What I Have Learned in 7 Weeks

I have been in school for a few weeks now. As a matter of fact, the classroom time is almost over. We have on week of classes left. It has flown by. We have been frozen at times as the temperatures indoors hovered just above the freezing mark and other days we have endured sweltering heat, both indoor and out. We came here a group of students and staff that did not know anybody and we have grown to love each other and be family. In less than 2 weeks we head to Morelos for the Heidi Baker outreach then 5 of us split off from the rest of the class and go to Juarez for 2 weeks of outreach and ministry there. It will be a hard day when we start separating but I have a suspicion that it will not be the last time I see these people. I believe that many of them will be popping in and out of my life for many years to come.

When I came to Reynosa, I had not idea what to expect. I knew the reputation of the city but that was it. The school is brand new and we are the first class here. It is similar to other Iris schools but has a little different flavor because of location. I knew that there would be lots of time in the classroom and suspected that we would do some outreach but everything has gone so much different than I would have imagined. It has truly been a life altering experience. That phrase even has taken on a new depth and richness to me. It really does mean that our lives are on the alter and waiting for the consuming fire.

I assumed that we would spend hours and days being saturated in Scripture and truth and that did happen but that was only one part of the equation. The truth is that each of us was here to have our hearts broken, to see our own brokenness and hurts, to experience the forgiveness of God, be delivered from shame and be free to let the Holy Spirit lead. I have learned how limited that I was by things that I did not even know I carried. I was guarded and protected myself at the expense of fruitfulness, life and joy. In order to not be hurt, I closed off areas of myself to people and used humor or withdrawal to protect myself from entering into the hurt and being free. I hid things in my past because of shame. I carried so much that it kept me from living the abundant life that Jesus promised.

Over the first months of the school I spent more time crying on the carpet than anything. People would give a teaching and God would just gently say “This is for you. Let me free you.” Every time that I responded, He touched me and healed another are of my life. He set me free and replaced my guilt, sorrow and shame with love, forgiveness, life, peace and joy. It was about a month of this cycle repeating every few days. I would hear, God would call, I would respond and He would bring life to a barren place. I was beginning to wonder if that cycle would ever end but at the same time loved the new freedoms that were coming and learned that confession really is good for the soul It is scary but it kills the flesh and grows the spirit.

This last week has been quite the opposite in many regards but has been just a continuation of the process. Last Friday night we traveled to a town called Sabinas Hidalgo to work with a couple of Churches and our missionary family from Nuevo Larado. There was a presence of God that was tangible from the very beginning. People there were hungry to see God move in their lives, their Church and the city. That hunger brought such a charged atmosphere, like God was just waiting to reveal Himself, and that He did in power and glory. We prayed for people and He brought freedom but in the middle of praying for a man, God asked me about the gold in my own heart. He asked me if I had considered the need to mine the gold in me, to let Him reveal what of Himself that He had put in me at creation. About that time, one of our long term missionaries started praying for me to experience the presence of God in a new way, in His power and freedom. My life has been so different this week that I see the presence of God and hunger for Him increase each day and I see Him coming to meet that hunger every time. He prayed and I had a hard time staying on my feet for the next 2 hours. When I was standing, I was dancing. I do not like to dance but I have been doing it a lot in the last week as Jesus keeps bringing more freedom and joy.

After that, things got really crazy. I have been experiencing new levels of joy. I have had a desire to pray in tongues and began to really see how God uses that to break down our barriers to pray impossible prayers and set people free. I believed in the gift and have experienced it but did not see the daily benefit of using it. Now I understand that God uses it to declare things into ourselves and others to break chains off of people’s lives. He prays through us. When we give Him our mouth, He fills it with His purposes and us speaking it is entering agreement with Him even though we do not necessarily know what we are agreeing about. It is just giving Him our consent to do what He wants to do. He does not need it but He still often waits for it anyway. As I pray for people, I see chains come off. I see them filled with life, laughter and joy. God is just releasing Himself to them and I get to stand in the middle and see it happen.

I also am hearing the voice of God so much more clearly and seeing His activity much more clearly. He desires to show us what it is that He is doing and He shows whenever we will watch. The key is learning to discern what He is doing and being willing to obey whatever He shows us to do. I used to think I needed to remain in control, to be dignified to not bring dishonor to Jesus. Now I realize that the only way I can dishonor Him is to hold on to control and guard myself from pain. I can enter into pain because Jesus is there. I can feel joy because I am open to wherever He leads. I can live life because I am becoming fearless.

We need to be rooted in the Scripture. It is our guidebook for life. Truth is revealed to us in it and cannot be ignored or neglected. At the same time, if we are not walking continually in encounter with Jesus, we do not have a relationship with Him. We only have knowledge. They are not the same no matter what we want to believe. Knowledge is necessary but so is experience. It is when we experience Him, surrender to His love and set our will to obey that His power begins to flow through us. As I pray for people, I am expecting freedom and joy to come. I am seeing it right in front of my eyes as people’s faces change. God is good and He is love. He is filling me with joy and it is pouring out to others.

I will be back in Morris soon and would love a chance to talk to you. If you are in Guatemala or somewhere else, feel free to contact me through Whatsap, facebook or email me at thegeokr@yahoo.com. I welcome questions or look forward to talking anytime.

In Unexpected Ways

This week has been a challenging week. With a couple of late nights always followed by early mornings. I was tired from about 5 o'clock Monday afternoon until I went to bed last night. I was having a hard time keeping up with this large team. The thing is, they were the oldest team that I have worked with. While there were many young and middle aged, there were several in their 70's and one, at least that was 80.

While the work went on this week, some of the older people were being worn down by the physical nature of construction work here. Everything is done by hand. They completed a pad for a play area and re dug the footers and poured them for the last of the first floor classrooms and the school office. They built columns and a cabinet and many smaller projects. It was a week of hard work.

The thing that stood out to me though was one man on the team. He is 80 years old, has had major heart surgery and both knees replaced. There were times when he would sit in a chair on the job sight and fall asleep. One day, he was shoveling sand into buckets for cement and could not stand so he sat in the chair and shoveled, taking about twice as long as it took anyone else. 

He has been faithfully coming to Guatemala for 14 years, working in Zapote and Membrial. I was wondering when do you say enough? By the end of the day, he could barely get in the van with his surgically repaired knees. What keeps him coming back when obviously he does not have the stamina for the work?

On Friday, I got to drive him along with about  or 9 others out to Zapote without any other members of the Church team. While at the school in Zapote, which this man helped build, I got a better picture of his motivation. He sponsors 6 children in the school and knows them all. He has been part of the work in that village since it began. While he was there, each of the kids was pulled out of class and brought to him. He had gifts and pictures for them. He also told them about his family and thanked them for their letters to him. he showed them the heart of a grandfather for the grandkids that he did not get to see often enough. His love and concern for them was genuine.

The reason that he keeps coming is because it does not matter how old you are. When we allow God to give us love for people, we love until there is nothing left of us. He may not be able to do all that he once did but he showed the love of Jesus as well as I am guessing anybody could. He is not going to quit demonstrating God's love to these children until he has no breath. Of this I am convinced so I just want to say "Thank You Dale for teaching me a valuable lesson this week."