. They are a missionary family from the states who have been here for the last 3 years. I have to give them props for choosing Lugansk out of all of the places in Ukraine, because it is a HARD city to live in.

  (The Ferdons kids)

     Lugansk is the capital of mail order brides for Ukraine. Everywhere you walk in the city, NO ONE smiles and getting yelled at while walking down the streets is not uncommon.  People drink beer and liquor at all hours of the day and it is not odd to see men and women walk to work in the morning with a bottle of brewsky in their hand. ALL of the women dress to the nines, and if you are not in 3 inch heels, tight pants, and perfect make up, then you are going to be out of place. The people of Lugansk seem to be obsessed with image and booze. If you want to talk about an unreached people group, Lugansk Ukraine would be at the top of my list.

       

        As much as I do not like the culture of the city, the ministry here that the Ferdons have is extremely fruitful. They are doing a lot of work at the MANY orphanages in the area and building relationships with the orphans. Currently, we are also attending  an English school every day for about 6-8 hours and helping the students and teachers. Most of the students are high school and university aged and they are an absolute blast. We help with everything from grammar to American history (NOT exactly my strongest subject!). The teachers always allow students time to ask us questions about America, politics(those convos can get REAL interesting), religion, and anything else that they are interested about. Because of the freedom that we have in these classes, we have each had opportunities to talk about Jesus and preach the gospel. These conversations have not been forced, but encouraged by the teachers and students. Outside of class, many of us have interacted with the students to build relationships with them, whether it be being invited to their home for a Shichliek(BBQ) or inviting them over to hang out with us. 

                                                 

       Every Friday night we have a "Coffee Night" at our flat and invite all of the students to come over to speak English and watch movies. This past Friday we had over 40 students crammed into our apartment. The night consisted of teaching them how to make smores(over a gas stove), listening to different people play the guitar or violin, and getting to know each other. Many of the people here in Ukraine have a skewed view of what a "Christian" is. They think that Christianity is only for their grandparents or that you have to change who you are as a person to be a Christian. It has been great to show them that we as Christians are JUST like them. We are WRECKING their view of Christianity and it is AWESOME.   

(Me with some of the high school aged students at our coffee night)

 

  

 Seth Barnes wrote this blog a couple weeks ago...it was really what I needed so I thought I would share it. A lot of times we think we see the bigger picture when really God is the one who knows what is really going on.

 

 

Linford Detweiler, the male half of the duo Over the Rhine, said that one of his life's ambitions is: "Don't squander affliction." I like that. It presupposes that affliction is some kind of gift. But then you have to ask - who wants a gift like that? 

 

Affliction is kind of a medieval word that makes me think of damp dungeons.  It's more than just pain, it's a kind of exquisite agony - pain that didn't just happen, but got inflicted, maybe on purpose. The King James talks about rising from a "bed of affliction" - somehow that seems more noble than just being sick.

 

Jesus says that he prunes us so we'll bear more fruit.*  Elsewhere we're told that God disciplines those he loves - "for our good" is how Hebrews puts it.**  Another way of looking at it is to say that he is trusting us with pain.

 

To trust is to take a kind of a risk; what is it that God risks when he gives us the gift of pain? 

For one thing, we humans are forever missing the forest for the trees. We're forever banging up against some electric fence that he put around a dangerous cliff and then shaking our fists at him when we get zapped. "Why does God hate me?" We cry out in our pain, totally missing the point that it would have been much worse to go over the cliff. God is setting himself up to be a jilted lover when he lets us suffer in order to help us.

 

I remember when I was a young boy and I was caught playing with gasoline, I was disciplined by being confined to my room for a long time. It seemed horribly unfair. No one had explained to me either the dangers of gasoline or the consequences for playing with it. Discipline may have been beneficial, but with the blinders of youth on, it seemed like all pain and no gain - wasted affliction.

Thomas Hobbes said, life is "poor, nasty, brutish, and short." Things have gotten better since his day. People live twice as long now. Yet, peel the surface back on the average life and you'll find plenty of pain. Every one of us has got it in our lives, but we keep it locked away out of sight, wasting away. Or, maybe worse, we invert it and parade it around as a sign of our victimization - a mournful "somebody done somebody wrong" song where that somebody is us.

 

Both miss God's point. He set up checks and balances in the universe so that we're not at the center of it. When you get checked in hockey, it hurts, and when God checks you, it can feel like you've been hit with a hockey stick. But we need to consider that maybe, just maybe, there's actually a redemptive reason behind it.

 

We can curse or we can mope, but we'd be better off asking him a question as a kind of a prayer: "God, I know you say all things work together for good - nothing is wasted in your economy. Can you show me what you're doing here so I don't squander this gift of pain?"

 

His answer may surprise you.

*John 15

 

**Read and meditate on all of Hebrews 12 on this subject an I guarantee God will speak to you through it.