I am overflowing with joy. What an amazing night. For one I feel like I have been doing what I was created to do for the past four days, getting to speak seven times. I thought I would be exhausted. While I am tired, I actually feel great. It was fun speaking this many times.
Tonight we concluded our retreat for the missionaries here in Madagascar. It was great. For the last message we looked at one of my favorite passages Philippians 3:7-10, Paul’s desire to know Jesus. The majority of the missionaries have shared with me how God has spoken to them through different messages and in different ways. When you pour into the lives of people who will use these things in their faith journey as well as to impact others it is clearly a good use of time and of God’s truth. We concluded the evening with an extended time of worship and prayer, with no time limit. After everything was done I did several video interviews with the missionaries, which I will begin to upload when we return to Tana and have a stronger internet connection. Please pray for us.
I really missed being with the people at Southbridge today. Sunday is one of my favorite days. Here we had some great worship, we started by praying for the people worshiping at Southbridge. It was a great picture of the unity of the body of Christ. I told them you were praying for us too. One of the couples here was sent out by Journey Church in Raleigh, so we prayed for the people worshiping at Journey too. I preached from Luke 7:1-10 (Amazing Faith), then from Luke 7:18-28 (Faith: When we are disappointed). God really seemed to move in hearts.
I also did an interview with Grant Waller to get an update on their ministry here. I can’t upload the video blogs right now, because our internet connection is not very strong. I will try and upload those when we return to Tana. It has been great hearing what God is doing in and through the lives of these passionate followers of Jesus. Tomorrow morning I preach from Luke 7:36-50 (The fuel of our faith). Then we go see some Lemurs and Crocodiles (illustrations waiting to happen). In the evening I will preach on Luke 8:22-25 (Faith in the storm).
Our childrens workers have been the true all-stars (Judy Grimme, Tim Hockstad, and Sharon Hockstad). They had the kids for about 10 hours today. No Kidding. I can’t wait to interview them and show you how excited they were about it though . Please pray for us.
Today we learned a lot about Madagascar. Matt Spann the Regional Director for Madagascar gave us an orientation in the morning. He taught us some general words (like misoatro, which means thank you in Malagasy) and customs. He also told us about the history of Christianity on the Island and why there are still unreached people.
We then toured around with Tessa, a young lady who does ministry at the local university (which has over 30,000 students). They were completing a “week of prayer,” where for the past five days they have had tents set up for students to come and pray from 6:00am until 6:00pm. It was great to see how many people were coming to the tents. Our team went there to pray with and for the students and the ministry there on campus. While we were there a Malagasy student was playing a guitar. When I went into the tent he had allowed Jad Walters to play. Jad led us in some spontaneous worship (in English, he hasn’t mastered Malagasy YET). Then the young man led us in some songs in Malagasy. He, Jad, and John Wyatt rotated playing songs while we all sang and talked with one another. After that we met again with Grant and Jodie Waller and talked to them about all God is doing in their ministry in the unreached villages. Grant has been translating 20 stories (from Creation to Resurrection) to share out in the bush. Hear from Bill Grimme and Tim Hockstad about day 2 here:
(If you are viewing this on facebook you must click “view original link” in order to see the video).