Trek Training: Week 3

This has been a pretty crazy week for me. Thing's happened this week that really affected me. Stuff I haven't been introduced to before, it was kind of cool. This week was based on Personal Holiness, where we had 5 sessions on it. Again a big theme seemed to by surrender when Randy Friesen spoke to us. The willingness to surrender my life to God. It's a process I am continually working on. The two things Randy said that keeps us from God is #1 Pride and #2 Fear.  And keep taking risks, its about taking that jump. He made an analogy on bunji jumping. People can prep you, encourage you to jump, but it is actually up to me to take that leap of faith and just dive in. So true in our faith, you can read your bible, go to church, listen to speakers, that's all good but are you going to just listen and read and think those are some sweet words or are you going to jump and live it out. Your the only one who can jump, no one is going to jump for you. On friday we had a whole day of teaching on suffering. We went through the bible which showed us how just because you are a christian does not mean you wont experience suffering. Jesus didn't tell us, come follow me and your life will be easier. In some cases its harder. A life with God isn't easier it is just less lonely. Different examples of people in the bible are first of all Jesus. Look at Jesus life, it was full of suffering. Look at the Gethsemane prayer in Matthew 26. Jesus literally fell to his faith sweating blood, now that only happens to very few people when you are under extreme anxiety. He prayed asking if it is YOUR WILL let this cup pass over me. Notice that he prays, Your Will, not mine but your will. That is how we should pray, not demanding God to do things but asking him under his will.  And what the cup means is sin, it wasn't the pain Jesus was scared of but the fact He was going to take the weight of the worlds sin on himself. So Jesus he suffered. That is just one part where he suffered, read about Jesus, alot of suffering. Job, Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezekiel, Habakkuk, Hosea.  Romans 5:3-...We know that our suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because Gods love has been poured into our hearts through the holy spirit who has been given to us. 

 God will Help us THROUGH our struggles but not around them. Very true, we are going to go to suffering but through that we grow. If your a christian and you haven't suffered then you should check your relationship with God. Don't believe the lie that if you become a christian that your life will be easier, or that your going to get rich and live in a big house. It's a lie, its not true, we suffer, life is hard, we grab on to God which helps us through the suffering. 

  Wednesday we found out our teams which was exciting and the place where I am going. If you don't know it is Thailand. We will be leaving on November 1st so just another 4 weeks to go. God has been doing some sweet things over there so I am pretty pumped to be apart of that. On saturday we got woken up at 5:30 am, where we did something called the amazing Trek. Pretty much the same thing as Amazing Race. We went all over the place , doing some pretty sweet stuff. It was really fun. We started really poorly, going the wrong way twice which made us an hour behind everyone else, but we kept going and caught up to first place then was in the lead for most of the time untill the end where we got beat by Brazil, by 10 mins. Which ended at 7 30 pm. We did this in our Countries. So there was Team Germany, Team Brazil and Team Thailand. It was really sweet to do it with our teams, it helps alot to see what we need to work on as a team. Our connection as a team is really good. Im really excited about it. If you could pray for our team that would be awesome. Mostly for our unity as a team. Nothing is more important than staying together as a team. If we don't work as a team then the 7 months in Thailand will not be good. I am confident were all going to work well together, it showed through the Amazing Trek. Also that God will prepare our hearts for leaving and that we will be ready. Thanks so much for your support and your prayers.

Josh

Thailand

 So I just found out I will be going to Thailand. You can start praying for our team, we have 6 people on our team Jacquelyn, Caleb, Rachel, Aschley and Kenzie. 

 Team Assignment: 

Learning the Thai Language

Making friends in the community

eating spicy Thai food

going into slums and teaching english using the bible

assisting church plants in 4 locations

running kids club

participate in a cell group at the university

Sports Camp

Colossians 2:2-3, "That their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ; In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

Second Week at Trek

  This week was mainly about hearing Gods voice. On Monday Tuesday and Wednesday we had sessions about hearing Gods voice through a variety of things such as, Scripture, a Teacher, worship, in our thoughts, dreams etc. From Thursday at 1 pm till Saturday at 1 pm we had a silent retreat. This was a very difficult thing for me to do since I love to talk and being silent for two days to me seemed like it would be pretty boring. This was just a time to quiet down are busy minds and find a quiet place where I could just be with God. The first day I opened the scripture and started studying Romans. I hadn't really herd God speak during the first day. And when I say speak I don't mean this audible voice came down from heaven, things that God just puts on your heart in thoughts, dreams, scriptures things like that. As I shared in my last blog, God spoke to me directly about trust. I was told sometimes we have to go back to the same scripture that it came out of because maybe we didn't listen to what God said the first time. Aka I am still lacking a lot of trust. Even though I kept praying, God I surrender all to you, take everything my life is yours. Apparently I still haven't made that full commitment because when I went back to that scripture I was told Josh, either give me ALL or NOTHING. If your going to trust in me give me all of it, not just little pieces, give me EVERYTHING. A lot of cool things happened on this silent retreat and I am going to admit it was difficult but I also learnt how necessary it is to just get away from people and just sit in silence and be still with God. We see Jesus doing this constantly. He is always going off to be with his father. I love in Mark 1:35-39. What happens in these versus, Jesus goes out to a desolate place and there he prays. My guess is for a very long time because his disciples were looking for him, I love this, Simon is hunting for Jesus, He cant find Him anywhere, eventually he finds him and goes up to Jesus and says "Everyone is looking for you." Almost like shame on you Jesus for making us wait, trying to make Jesus feel guilty... Jesus doesn't have time for Simon and he responds saying "Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out."  Anyway, point is Jesus goes off alone to be with his Father, He does it again later on in the gospels. In North America we are always busy, we always have something to do, and if we don't, we have to find something to do. God speaks, in fact God is always speaking. I challenge you like in my last week's blog to just have some quiet time and be still with God. Not for two days but maybe just an hour out of your day. God is really opening my eyes to alot of things. Even today while I was at church, I just had a thought about the church, this is totally random but I looked around during church just at people worshipping. I was just thinking how frustrated God must be with this scene. How many people do you think are in that church service singing these songs to God but once they walk out of those doors its peace out God I'm doing my own thing. It really broke me down and kinda got me frustrated almost like God is bringing me in closer to what He See's. This week on wednesday we get our countries assigned to us. Either Brazil, Thailand or Germany. I am really excited to see where God places me and who He sending me with. Gods moving, Gods working in amazing ways and I am really excited to see what He has in store in these upcoming weeks. 

Represent Jesus Christ 3-6-5.

First week at Trek

 This first week at Trek has been interesting for me. I have been staying at the Mark Centre in Abbotsford. This is where I will be staying for the next 2 months of my time at Trek before I am sent out. Monday and Tuesday we just got an orientation kind of thing. On Monday evening we got an awesome opportunity to read through the whole book of Mark as a group. I found that really cool just to see how everything ties in together. You start to see a pattern of how things play out. You really see how Jesus does not come to speak to the religious people. In fact the religious people were starting to get angry at Jesus and eventually nailed him to the cross. Mark 2 verse 17 says Jesus is talking and says "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners" All of us are in need of a physician. We are all sick and need a savior, and Jesus is rite there saying here I am here to help you, not condemn you. He is reaching out his hand saying here I am here to help you just let me help.   

 On Wednesday we went on a 3 day retreat to whistler, just a time for bonding and to hang out. It was pretty fun, but at this point I was still having a hard time connecting with other people. Today which is Friday I went to the gym. I was first going to go to apollo gym which is about a 20 minute walk. When I got there I found out the membership was just ridiculously expensive so I just decided to go to the gym which is 15 minutes away from the Mark Centre but the opposite way of the apollo gym. So I had about a 50 minute walk just listening to a sermon by Pastor Matt Chandler. As I finished my workout and walking back to the Mark centre I just started thinking about the sermon I had listened to and this verse came to mind that Matt Chandler had said. It comes out of Luke 12 verse 24 and Jesus is talking and says "Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than birds!" Then later in verse 28 Jesus says "But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive in the field today, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith."  God takes care of the ravens, who are pretty much rats with wings, how much more will he take care of us! This is something I have just forgotten and it makes me realize how little my faith is. Really I have just been doubting God and pretty much thinking he isn't going to take care of me. He loves us so much, so much it is hard to comprehend. Trust in God, He's going to take care of you. I don't need to worry about tomorrow, I know God is good and He is going to take care of me no matter what happens. Once I dawned on this I just surrendered all to God, something I haven't been able to do. There is going to be crap in our lives, God never told us it would be easy. Whoever said being a christian means rainbow and butterflies is lying to you. Something God does though is help you through struggles, Jesus doesn't get us around our struggles, but helps us through them. Just read Matthew 26 where Jesus is in Gethsemane, He went through the greatest pain imaginable, and God didn't get him around it but helped him through it.  Something I haven't done in a while is just be alone and let God speak to me and he did today. I encourage you, whoever is reading this to just take time out of your busy schedual and just focus on God and let him speak to you. Really how much do we actually take the time to do that. Were talking about the God of the universe our creator. I know this is difficult for me to do but when you do God will speak to us, we just need to open up and let him speak.