This week has been the best week yet. I got to see my dad and all of my church people, which was really good for me. I am almost halfway through with my journey here in Guatemala and boy has it flown by. I wouldn't trade a single second of the past four weeks for anything. This past week has been my favorite not only because I got to see some people I knew, but because every single morning was started off with worship and devotion as a group. Every year that we come down people always say that worship is a little bit different down here than it is at home because of where we are. The views from the upper room of the mission house are some of the most beautiful views I have ever seen and just looking at them while you're singing, changes you perspective a little bit. One morning we sang Holy Spirit you are welcomed here... and you could feel the Holy Spirit in that place so vividly in that place and oh what an encouragement that was to us at the beginning of the day. The men that spoke for our devotions everyday did a fantastic job at encouraging and challenging each day to be better. Every one of these men are men that I respect dearly, and you can tell in each and everyone of their lives that they have a heart for sharing the gospel. Even though I only get to see some of these men once a year, I would call anyone of them up in heartbeat to get Godly encouragement about anything going on in my life. One morning the devotion was by Bro. Jordan and he focused around Colossians 1:23, we broke it down into parts about what it meant to be "grounded and steadfast" in your faith meaning that we are to be grounded in our faith. A faith that will NEVER give way no matter what should come about, and we should be steadfast in that as we should do that constantly, not just when it is convenient for us. As a Christian we should never say "we can't" because we should be 100% grounded and steadfast in a faith, and in a God who is always there no matter the circumstances. He is immovable. He is our firm foundation. Wow, that morning God sure was moving in the room. The next morning Bro. Jeff brought us a word about having boldness and strength through faith in Jesus. When we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we must walk with him and realize that He is the glue that holds the church together. He isn't just one of them, He is the ONLY one. Courage and strength is found in Jesus, all you have to do is ask. The take away from that message for me was that we must walk with faith always, and be diligent in our prayers because God will be there every single time, maybe not in the ways we want, but in His perfect ways and in His perfect timing. The next morning was by far my favorite morning, because I got to see the man that I have have looked up to for 19 years of my life and who I will always look up lead the devotion...my dad. We started with Ephesians 4:29 and talked about what it means to build others up and to and how your words should be an encouragement to others every day. We need to daily fill our hearts with scripture because if our heart is filled with the scripture then what comes out of your mouth will come from your heart and it will be good and pleasing. When it comes to building others up, dad talked about how you can do that. You can't just expect to build someone up if you don't have a relationship with them. Relationships are important because when you grow relationships, you learn about that person and their specific needs, because trust me, everyone has a different need. You can't put a face on for others and make it look like you've got everything together, we need to be there for each other in the good times AND the bad times. The last day BJ challenged us to look at God's calling for our lives. We are all called, just sometimes in different ways than others, but we all have a calling for our lives. He related it to baking a cake (which if you know me then you know once I heard "its like making a cake" my ears perked up and I listened). The parts of a cake are amazing when they are all mixed together perfectly and baked into a beautiful cake, but the parts by themselves, can taste good, can be nasty, or they can be a little messy, just like our lives. We have some parts of our lives that are good and we're happy and everything is going well in our lives, but then there are times when things aren't going the greatest and life is messy, but we have to take a step back and remember that God is mixing all of the pieces of our lives together to make each good, nasty, and messy piece of your life together to make a beautiful cake. It is crazy how every single one of these messages fit so well together and none of them ever discussed what they were going to say to each other. Our God is so powerful that He has been working in the hearts of each of these men for a while about what they were going to say and everyday we heard a message that we needed to hear specifically on that day. That was only a glimpse into what the beginning of our days looked like, but boy is it my favorite part to see God moving in such powerful ways.
