Hearing the Voice of God

TRAVEL:

It never ceases to amaze me how faithful my God is. Now that I am safely in South Sudan, I look back on my fears to travel here and laugh. God has always been so good to me to take care of my every need. Travel was fine even getting to and from the airport and to a hotel in Kenya. Kenya, although I was nervous about it, turned out to be quite a blessing. As my Kenya to Sudan flight took off and we rose above the clouds and I looked out and saw Mount Kilimanjaro also rising above the clouds. As  the clouds cleared, I could tell exactly where the Kenya/Sudan border was, the paved roads turned to sand, and the steel roofs that I saw turned to grass. There were also many fires that I saw as smoke billowed into the sky. When my plane landed, I saw a mushroom cloud of black smoke maybe 1 mile away. I walked into the airport that looked like the Alamo and got my visa, went through immigration, baggage claim, and immigration all in a room that was about 20 feet by 15 feet. I met up with Emily and Christopher (sister-in-law and brother) and traveled the rest of the journey to Wau the following day. I fulfilled every missionaries pioneer dream of landing on a dirt strip (after possibly the worst flight of my life, the pilot could have flown better drunk).

FIRST WEEK AND TEACHING: 

Now I am in Wau and have been here for 1 week. I taught Bible overview to show God's restoration of His relationship with man. Tuesday and Wednesday, I also taught how to hear the voice of God. I had prepared my notes on how to hear the voice of God and was almost prepared when God spoke so powerfully not to touch my notes. After I even felt nauseous as i was preparing, I realized that it was God speaking. So I put my notes down and prayed. God spoke so much to me personally about hearing his voice and called me to teach the next day with out any preparation or notes. So i continued to pray for hours and even felt God called me to fast water for about 4 hours (which is a huge deal when it is about 110 or more). After hours of intercession, the next morning I went  to teach and waited for God to give me the words. He had me remain silent in front of the class for 30 min solid which was awkward for everybody at first but God really used it. Time and space in this blog will not permit me to go into detail about how the teachings went, but every word that I taught was from God's mouth and spoken by the power of the Holy Spirit, I am sure of that. The students have really grasped these teachings and God used me as a tool to teach from what God had been teaching me through this experience that I had with God. It wasn't just a text book formulas to hear God's voice, but God teaching me by experience and speaking to me personally about how to hear His voice and wait on God. So, in short, it was powerful and as I was faithful and obedient to obey what God had told me to do (no matter how silly I looked) God used it and was faithful to teach. This just reminded me of what  I had learned in Uganda that he does not call the qualified but he qualifies the called and that when we are obedient to him, he is faithful to use us by the power of the Holy Spirit.

*I tried to add pictures to this blog but after 2 hours and it only loading half way, i decided it will not be practical to post pictures.

ANSWERED PRAYERS:

Thank you for all of your prayers. It is so nice that from blog to blog we can see all of them answered.

• We have gotten our house back so we are no longer living in tents. It is a very long story and personally, Chris, Emily, and I would think it would have been better if we were not in the house, but that is not how things ended up working out. So we are in a house but it still lacks running water and electricity. 
• I arrived safely 
• God spoke through me and used me in my teaching. I did not even have jet lag at all. (This is very unusual for me and is most definitely an answered prayer).

PRAYER REQUESTS:

• Pray that our staff would be unified. We are people from 3 very different cultures and some times this can cause issues. This is very essential that we are of one mind. 
• It appears that most of our speakers will be unable to come so it is leaving all of the teaching to us (and some staff is not willing to teach). Pray for grace that we can teach effectively and do not get burnt out (teaching can be exhausting when the days are full). Pray that our scheduled speakers WILL be able to come. 
• This next week in class, we are teaching father heart of God, forgiveness, and inner healing. This is usually a week that is a big breakthrough of strongholds and emotional stuff. You could imagine how important this week would be in a culture that fathers are not involved with kids, and betrayal or emotional hardships are common. Pray God would work on the hearts of the students, they would let go, heal, and forgive, and discover God's heart for them.