When God Speaks

We are back in the big city! Last Sunday we got back into Juneau, which is definitely my favorite place in Alaska. It's just enough of the city without being too busy. It's great. And, there's Wal-Mart. So I have been pretty excited about this week. We did Bible School at Glacier Valley Baptist Church which is the biggest Baptist church in Juneau. We have been staying at the sweetest house we have been to all summer. We definitely have it made this week. The best part is that we are staying with one of the most awesome people that we have met this summer, Angie. She's awesome and has been such a huge encouragement to us. She's such a Godly woman and definitely a praying woman with a ton of passion. It's been great to be around her and hear her stories. She's also been our VBS director. Speaking of VBS, we had about 80 kids all week, which I was pretty stoked about, especially considering we had 12 the week before. So me and Turner got to teach Music all week. As I've said before, this is something that I wouldn't have done this time last year. Praise the Lord that He has helped me to do it. Even though we have been teaching Music, we have been able to pick apart the songs and tell the kids the awesome God stuff that they say. From Day 1, we made sure we told them about the ABC's of becoming a Christian, since we didn't get to teach them Bible study. There were actually a lot of kids that had never really heard about the plan of salvation. I asked all of the kids the first day what they thought had to happen to become a Christian. A ton of them talked about how their parents were Christians, so they must be and about how they were good people so that meant they were a Christian. So we got to tell them all about how we all have sinned and Jesus is the only one that can forgive us from those sins when we ask him to and we get to be friends with him forever. I was pretty amazed at how many kids were glued to those words. It was awesome! On Wednesday (which is always my favorite day every week, because it's the big ABC/Plan of Salvation day) we were talking about becoming a Christian some more and one of our girls, Neoma, kept asking all sorts of questions of becoming a Christian. She kept saying that she really wanted to go to Heaven and wanted to know how to do that. So I got to talk to her for a little bit and told her again about how to become a Christian. She told me she would think about it and said she might pray and ask God to come into her life. I told her to let me know when she did pray. About an hour and a half later, she came back into my room and told me that she prayed! I was so dang excited. Praise Jesus! Angie also got to talk to Neoma and help her understand some more and gave her a Bible. She was estatic about getting that Bible. Jesus is so awesome! The rest of our week has been fantastic. We have met a lot of great people and had what I would say was the best VBS of the summer.

On a more personal note, God has really been working in my life this week. He has been speaking and making me fall even more in love with him. Last week I God showed me some stuff that I needed to get rid of in my life that had been there on and off for a while. I finally surrendured it to him and realized how much it grieved God for me to hold on to it. Ever since then, God has been renewing me and revealing more and more of himself. The joy that I have felt since last week has been indescribable. He has also been saying a lot to me. One of my big burdens is the Appalachian State campus. If you don't know, there are 16,000 students and only 1,000 of them are involved in church or a campus ministry. This year I am the Missions leader for BCM, so it's my job to head up the missions efforts for our group, and also help to establish and improve our relationships with different churches in the area. The past few weeks I've been thinking very heavily and praying about the direction God wants us to go in. Last week I had the pastor of the church in Petersburg pray about my campus and my position too, and he and his wife said they would continue to pray about it. So this week, God started answering those prayers. Several times this week, God has been talking to me about what he wants to happen with the position he has given me. It has been an exciting time to hear God speaking so much. It is pretty addicting, actually. To have God speaking, and speaking often is one of the sweetest things ever. I love it.

Next week is our last week. We thought that we were going to be staying in Juneau for out last week, but we found out a different story this week. Instead, we are going to a small native town called Hoonah. At first, I was a little peeved that they sprung this on us all of a sudden. I came to terms with it though, and realized there is a ton of stuff for us to do there in the name of Jesus. There isn't actually a church that we are helping out, because there isn't a Baptist one there. There are 2 missionaries there, but thats about as far as the Christian influence goes. We are going to be doing a Backyard Bible Club, and we are going to have to go looking for kids to come to it. We aren't going to set a very strict schedule, because we might end up having to change strategies if the one we have doesn't work out. We are just going to listen to God and see what he wants to go on. There are a lot of opportunites in the area since it is a Native Village , because they have all sorts of native beliefs that are not Christianity. So there is definitely a potential for a lot of great stuff to happen.

Well I want to thank everybody once again for their prayers. Please continue to as we are finishing our summer up. Here are some prayer requests:
-Safe travels to Hoonah
-That we would be able to reach tons of people in Hoonah
-That we would finish our last week strong
-Energy, patience, endurance
-Appalachian State's Campus
-ASU Baptist Campus Ministry