Missions!!!!!!

Hey everyone,

So I'm pretty excited about the fact that I get to be the first one that posts on this forum! I've been thinking about a plethora of things tonight and I decided to just suck it up and read the Bible and try to get something out of it. So I opened my Bible and tried to find verses and stories that would inspire me but after some time of desperate page-flipping, I gave up. I ended up here and decided to share something that I shared with the missions team a few years ago.

You and I are all in different shoes right now. I mean, we're all common in the sense that we're all going to missions together, but we all have different backgrounds and reasons for going, as well as personal struggles. Sometimes, life is great and things go really well. It's harder to notice God because it's easier to credit ourselves for all the success and joy that we're going through. And when times of struggle hits you unexpectedly, it's easier to turn to God and try to find some peace or answers. I found that no matter what state you may be in, you can't take a break from missions. My point is that we're all different and we're all going to face different problems and fears during our preparations and even when we go up to the reserve. But we all need to remember the two main components of missions - worship and living sacrifices.

What is missions? It's what we were called to do as Christians - to reach out to those that don't know Jesus and spread his love. We do that by worshipping God with the talents and blessings that he's given us, as well as by sacrificing yourselves so that others may get to know him better. Missions should begin and end in worship. Or else we're missing the purpose for our meetings, all the planning, and all the hard work that we put into this trip. And what is the natural outcome of missions? More worshippers! Thus, missions has to start and end with worship.

Romans 12:1 says, "And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him." Recall that story from Genesis where God asks Abraham to sacrifice his one and only son to God as a living sacrifice. When God asked, Abraham did not hesitate or think twice. He followed his instincts and just said, "Here I am". He did that because of what God's given him. He knew that God had blessed him so much that even his one and only son was worth giving up. I'm sure it wasn't easy to give him up so easily, but Abraham knew that if he gave God his best, God would only return His best for Abraham also. Follow your instincts. When you know that God is asking you to fulfill your role in this small team, simply say "Here I am" and only give your best.

A team on a mission to spread the Gospel will only succeed when they start and end with worship with all that they do, and when they are constantly offering themselves to God, to the team, and to the ones that we're reaching out to, as living sacrifices. As the leaders mentioned yesterday, it is very important that we constantly have God involved in our lives to guide us through this process of preparing for the trip. Before we start organizing the VBS and the worship dances and the cultural night, we need to remember why we're doing this and if you haven't done so, need to begin "missions" today by worship.

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Anyhow, I realize that I didn't properly introduce myself on Saturday, so I'll do that here! I'm the guy who wore banana shorts at the meeting. I hope that's enough to explain myself to you. So, for those of you that don't know me, my name's Roh and I've been a part of this missions team for...a long time (as long as Karen has been a part of it!). It's my privilege that I get to join the team, although I'm a couple weeks late, so thanks for letting me be a part of this. I'm going to be helping out with admin and potentially doing the slow dance (which scares me to death) with Denise and others. I'm looking forward to going up to the reserve with this year's team!

I hope you guys have a great week and keep up with your devos! Karen and Crystal are going to be really scary if you don't do them so...If you knew Karen, you'd just do the devos.

Will post again tomorrow!


Roh

excited? muhahahaha. i am. just love these emoticons. Let's do our best through God. i put a cherry cause we're the bomb. clap clap/.

haha.....yea man....soooooo excited...cant wait to go to moosdeer, lets pray that God will bring miracles in moosdeer....lets work hard and make good things happen this year, amen... praise the lord........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................to be continued

yes..I got RoK hahaha

Wuddup team....native mission is soon, and lets make things happen....So today for my devotions, i read 1 john chapter 4. There was this one verse that stood up to me. In ver19-21 it says, We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, i love god yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he have not seen. And he has given us this command: whoever loves God, must also love his brother. I found thing verse a message from God, also as a commandment. It says that God has commanded us to love each other as it also says in the ten commandments, Love your neighbour as you love your self. In verse 20 it says that we must also love one another in order to love God. If we say we love God who we cannot see and have hatred in someone who we can see, we are consider a liar. And that is a sin. God says in order for you to love me, love your neighbours first. Im sure that their is someone in your life who you hate or do no like, including my self. Remember what sam said on sunday service, he asked us if we rather have love or respect right? To me love is also respect and respect is also love. If we show love to our neighbours and our enemies, we are also showing respect. Love is everythng, and God loves you so much, so nevert forget that. It will bring grace and peace to this world.


AMEN......................................................


have a good day everyone...

hey teamm !
hope everyones week is so far so good
okay so for my devotionals today, i read revelation chapter 8
verses 1-4 really stood out to me in this chapter.
ive been focusing on spiritual disciplines lately, and this one is about prayer
in the first verse it says "When he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour" and it continues on till verse four where it finishes off with "prayers of the saints went up before God from the angel's hand" This passage really blew me away. Its so amazing if you read it. I think that the incense rising is our prayers rising up to God. It says that when we pray, all of our prayers are being put before God and He is listening to our prayers. It even says that heaven goes still in complete silence. Just the fact and idea of heaven being still when i pray, is unbeleivable. I used to be unsure of things when i prayed, i used to feel alone, i wasnt sure if God was really there with me, even if i prayed for Him to be with me during QT or anyother time of worship. I wasnt sure, if He was really there, or if He was really listening to my prayers. And i always wondered... Will God really answer my prayers? Is He listening right now? Why do i feel so alone? But RIGHT HERE, in these four verses, it proves that God really is there, and is with us. All of heaven goes into silence whenver someone prays. He is always with us, and gives us His undivided attention when we pray to Him.
And if He does answer our prayers, it will all be according to His plan for us!
amen !


hahaahha im praying for the team, and i really do hope that everyone is having an awesome week~

good point grace....prayer is good..amen.

Hi everyone, it's Denise, and I don't know how to change my name from Admin to Denise. Anyway, today, I read Romans 12. There is so much that I learned from this chapter, and I'll briefly share a few of them.

v.1 "Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God- this is your spiritual act of worship."
I've been thinking about "worship" and what it entails for the past few weeks, and this verse helped me to understand that worship is a lifestyle. For a long time, I thought that praise and prayer completed what worship is. Now, I know that living a life that is pleasing in God's eyes is also a significant part of worship.

v.3 "Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you."
This verse is about pride and giving yourself the false power to judge yourself. For native missions, there is a lot that we do in order to prepare for our week up at the reserve. I hope that we can all be humble as we do our part for missions, and give all the glory to God. When we are humble and lift God up, I think that God will move in his mighty ways for each step of native missions.

v.5 "so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others."
I think that unity is so important- at our church and for our team. We may all be different in personality, but one great thing that we share with every single member on this team is our faith. With endless encouragements and prayer, we will undoubtedly be an amazing team that is doing God's work.

v.6 "We have different gifts, according to the grace given us."
As we all know, there is very little time until we go up to moosedeer. As it says in this verse, each member of this team has a unique gift with which God has blessed us. When we all use those unique gifts in order to prepare for missions that is coming up very soon, our time at moosedeer will truly be a blessing, and the people at the reserve will hopefully see God's presence in our team.

i read epshians 4
sorry exmas:S

Hey guys~

I hope the week has started off well for all you people.

Today I read Romans 2: 1-11
there are two verses that really stuck out to me:
"You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgement on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgement do the same things." verse 1
"For GOD does not show favouritism." verse 11

I personally find it really difficult not passing judgement upon others. Even when I know that everyone is a sinner including myself, I still find myself judging others on a regular basis.
And often times we judge others and justify ourselves by saying that we are above them. But in GOD's eyes we are all equal, and no one is above another. HE shows NO favouritism because we are ALL sinners.
It's harder not to judge when we are up at Moose Deer Point. The problems that these kids go through are definitely different from the problems we face in our very sheltered lives. Their sins seem to be more obvious, more serious and much easier to point out. But we need to remember our purpose for going to missions. We are not going to missions to point out all their sins. We go up there to show them GOD's grace and heal them through HIS love.

We also have to be careful not to show favouritism when we are up at the reserve. We are all going to be attached to the kids during VBS, and we will feel attached to some more than others. We still have to make sure that we show love equally to all the kids. If GOD loves us all equally, we should as well, because we are there for HIS purposes!

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I just want to thank Denise for making this forum. It's really convenient!! Thanks, Denise!!!!

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until next time,

yena.an

ok i am going to take a break and do them

so i read ephisians 4:1-16


i really liked this verse

16 "from him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work"

haha its funny because I really want to study but i got encouraged to do this and i was just looking for anything, but this really stood out to me. I think this is a big message to ALL our missions team. Our team is the body but it cant be completed without every single one of us. I can imagine that missions would be so much different if Roh wasnt there, or if Denise wasnt there. We help each other and we should be accountable to each other so that we can support every "ligament" in our team. If we do, we can grow as a team and do our job better at the reserve. I think its important that says "as each part does its work" I think one of the most frustrating things is whne your hot, theres so much to do and someone is just chilling. Its so annoying that you have to do it while they dont so i think we should all do our own part and keeping in mind what sam said, that we should encourage people and do the work with them. We can either be miserable and do it ourselves, or have a blast and do it together. See you all next week


p.s is it just me or is this website in spanish?

Hey Everyone!

Hope you've all been having great starts to your weeks, and haven't had your brains turned into mush just yet from exams, hahaha.

Today I read Psalm 27 where David is calling out to the Lord for strength from his oppressors, and such.

One particular verse stood out to me, in all its simplicity:
14 Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD.

It reminded me of that Sunday School song where it's like....Wow, I can't remember how it goes, haha. But it's something along the lines of how sometimes God just asks you to wait for His answer because it'll all happen in His time - such profundity for teeny tots! Hahaha. Anyways, this verse gives me a lot of strength. Sometimes things will happen in a person's lifetime that we cannot necessarily understand, but this is when we have to exercise faith and trust that the Lord is behind it, the Lord will see us through it, and the Lord will explain it all to us in the end. In His time. We just have to wait.

In the meantime, you can be confident that you can find strength and hope in God, as well.


That's all from my end. Hope you all have wonderful CHOO CHOO CHOOSDAYS!

QUESTION - Dennis, can we find a way to correct the time zone on our forum? It's messing with my mind...Hahahaha. If not, that's okay too! Or maybe it's just on my computer..

MY DEVO FAILED ME
so i just spent about an hour doing my devo.. im slow
and.. i posted and... ya failed
ya i failed
just like how i failed my physics test today
todays just an epic failure of a day

so here i go again
i guess ill understand this chapter thoroughly haha

so today i read galatians 5
essentially there are two parts to this chapter

the first part is about freedom in christ. here paul tells us to use the freedom we have to serve one another in love instead of indulging in the sinful nature of this world. he then reminds us of our command to love our neighbour as ourselves. freedom i find is a funny thing.. freedom from home, parents, school etc. maybe its bc we are still young that we feel this urge to be free from everything. but once we really have freedom, we realize that with freedom comes choice. its so easy to abuse it and often we dont know what to do with it. and in this world, it is so easy to conform to its sinful ways. but we should use this freedom that was given to us by gods grace through christ to serve each other in love. this is essential for our team and at the reserve. as members of one team, we must serve one another, helping and encouraging each other to build up the team and one strong unified body. and obviously, we must serve the natives in love and show them the grace and love that we were blessed with.

the second part is about living life by the spirit. i didnt realize this chapter was the one with our fruits of the spirit passage... ya im smart haha. anyways. paul continues on to say that to be free from the desires of sin, we must live by the spirit. then paul lists a bunch of things that are "acts of the sinful nature." which i must say had a few things i do quite often. and then he tells us the fruits of the spirit. we must live by the spirit, thus we must keep in step with the spirit. it is only through the guidance of the spirit that we will be able to live a holy life free of sin. we must start now, to live by the holy spirit, to try to live away from sin. we should start to exercise the fruits of the spirit in our daily lives. especially as our theme this year is fruits of the spirit, when we're up at the reserve, as mentors and leaders we should show love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control to the natives. not only at the reserve, but to each other in the team, when we act with the fruits of the spirit, it will bring us closer as a strong unified team.

i really hope i dont fail again..
and if you are reading this post, yay it means i succeeded muahahha
im really glad to see everyone doing their devos and also reading each others'
lets keep it up
hope you all have an awesome tuesday tomorrow
and i will be posting soonnn

I read Psalm 28 today. It's an interesting Psalm...I wish I knew the context of it. David was praying so desperately. He asked God for help and mercy and said that he'd rather die than to be turned a deaf ear against by God. Imagine that, huh? God is our source of help and mercy. He is ALWAYS here. But if he turned a deaf ear on me, I don't know what I'd do. That's a scary thought. A few verses later, David gives praise for what God has done...as if all his problems were solved within the few minutes that he wrote this Psalm. Maybe he was taking a break from writing it b/c he was so frustrated with his problem, but God answered his prayer right away? I don't know! But it reminded me of personal times of struggle. There are times when you begin to just pray cause you're so frustrated and because there's absolutely nothing you CAN do about what you're going through. But halfway through the prayer you realize that although God seems so far away, he's right beside you. You still don't have an answer or a solution, but you just have this peace with you that transcends all understanding. "The Lord gives his people strength. He is a safe fortress for his anointed king."

I liked what Crystal wrote too (i.e crys.kim, the gangster name that she goes by). What really got my attention was the bit about "freedom". The beginning of Galatians 5 says, "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free." That's a bit of a confusing sentence, so I decided to read it over and over again and try to understand it. What is "freedom"? Like crys.kim mentioned, I think freedom is obtaining the ability to serve God with one another without any hesitation and doubt. Christ fought for this so that we may be able to be "free" and live for the ultimate purpose -- for Him. So it makes me feel that much more privileged that for years, I get to serve on this missions team, and that many of you will serve for years to come! Don't abuse this freedom that God has given you. Use it to be free, and to free others.


Roh

Hey everybody! Hope your having wonderful weeks so far!!

Today(June 15/09) I read Psalm 23:4 It says: "Even though i walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfprt me."

I thought about how this verse relates to my everyday life. I realized that even though i know that everything in the bible is true and i trust what it says, i realize that every single one of us still fear different things all the time. Mentally you know God is always there to protect you and loves you more than anything,but since he's not there materially, you feel afraid. And I feel guilty that i do, because it's like you don't trust him or something, but for me, and i think for everyone it's an involuntary reaction to have fear. So the goal for me is to work up to God, and build the strength of our relationship and make this verse factual for me, so i won't be afraid because I know God is there with me 24/7,365 days a year with full attention. What more could i ask for? That gives me peace just knowing and thinking that.

I'm done now!!! Good luck on exams! (hahaha i don't have anymore!) BYE!

Hello all!

I've been dwelling on what pastor John Kim spoke about few weeks ago. Prayers.

It is true that by praying to God, we grow and become more wise. But, at times not if all, we abuse that. we just say a prayer just for sake of saying one. I mean, do we really truly mean the Lord's prayers we recite every sunday. Are we really thankful for our food every meal? Or.. do we just say it because it's a routine. Prayers often can be a tool to exercises our faith (which is very selfish). But Prayer is not supposed to be like that. It is not designed to be like that. Prayer is a method of communication, to bring us before God. Past few weeks, i learned that prayer is boundless, and can be creative, something you can take everywhere you go. It's so flawless.

(James 5:13-20)

omg......I'm seriously not typing out my whole thing again..it was too long and frustrated that I have to retype it.

For all that matters...I really did it, if you want to learn about what I read about...I'll tell ya, but I'm not typing it again.

Hebrews 4:

Read it...it's interesting how one can interpret a message...

Sup yall, i apologize for this late-ness
I read Mark 4: 35-40

Jesus Calms the Storm
[/b] 35That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, "Let us go over to the other side." 36Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. 37A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. 38Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, "Teacher, don't you care if we drown?"
39He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, "Quiet! Be still!" Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.

40He said to his disciples, "Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?"

41They were terrified and asked each other, "Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!"[/b]

That last verse especially got to me because I realized I didn't know enough about Jesus and what he's capable of.
Thats why I fear things when times are rough ...and thats why my faith is so weak.
Therefore, the more I try to know Jesus, the more my faith will be strengthened.

So simple but I know I only make it more complicated because I misplace my priorities and Im lazy

I pray that my commitment to these devo's will help me get to know Jesus more and continually strengthen my faith!

sorry i had exams and didnt go on the comp. didnt check the email until today.
here's my devo

monday's:
James 1:2-5
Trials and Temptation:

James 1:2-3: "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverence."
When we are going through hard times, we shouldnt express our anger to others or our surroundings, but channel that energy into something good. We should think of it, as growth in perserverence. Because when we do, we start to grow more in what God would want us to become. As perserverence increases, it matures our mind and further develops our wisdom with Christ. Facing troubles should be overcome like trials, you are being tested within your spiritual boundaries and we must continue to learn spiritually.
ex. When someone says something bad to you, and you say nothing back to them by walking away; although you're regreting not saying something meaner back, in the long run you proved yourself better than 'the someone' and acted accordingly to what God wants us to be. By these 'trials' we are continously learning and being examples to what is right. So, by handling these situations rightly, we are stepping up to our full potential; and that is perservernence!