An order of God's faithfulness coming right up

Earlier today, I penned a blog entry about how much I wanted God to show me that He was using me to do good and make His glory known. (Ok, maybe not in so many words.) And lo and behold, there was God, ready and willing to use me and my experiences to help someone better understand Him.

After dinner, we got a text from Nav, a well traveled Sikh guy around our age who wanted to meet up and talk about prayer. Stephanie and I went to meet him, since we were the ones who initially talked him. Plus, he had sent Steph some flirty texts, and I was all set to be the awkward 3rd wheel if he tried to make a move on her. (You can always count on me for extra awkwardness.) I hobbled around a garden with them before we plunked ourselves on the grass and started talking about the nature of humanity, reality and God. It was a really respectful discourse on the differences between the Christian and Sikh worldview. It was an eye opener for me to learn that at a deep level, Sikhs didn't believe there is such thing as 'good' or 'evil' but that everything just IS. And that injustice and poverty just are the way things are. This is because the god that is in each person is the same god that is in every situation and physical thing. And so because that god does not have a will (in that it doesn't want/desire anything) but is pure energy, no situation/thing can be inherintly evil. It's like how energy isn't good or bad - it just is.

At the end, he asked, "so what's the Bible in a nutshell?" It was the perfect opportunity for me to share the Gospel with him. I explained it the best way I knew how, but I'm not sure he really understood it, because sometimes we used words like 'sin', and 'truth' with different meanings.

Anyway, I'm not sure what it was with today that made it any different from any other day, but God wanted me to go out and help make Him known in a real way. Yay! I'm useful! This gives me hope - sharing the Gospel in words today - maybe bigger and better ways of sharing God's love tomorrow. ^_^

I need to get to bed, but I wanted to put up a quick prayer request list

• Pray for Nav - that he'll come a real and true understanding of who he is in relation to the Real and Living God
• Pray for my random meetings with Omar - that I'll be able to share who Jesus is with him. He's a pretty faithful Muslim guy from Cairo
• Pray for James - I met him on the bus today on the way to meet with Nav. James sounds like he was burned by the Christian church, and because he's really into Shaolin kung fu, he has a confusing mix of Christianity and Buddhist beliefs (his words, not mine). Pray that he'll
• Pray for Lindsay - A girl we met at our 4th of July party. Pray that she'll get her self worth from who God made her to be- not from guy's attention
• Pray for Aubry and Nishika - Thank God that their VISA application interview went well. In Sept, they'll be going to Tawa's school to become church planters. ^_^

Whoa. Sorry for the laundy list of prayer requests. Thank you for praying for me. It really means so much to me that you do.

Lots of love, Joyce

PS: I'll look into getting some pictures up. My camera died suddenly, so I'll need to go get a new one. :(

I'd like an extra order of faith, please.

As I sit here penning my 13th attempt at this blog, all I can think about is - how do I tell the people back home that these past few weeks have been a slow steady slide into a bog of discouragement? I really should have kept up with the daily blogging, because then you would know what I mean. But that would mean facing my growing sense of ineptitude and failure for an hr each day. And I am just not courageous enough for that. I'm sorry.

Let me back up - why am I so discouraged? I guess the ultimate answer is that I don't have the faith to see what God is doing in or through me. It's often not even an event that makes me discouraged - it's the LACK of momentum and direction that dampen my hope. Today is July 13. I have been here almost a full month, and I still don't know how to effectively show God's love to the people I meet. I have all this time and money to give to people and I don't know what to do with it. And the more time goes by, the more pressure and panic I feel to do something meaningful with it. This must be what a mid-life crisis feels like.

Most of what I am doing here is really just talking to random people, inviting them to cook outs and hoping that it will turn into a friendship where we can talk about deeper things. I wonder how effective it all is. We joke around and talk about where we're from, our family, what we're doing in Mississauga, etc. And who knows? Maybe they felt a little bit more connected with people, and not so cut off in our urban jungle after we say goodbye. But maybe they were just making conversation with a random friendly stranger just to pass the time. How much of God's love am I spreading by being friendly and nice to strangers? I know that only God knows, but a part of me says "not much".

Another part of being discouraged is being part of a team who throws parties and invites people out to events the people don't really come to. That sucks. It's like elementary school all over again.

Ultimately, I'm frustrated at God for not making it more clear what He wants me to do. I feel like I'm misreading His marching orders. And this is after more prayer and God-pondering than I have done in a long time. Aren't Christ followers more than conquerors? Aren't we imbued with the Holy Spirit? I just want to know for certain that God is doing SOMETHING in me and through me.

Could you please, please pray for me? Pray that God will give me some more faith to see Him at work. Intellectually, I know He is. I just don't remember the last time it involved me.

Love, Joyce

PS: I'm very very sorry if I've worried any of you for my hiatus from this blog. I am safe and in one piece. (In spite of the foot/ankle injury from playing soccer) I really just didn't know how to write in detail about how I feel like I'm failing on multiple fronts. Apparently, I don't deal well with failure.