The many emotions of following God

I love it when people ask me how I am doing. One reason is because it shows me their love and genuine concern for my well-being. Another reason is so that I can actually think about how I am doing, which is becoming increasingly exciting every day!

I'm come to realize more and more over the last few months that one word will NOT give that question the answer it deserves. To really answer that question, in all of the depth that it allows for, I could spend all day. And then the next day hearing how you're doing, and then another day just relating to all the same emotions that we have. I hope someone is laughing about this, because I sure am!

But the truth is, sharing in that depth is so good for us! Because honesty just leads us closer to the heart of God. And when I think of all the emotions that God has for us and about us, its no wonder that our hearts are the same.

God grieves over us. God is excited about us. God has dreams for us. God rejoices over us. God gets angry about our sin. God is passionate about us. God is jealous for us. God is lovesick for us. And all at the same time! No wonder we often say we're doing "good" or "okay", to really go into detail would overwhelm ourselves and the other person asking us! But at the same time the overwhelming feeling of life just brings us closer to the man who is overwhelmed by us.

So how am I? Well, in a typical day while following Jesus, at multiple points throughout the day, many that are overlapping, I feel these emotions:

1. love for people
2. irritation at people
3. grief over the depravity of my flesh
4. joy over what God has done
5. feeling like curling up in a ball and crying
6. so much passion and energy that I feel like screaming at the top of my lungs
7. hatred towards the enemy
8. excitement about the future
9. lovesick for God
10. stressed about money
11. wondering if I'm crazy for believing in God
12. ready to tell everyone how much Jesus loves them
13. full of faith to see everyone healed, saved and delivered
14. discouragement because God is really just teaching me to be patient!
15. very ready for Jesus to come back!

So that's just a typical day in my life of following God. I've never felt more joy, more ecstasy or passion, and at the same time I've never felt more pain, anguish and grief. Is it worth it? Sometimes the enemy tries to tell me no, but then the voice of truth always rings louder, and I feel God speak to my heart:

Its worth it! Keep going! Just think of judgment day when you will see me face to face, and you will hear me say: WELL DONE! MY GOOD AND FAITHFUL SERVANT!
And then I'll probably have even more emotions than I have ever experienced. Bring it on!

Baptized into new life!

This past Sunday we saw 6 students from the youth center baptized! It was amazing day, full of worship, laughter and lots of water! It was such an amazing honor to be in the water alongside my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ as they commit to follow the King of Kings forever! And that just makes me remember the second time I got baptized and really encountered God! You can watch both of those videos right here! Enjoy!

http://www.facebook.com/#!/video/video.php?v=64121415883

Burning for Jesus!

Together we had the CHOP meeting at the YWAM Battambang base! It was great to burn before the Lord! We had 6 Khmer students there, learning to live in a culture of worship & prayer, in an intimate relationship with the Lord. It is super cool to have the Khmer jumping in the prayer movement that is sweeping the globe and will continue to do so until Jesus comes back!

Salvations :) and Sera leaving :(

Raising their hands to choose Jesus!

So after the amazing healings that the Lord of the universe brought on Sunday in the local village we've been going to, He did another amazing work in people's hearts. He performed the biggest miracle ever of grabbing people hearts. So everyone get in a safe position, because on Friday August 13th, 2010, we saw 37 people make decisions to follow Jesus!

It was an incredible day, everyone on our team was just so blown away! So I just want to say thank you so much for faithfully interceding for our team here! I just know that everyone back home and all of my supporters had such a big part to play in this miraculous event!

In Jesus' name amen!

I hope I can put into words what this means to our team... so basically there are 37 people that are going to have radically transformed lives, not only in this age but for all of eternity! That means that we get to hang out with 37 more people in heaven! PARTY!!!!

With that eternal hope in mind, I'm super excited that everyone who accepts Jesus gets to spend eternity together with the living God! Because these are the last days that we get to spend with our great friend, loyal companion and amazing woman of God: Serapina Dayoon Kim, or just Sera.

She has grown so much during the lecture phase, trusting God for a miraculous entry into America, then her parents approval, then quite a bit of money! Then after getting here to Asia she has battled against sickness constantly, and has been able to teach her second language English to other people as their second language! We will surely miss every single part of Sera.

I'm starting to realize how many goodbyes we have to say in YWAM, but the hope of eternity makes it all better.

So looking forward to the future, we are very excited for Sera's new year of school studying Architecture at Virginia Tech. And we're super pumped to see the discipleship of an entire farming village.

So please agree with God's plans and heart for the following areas:
1. Excitement about salvation, that everyone would have a supernatural interest in following Jesus
2. Battling against false religion in the spiritual realm, and really contending for whole-hearted love towards Jesus and Jesus alone
3. For an increase in quality of education, both English and Bible
4. For wisdom in finances
5. For good attitudes during sickness, and miraculous healing!

He heals!

This past Sunday our team was able to go to the village and share the story of salvation and all parts of it: salvation, deliverance and healing. It was incredible! With the translator preaching a fiery message to the Cambodians, and the Holy Spirit healing 6 people, it was a great day! We saw God heal stomach pain, headaches and even the pain from a broken leg! We also were praying for a girl who had trouble studying, and during the prayer the girl's head was on fire, so much that the one praying had to take her hand off!
So it was just such an encouragement when we're stepping out and risking looking crazy or having the disappointment of nothing happening. It truly is amazing when God just takes over and does what He wants to do!

But as cool as God healing someone is, we're not stopping there! We're going for the full discipleship of the entire world, so we're very excited to continue teaching the bible, even equipping the locals with the bible and teaching them what it means to really follow Jesus!

So we're really preparing these people to make a genuine decision to follow Jesus, and hope to see many salvations in the coming days!

So just an encouragement to everyone who believes in the God of the bible, Jesus healed people, the Holy Spirit healed people in the book of Acts, and you can pray to God to heal people too! And of course the whole point of healing is to get them saved and actually following Jesus and going for the discipleship of the world, but what a radical piece of evidence right?

So with God healing so many other people out there, we are also trusting God to heal our teammate, Min. We are believing God for a miracle, and in the mean time she is staying at a local clinic to get better. So please agree with God for her healing!

In addition, please pray:
1. For the village ministry to enter into self-sufficiency
2. For the health of the entire team
3. For continued vision and passion for the remainder of our time here
4. For joy overflowing regardless of circumstance
5. For the heart of prayer to be released even more!
6. That we would have continued understanding of God's amazing love

Discipleship cycles and sickness

Over this past week, we have seen an amazing breakthrough in the bible studies. This week I have shifted from being the leader of the bible study to having a Cambodian lead the whole thing, while I am simply assisting. It is a very exciting time, because the group is going to be able to support itself and be sustainable even after we go back to Kona! It is only by the grace of God of course, and its totally by faith because I only speak about 5 words in Khmer.

In addition, the leader that has taken authority and is also helping every other person in the group to be leaders too. Just these last few days we have really been studying about salvation, taking them through the gospel, and they have been teaching it to each other and practicing answering questions! It truly is happening in an amazing way, and I thank God that I get to be a part of it!

One of the cool parts about following God is that its not just for the "professionals," its for everyone, not matter whether they're in full time ministry or a janitor at school. Not matter where we are we all have as much capabilities to represent Christ and disciple the world, because we all have the same holy spirit!

Of course, with the Kingdom of God advancing very rapidly, a few members of the team have also been getting sick. Right now I have a nasty foot infection, but God is so big that He could heal it instantly! At the same time as hoping for that, I'm also able to go to a local clinic to get another one of God's blessings: medicine!

Another amazing blessing is the ability to go to Angkor Wat tomorrow, one of the 7 wonders of the world! Praise God!

So please agree with God's heart and pray in the following areas:
1. Sickness begone in Jesus' name!
2. Continued depth of intimacy with Jesus
3. Continued vision for these next 5 weeks
4. For the House of Prayer to become functioning
5. For the students to become hungry for baptism and real boldness about their faith
6. Real discipleship that will still be going even after we leave

Rainstorms and Salvations!

Hello again! It is such a blessing to be able to post something to this blog! I found an awesome hotel nearby that actually has free internet! Praise God! There has been so much that has been happening so far!

Our Bible study group!

During the first full week, our leader, Aaron Barker was sick with someone that is not from heaven! Meanwhile our accountant and awesome friend was also quite sick. So for the first week we were limping along, and really pressing into Jesus for strength. Thank God that He can still work even in our weaknesses. However, there was amazing fruit even the first week, as we were beginning to get God's heart for the city of Battambang!

We are able to help build a local cafe, which is leading to some amazing team bonding times. I hope to do another post about those times, but lets just say that we are bringing the kingdom into everyday things.

A huge part of what we've been doing is teaching english and bible studies at the local youth center. It is such a blessing to use something useful like english to draw people in! So for 2 days a week during those classes, we've seen amazing fruit, and we are actually just having group bible studies on Tuesday and Thursday! The students are so incredibly hungry for the one true God! It's just incredible. Incredible!

As a fruit of the English classes we've now seen 2 solid salvations, and we're continuing to press on to see our entire classes come to be saved by the one! The only! JESUS CHRIST!

Another thing that was quite exciting was to have a rainstorm completely drench the city of Battambang. Last night we had such a crazy rain and lightning storm that there was about a foot of water on the road and the power went out for about 20 minutes. The funnest part was that we got to cook spaghetti and hang out with kids in the storm.

On Saturday Min and I went to a local pizza shop with 10 of the kids from our bible study. We each got to share our testimonies, and after the course of those 3 epic hours, we heard that 3 students had become officially saved and that 2 more decided that Jesus was the only real God and wanted to follow him Whole Heartedly! And that all fruit of just getting together and discovering God's word together.

An amazing testimony was told during the time: Someone with an empty gas tank in their motorbike prayed to God, and He filled it up with gas! There is nothing short of God's amazing powers.

We've also seen about 2 healings per week, which is just amazing! It just truly shows God's character, and the little healings always draw them to the biggest miracle of all: getting their soul saved!


So thats what has been happening in the past, now looking forward to the future:

• Pray that a Cambodian House of Prayer would get stirred up as we start the first steps for that
• Pray for radical discipleship of the new Christians, that they would be fully surrendered and eager for more!
• Pray that we will continue to see healing of entire people: heart, body, and soul
• Pray that Philippians 2:3-5 would become a reality for our team, to press in for the fullness of unity
• Pray that we would continue to have a greater understanding of how to have fun and rest in Godly ways