well this fall was a busy one. we hosted 3 teams plus our semester program. all went very well. our last team of the fall was a men's group which included some of our staff from our home office and a couple of our board members. it was truly a blessing to have them in the DR. at the end of our outreach i had a chance to spend some time with one of our board members who is a man i admire in a lot of different ways. he also happens to have the gift of prophecy.
now for some of you the word "prophecy" may bring to mind negative experiences from your past of well meaning people telling you the had a "word for the Lord" for you, while what they really had was some well disguised judgement, or possibly less harmful, they had hopes for you that had not come directly from God. for others the word may conjure pictures of crystal balls and extravagantly dressed older ladies who talk in mystic voices and pretend to be able to see your future. i admit i have felt both when thinking about prophecy, but i could never completely deny it because of its presence and prevalence in the Bible.
this man who i trust began to speak to me words of knowledge and words of prophecy. the end of the story is that he encouraged me to continue to flow in the giftings that i have been given and assured me that i would be used to enable others to do the same. he also confirmed the growing nag in the back of my head that i would not be returning to the states at any predetermined time. that's right, my time in the DR is officially open ended. I don't know what that means, but it means for certain that the duration of my time in the DR is completely in the hands of the Lord. i am both relieved and intimidated by that thought. Relieved because i don't have to figure it all out and because i can now say with confidence "i don't know". Intimidated because i don't know how long i will remain and while 1-3 years is easy enough to wrap my head around, 5-10 begins to be a bit more difficult!!! Thankfully i serve an amazingly loving God who absolutely has my best in mind. it may not always be what i think i want but it is ALWAYS better than what i can dream up.
I am currently in St. Louis, MO for my annual family Christmas with my mom's family and for Urbana 09. If you get a moment, pray for what God will do in these next couple of days in the lives of 12,000+ students!! I am tending the Students International booth and am thrilled that i have the chance to not only see a few familiar faces from outreaches past, but to speak into students who are looking for those "next steps" in their lives. Pray that God will do incredibly things in an through these students!!!!
okay enough for now, but i hope this is the beginning of more blogging on my part!!!
