Time to Reflect

It’s Kathleen here!  We miss you all at home and hope you are well!  Hard to believe we have passed the halfway point on this trip.  Today we took some time to assess our work and had a great conversation reflecting on what’s taken place so far.  It was really encouraging.  There have been so many good things that have happened and one of the main highlights took place yesterday during our church service yesterday. 

Ray lead worship and Jared preached.  They were a great team and the message Jared preached was powerful.  He spoke from the book of John and focused in on the life of Peter - the Apostle who walked on water with Jesus, drew the sword in Jesus defense and saw amazing miracles.  Peter came to see himself as bold and full of faith and at one point promised to never deny Christ.    Then, Peter discovered that, under enough pressure and fear, he was capable of something he never thought he would do – he did deny Christ.  Afterward, he was filled with remorse and regret.

Jared addressed that we are all capable of surprising ourselves, just like Peter did and even shared some stories from his own life.  I think it was really powerful for the Academy kids to hear this – to normalize failure.   Jared also talked about the power of confession.  When we can “name reality” and speak truth – no matter how bad it may seem – we are free.  We are no longer hiding.  And we can have confidence that our confession will be met with grace.

Jared went on to read from John 21.  This is when something really powerful happened.  Following Jesus’ resurrection, the apostles were in their boat fishing and had not caught anything.  They were heading back when they heard someone call out to them from shore telling them to lower their nets.  They followed his instructions and immediately caught more fish than they could handle.  When Peter realized it was Jesus…he jumped out the boat and into the water to meet him.  The same Peter that had blown it was the Peter who ran after Jesus with total abandon.  He knew that Jesus’ presence was the best place to be.  And when Peter met with Jesus, Jesus commissioned Peter to take care of the church (feed my sheep.)  Peter was forgiven and placed back in ministry.  Peter’s story had so many similarities to the ministry time between the 12^th grade students and the OVC’s.   So, the students “got it.”  They had seen that this is really how Jesus works.  He’s the one to forgive, the one to restore and the one to empower. 

At that point, Jared opened to service for a time of ministry.  Inviting students to come forward for prayer if they felt the need to “run to Jesus”  - to ask for forgiveness and restoration.  This was a HUGE risk on Jared’s part.  The Xhosa culture is not, typically, open or vulnerable about need or weakness.   So, he admitted he was a little concerned that no one would respond.  But – no joke – about 75% of the kids came forward for prayer and many of them turned and prayed for each other!  We were a little overwhelmed.  It was amazing!   

Afterward, one of our training teams, followed up with a powerful message on hope.   We all agreed that it was and incredible experience.  We loved being here to see it, but we are most excited to see the kids reaching out to one another, praying for each other and becoming closer as a “family.” 

We are really excited about this coming week!  We would love your prayers.  A bunch of us – including me – have gotten some kind of cold and we are losing our voices…which…makes teaching difficult!  So if you can join us in prayer we would really appreciate it!  Hope you all are well!  We look forward to seeing you soon!