So for those that have yet to hear, I am now in country. We landed here on Sunday at 2:45 in the morning and have been on the go ever since. We have stayed busy with both recovering from jet lag and diving head first into the culture. Today was personally one of the best days that I have had here so far, but I will start where normal people start...the start.
So Sunday morning, around 4 am, we all got to our apartments and...fell asleep...it had been a long day of flying and we weren't fully sure where or when we were. But after the sleep wore off and we broke through our mounds of covers into the chilling air (and the aroma of freshly baked cinnamon buns...), we decided to walk around the city in order to orientate ourselves to our surroundings. Our host missionary Marlene took us down the main street where we saw different monuments about important people as well as taking us into stores so that we may be able to figure out what shopping may look like in this new culture. After a long walk we turned ourselves around and started to head to the international church. We arrived just in time for the evening service and I was able to say hello to a couple friends from my previous journey here. The evening ended quite early after the service because most people were still quite tired from our journey over the giant "puddle" the night before.
Dawn breaks a new day and we begin to look into some of the things that we need to accomplish for this new week. Hearing rumors of a possible kids camp at the end of the week, we decided that we should try to tackle the larger task of immigration papers that loomed on the horizon. So off we went to get a few passport pictures taken and after about a 30 min wait (and a lot of photoshopping on their part) we were off to take on the next daunting task: district residency papers. This proved to be an impossible hurtle already as we were unable to do it without a letter from our language teacher. So we put it off until the next day. By this time it is already almost lunch time, Marlene is running out the door to get to her homeschool co-op class and we stayed to eat lunch. While we enjoyed our meal, Tomoko, a dear 10-year old friend of ours, started us on our unofficial language studies. We had such a great time that this class pretty much has not stopped. We constantly are asking Tomoko what things are, and how to say certain phrases. That afternoon we met up with Marlene at the co-op where we attended a small student-led bible study. We have decided as a team that we want to invest our time into this group and have already scheduled it into our weekly calendar.
Tuesday, we knew that we had to finish the deadly battle with immigration papers but were surprised when our language teacher showed up, took our passports and pictures, and returned a little while later with our district residency papers. God definitely heard our prayers for a smooth day of processing, and He didn't stop there. We then left for immigration itself, and were in and out within 2 hours (almost unheard of). God is great! We returned after a few more errands to talk about the kids camp for the end of the week. We figured out all the details for that and were set to run two day camps for some older teens about the issue of premarital sex. That evening we took a night to relax and did some small ministry prep stuff.
So Thursday, today, the day that I said earlier was my favorite day so far. Why is that you might ask? Well you will see. This morning we woke up, like we normally do (praise God for that!), and prepared to leave for Hani Matrial. This is where we were doing the kids camp that day. We arrived and immediately began to pray over the area and for what was going to happen that day. This is an area that is dunked in a lot of spiritual warfare. Constantly, they are having to deal with shamanistic spirits and rituals that are being done around the kids camp. So we began to pray before the kids arrived and we didn't really stop until the end of it. As we were getting ready at the start, I went out to go get some food from the car but stopped suddenly when I heard my name. I immediately turned around to see 4 amazing people rushing towards me; this is what I had been waiting for since I arrived on Sunday. These were some of the girls that I had worked with a year and a half ago when I had been here before. They have been very dear to my heart and I burst forth with so much joy. It was really good to see them again and to be able to pray that God would continue to use them for great and wonderful things in his kingdom. I had the great opportunity to be at their baptism and I know that God has great things in store for all of them.
Please pray for these girls along with the other 9 teens that were at this camp. They are returning tomorrow for the second part of the discussions and we are praying that God would reach into their lives and change the cultural norms and presets that they might have. As I mentioned above, this is a very spiritually charged place and we know that it has been a constant battle their. So please pray against the ploys of the enemy, and pray that God's truth would be able to penetrate their lives!
Thanks
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