Week 6 and 7

Week#6

Oh boy, I don't even know where to start! These past couple weeks have been quite the roller coaster, Spiritually and emotionally. Our class topics for week 6 was Pride and Humility and the Fear of God. We started the week talking about the name of God: YHWH. To have true humility and to have fear for God we need to know who God truly is. The name YHWH used in Exodus 3:14 says, “I am who I am.” The meaning for YHWH means HE IS. period. This is meaning He is EVERYTHING! There is no way to describe him, no way to say what that name means. He is holy, breathless, any and every thing, all you need, worth everything, complete, true, limitless, awe, incomparable... HE IS. He is who He is. We talked about how God does not need us to be God, He does not need us to tell others about Him, and believe it or not.. He does not need us to worship Him. What we do or don't do does not change who HE is! He says, I AM... He does not need our help. Then why did he create us? He created us to ENJOY Him. He has so much love and joy to offer and just wants to be a part of it. He loves us more than we will ever know or be able to understand. We realized that “God does not want servants, he wants LOVERS!”

Our teacher gave us homework for the night and said we had to ask God two questions: Father, do you love me? And then, why do you love me?

I left class thinking “Haha, this is silly. Easy homework.” Little did I know that these two questions were about to rock my world and completely change my relationship with Jesus!! So that night I went and had my nice little quiet time and asked God these questions. We came to class the next day and our teacher asked us what God had told us.. I felt proud of my very thoroughly thought out answer and raised my hand to share first (first mistake, lol). I said, “Okay so I really took time and thought this question through and God said, Yes I love you. He loves me because he put time and thought into me! I am a piece of art created from His hands. He created me to glorify Himself. He has a purpose for my life, and he knows my intended reason for creation. When he sees me, he sees all my potential that he created me for. I have a role in His story and it is good—even if I don't live it out or fulfill it he still sees me with why he created me.” Directly after I shared, the teacher looked at me and said, No! I thought to myself, No!? What the heck!? He said “Lindsey, I heard a lot of thinking. I can see that you have a lot of joy... but you need to enjoy. Enjoy Him, you need to just lay in a field of lilly's and lay there just enjoying Him. Stop thinking! Stop trying to figure out what you should DO for Him, just love on and be with Him. What you will do for the Lord will come, i'm not worried about that, but you need to just enjoy Him. He did not create you to fulfill a role, you need to re-do your homework!”

-Gah! This really shook me up! It might not sound like that big of a deal but this totally wrecked me! I began to think and question, well Why does He love me then!? And why do I love Him!? Before I said that I love Him because He gives me a purpose for my life, a reason for living! He gives me a chance to be a part of something bigger than myself. But I then realized that has nothing to do with HIM. What about HIM do I love?

So after class I went off on my own and asked God the same questions from before and this time I waited and listened, I didn't think... I just waited for Him to tell me. This time He said, He loves me because I am His. I am beautiful and he created me and longs for me— because I am His. I am His daughter. And he created me only to be with Him. I realized there is nothing I can do and nothing I can become to make Him love me. I then went through well why do I love Him? And after going through many questions, frustrations, and doubts... The Holy Spirit really came upon Him and there is no way to explain what happened to me! For the first time I met God as my LOVER. I have known him to be my Father, and my best friend, but i've really never known Him as my lover. And I began to get giddy about Him! I began to laugh and cry and dance and just be crazy about Him! I had the feeling like a little school girl who has a major crush on a cute boy! I couldn't sit still and I had that feeling of love where I got like super excited and almost nervous and just wanted to dance! So I ran up to my room and put music on as loud as it could go and I just danced! I began to just laugh and I took this beautiful scarf and twirled it around myself and danced with my Lover. I have never felt more joy and freedom in my life! The other girls saw me and wondered what in the world was I doing, but I did not care! I just wanted to be with my God. I saw God just smiling! Just smiling and saying, “Wow, that's MY baby girl! I love her so much! I am so proud to call her mine!” I fell in love with Jesus.

**“If YHWH has our love, He has our everything!”**

Week#7

HOLY SPIRIT WEEK! Yikes this was an interesting week. So, the topic of week 7 was the Holy Spirit. This was probably the week I was looking forward to the most and I had high expectations. I was really anxious to be filled with the Spirit and to meet with Him in a more intimate way than I ever had before. But to be completely honest, unfortunately, this was a really rough week for me. Our teacher really did have a lot of good stuff to say but I was not comfortable with many of the teachings and did not agree with several of his views. But it really made me grow because I couldn't just believe everything I heard but I had to really use discernment and go to Jesus Himself and ask Him about what we were talking about. The focus of the week was what does the Holy Spirit give us? In Acts 1:8 it says, “You shall receive POWER when the Holy Spirit come into your life.” He talked of how our God has no limits and many people put Him in a box and believe He doesn't really live or work in radical ways anymore. He asked us “How big is YOUR God?” I agreed with all of that but the rest of the week we talked about speaking in tongues, healings, and prophesying over people... these are all really great things but I felt that it wasn't all genuine or all from the Spirit. I felt it was more about the power we receive when we receive the Holy Spirit rather than truly knowing the Spirit personally and intimately. Something my dad told me when I talked to him about my unease was that we need to focus on the GIVER, not the gift. The Holy Spirit does give us spiritual gifts, but that's not the most important thing. It's more about HIM who is giving us that gift. If God chooses to give that to you, then great. If not, then we shouldn't pursue something that he doesn't want. When we practiced speaking in tongues, everyone in my class started to cry and scream and people were falling on the ground and shaking and speaking in tongues and gah, it was a very intense environment! Now, I am not one to judge and I do not know all their hearts, but for me, I did not feel comfortable with it and did not feel a peace with what was going on. I felt it was forced and not entirely genuine. I believe that the Holy Spirit can give you the gift of speaking in tongues but I did not agree with the way it was approached and played out (this was just my personal opinion).The form of tongues that was taught and encouraged to practice was the form used for personal worship, where the holy spirit fills you with a love language. I believe this is a very intimate thing between you and God and it can not be forced. Since I was not at ease with it, I decided to leave and go for a walk with God. At this time there was a HUGE thunder storm! It was pouring rain, wind whipping, and lightening was striking through the sky! I decided to grab my blanket and just sit under this little roof and watch the storm with my God. This session confused and discouraged me. And like I said from the previous week, I am now experiencing God as my Lover, and it's hard to explain but the way He has been speaking to me lately is in that form of relationship, as my Lover. So during this time of speaking in tongues, I felt like this was a “first kiss”, where you're like “let's meet here at this time and we'll have our first kiss”, all planned out, where it is forced and makes it awkward and uncomfortable. Whereas I'd want the kiss to be in the moment and when you're both ready for it and not feeling the pressure. So, I felt like this pressure of a forced intimacy. I was so uncomfortable and I felt like I just wanted to cuddle up and be held in His arms rather than starting to kiss. (This probably sounds completely bazar and straight up weird but it makes sense to me and it was very powerful! Lol). Anyways, when I left I felt like God was like, “Lindsey, I will never force you to do anything you're not ready for or don't want to do. I just want to be with you. We can sit here and you can just cry in my arms. I love you!” (Now with me getting to know him in an intimate way as my Lover, this was a huge deal for me!) During this time I learned to rest in His arms and to trust Him. With the rest of the week I had my guard up and continued to seek for the God I know, my God who is faithful, filled with love and patience. Even though it was a rough week, I really did learn a lot and learned to use discernment and to trust in my God that I know! Just another step of challenges and growth!

Anyways, sorry that was so long. I'm just pouring my heart out onto this page, Haha! So, seriously, thank you for those of you who actually read all of that! It really does mean a lot and to know that there are people back at home supporting and praying for me means the world to me. I could not do this on my own, so thank you. I love you all so much.

Much much love,

Lindsey Dawn

Week 4 and 5

Hello everyone! Sorry it's been a few weeks since i've updated this. Things have been very busy but it has been such a great couple weeks! We've done several small outreaches in these past few weeks, some at churches and some at high schools. And wow, the Spirit has been moving so strongly! We've been doing the skit of the creation story and then God making man and then how man (or technically woman in this case because I played the human in it) fell away from God because of all these different sins, many of you have probably seen the skit before, it's fairly known in the States. It's to the song “Everything” by Lifehouse. Anyways, people here have never seen this skit before and it has been so powerful! The first time we did it, it was at this high school and the crowd just went ccrraazzyy! They were all yelling and screaming and then clapping and laughing and then crying and GAH, it was intense! Afterwards there were more than 60 students who came to the front who wanted to give their life to Jesus! It was so humbling and so encouraging to see how much the Holy Spirit was working. We were all in shock and then we realized God has given us a powerful tool to show others the relationship that God so desperately wants to have with us and how even when we go through abuse, harships, and doubt, God fights for us and over comes all that sin. The people here are so desperate for someone to look to for their hope and someone to put their trust in that when we show them the unconditional love of Christ, it's such an eye opening and life changing moment. After that first day with seeing their reaction to the skit, we've done it every time we do an outreach. And every single time the Holy Spirit joins us and the people's hearts are touched.. Along with the skit we've had people sharing their testimonies or our group will sing some songs, it has been really great.

So I have a friend who is on a futbol (soccer) team here and he told me how they were having a few matches and he told me to grab my boots and to come join him! I didn't really know what to expect but I grabbed my stuff and we headed out. We had to walk through these villages to get there and we traveled to the bottom of this mountain and there was just this big dirt opening and then like 40 guys!Oh boy. So we begin to just kick the ball around and then we split up into 3 teams and scrimmaged for the following couple hours. It was soooo much fun! I haven't had that much fun in the longest time! I was kind of nervous at first but the guys were so great, it was funny though because well 1- I was the only white person and then 2- I was the only girl... so they were watching every single move that I took! It was just so great though because it was the worst field I have ever seen, if you could even call it a field, and they had no goals, so they just set up rocks, many of them didn't even have shoes, they didn't have pennies to differentiate the teams, but they don't care, they just love the game! I realized that I would really love to use futbol more for ministry and it's something I truly enjoy and is such an effective interest and respect grabber. Haha. (especially with me being white and being a girl! Girls don't play sports here. And they are just fascinated with whites) Anyways it was sooo hot playing and I was so gross and sweaty and then it just started to down pour with rain!! then we just all played in the rain and gosh, it was amazing! Lol.

Then the other day my friend and I went on this run/walk all morning and went into this village and a lot of the kids had never seen a white person before so all the kids just started running after us! My friend who took me is from Rwanda so he was just laughing at me the whole time cause the kids would just latch onto my body and touch my skin and play with my hair and there were just groups and groups of people watching and wanting to touch me, it was so funny. We walked through all these huts and saw all their homes and living situations. It made me realize where I'm staying right now, it's like a luxury to them (even though we have no showers/toilets), they have to walk several miles down this huge mountain just to get a some water! It's basically them living in a mud hut and sleeping on the ground. And yet, these people are more thankful and joyful than anyone I know back in the States.

And then yesterday 4 guys from my group and I took moto's (motorcycle taxi's) into town and then we went for this beautiful hike! When we got to the top we could see all of kigali and the view was breath taking. Again, we had groups of children just following us the whole way up the mountain. They just run up to you and hold your hand all the way up, it's so cute. It was so crazy though, on the way down we met this man and he didn't know us at all but he just invited us into his house and offered us tea and biscuits and to just talk. I was like ehh...sketch? But then my friend whose from here was like oh no, it's totally fine! This is really normal and completely safe. So all of us went in and we had a wonderful time, even though they don't have like anything to offer, they are so giving and so friendly! That would NEVER happen back in the States. After about an hour of a lovely evening we headed out and that was that. It was really neat.

Anyways, there are many many stories I could continue to tell but this is getting long and if you've made it this far and are still reading, I'm impressed! Haha. I haven't even gotten into the teaching for this week but in short we've had lecture on Relationships and then the following week it was on Sin. You'd think they are two decently simple topics but they really made me think and view my friendships and actions in a whole new way! So these past two weeks have been soooo good! I just love it here and i'm having an amazing time. Oh and our team has decided that we're going to Congo for outreach! I don't know details yet but that is our for sure location, so exciting! Prayers for deciding the specific ministries are needed. Thank you all for reading!!

Much love,

Lindsey Dawn