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