28 Feb 2012

Stotram!

(Tamil Christian greeting meaning ‘Praise the Lord’)

Some of the students dressed in their traditional outfits

Hope everyone is well and that these last few weeks have been filled with the Holy Spirit.  Lots has been happening this side – thought I would first just give you an average breakdown of our day to day activities:

6:00 wake up (6:15-6:45 clean room)

7:00 breakfast

7:30 quiet time

8:30 Worship and Intercession

10:30 lectures (11:30-11:45 Tea break)

13:00 Lunch

13:30 lunch clean up/dinner prep

14:15-14:45 Practice skits. (Thurs) 14:30-15:30 SUM Group (dancing &Skits)

15:00 Work duties (cleaning the base) / 15:30–20:00 Weekly outreach

16:00 Tea break.  (Fri)      15:30-16:30 SUM group

16:30 Chapel Talk / 17:00–18:00 Community clean up

17:00 lectures

19:00 Dinner

Every week the students are given their weekly work duties (which is either prepping for bfast, lunch, dinner or cleaning up after it) this is over and above the time allocated for work duties.  Thankfully the staff are really considerate and don’t give me any extra work...So I am able to rest (whilst feeling very guilty).  We have power cuts everyday without fail from 15:00 – 16:00 and has now increased to 2 hours a day from 14:00 – 16:00.  It is difficult enough not having electricity (Indians call it ‘current’) for one hour, now to have no fans for 2 hours – oh dear!!!

The last 2 week’s lecturers have been interesting (as usual).  A speaker by the name of Brother Shelton came to speak to us on bible surwey (Indians pronounce v’s as w’s and visa versa, I mean wisa wersa).  I think the most important thing the Lord revealed through this teacher was not the lecture content itself but the importance of reading your bible, so that you can truly get to know who God is.  This is very important to be able to possess more of His Character and become more like Christ.  Brother Shelton is the most humble man I have ever met.  The Lord’s love for one another oozed out of him, he truly felt like my brother in Christ and I had just met him.  He was such a blessing to be around. 

This week the director of our YWAM base spoke to us on how to have a clear conscience and the importance of it.  He spoke on how to recognise hurt within yourself, these are a few indications:

·         Hardened features (no emotion expressed on face)

·         Little or no concern for others

·         Very sensitive and touchy (thinks everyone is always talking about them)

·         Very possessive about the few friends that they have

·         Avoids meeting new people

·         Little or no gratitude at all

·         Gives flattery to someone, then behind their back criticizes them

·         Harbours long term grudges

·         Hangs around with a bad crowd

·         Stubborn and sulky attitude

·         Unwillingness to share/help anybody

·         Mood extremes

To my surprise a few of these shouted out my name.  So I went to The Lord about it, asking Him to show me why I was hurt, where I had been hurt and who had hurt me.  He has slowly started to show me things/incidences that without me even realising have affected me, and I have been able to hand them over to Him, to forgive those people. (Praise Him for His love)

Hurt is the root cause of bitterness, remember this when you are dealing with someone that is truly bitter/mean. They have been hurt in their past. Remembering this helps us to have the brotherly love that we are all called to have for one another.

Unfortunately, on Wednesday afternoon I started to feel very faint and dizzy, so I missed some of the lecture. Then 4am Thursday I woke up with low abdominal pain... this persisted with on and off faintness and headaches until eventually at 10:30 Jared said we must go to the hospital.  So off we went to the emergency unit, (with the worst thoughts going through my mind).  We basically spent the day there, they did blood tests, urine tests and did a scan of the baby – Praise The Lord everything was fine! Baby is strong, growing, kicking and has 10 fingers and 10 toes J.  They said that I am not drinking enough fluids (have to drink 3 litres a day!!!!) and that I must eat every 2 hours.  All glory to God!!!

Through this traumatic experience The Lord showed me that I was being possessive over my baby, even though I thought I had handed the baby over to The Lord.  He showed me that when you hand something or someone over to Him, you should not have fear for what might happen to him/her, you should trust in Him and have faith that whatever happens He is in control!! 

Whilst in the hospital I realised how ‘dark’ it was, so many people suffering in darkness (knowing no better), in the bed next to me in the emergency unit an old lady lay dying – on her own, not even the doctors seemed to be worried.  As she was gasping for air I couldn’t help but realise that there are so many people out there dying alone, without having The Lord with them.  It was heart breaking and all I could do was pray for her.  She passed away whilst I was lying next to her, and I felt that The Lord placed me there at that specific time to be able to pray for her, because even though she never knew Him, He loves her so much, and it breaks his heart when something like this happens. 

After that I was taken up to my doctor and put amongst the many patients waiting to see her, whilst this sadness started to take over my mind, a woman approached me, asking me what had happened to me (I was in a wheel chair), she then said to me ‘I will pray for you’ – I couldn’t help but think to myself I hope she doesn’t go pray to one of her gods.  Later on whilst waiting for my scan, she came and found me and asked how I was doing (I was doing much better, especially for the fact that I knew I definitely was not miscarrying).  Something caught my eye, a gold chain with a cross around it hung from her neck.  Praise The Lord! Amongst all those dark depressed people, He sent a fellow sister in Christ to come and let me know that He was with me, He was my comfort.  The more I get to know God, the more I fall in love with Him. 

I pray that you too will get to know our awesome God a bit more this week, that you will learn to see life through His eyes and truly get to grips with seeing the father heart of God.

Blessings to everyone

Sanchia

Jared and Rajesh (dressed up for fun night)