Wednesday, October 7, 2009

The Adventures of our new home...

Wow! Time is just flying right by here in Zambia. It will be a month that I have been here in just a couple days..amazing! Well, God has shown Himself so incredibly faithful with providing Carol and I a new home!! We did some serious newspaper searching and when it was God's time he swung the doors open for our new home (literally ;) Its really amazing how God works because when we called to inquire on the house advertised it was way too expensive but the man said "Well, I wasn't planning on renting our other house, but I would like to show it to you." So, anyway to make a long story short, the landlord had been dumping money into the small house (which we are in) in the hopes that HE would be moving into it, but when he met us he said that he prayed and sensed God was leading him to rent it to us, and HE would look for another place to live instead! He also has two daughters that are very interested in Bible School...P. Renaldo said the other day at Bible School that the plan of God is for you but always beyond you! I really sensed that in this!

So, yesterday we got to our new house and started right to cleaning and I jumped right on cleaning the floors..So after about four or five hours of cleaning I looked at my hands and noticed that they were all swollen and red...I was like hmmm that definitely does not look normal..So, I asked Carol to look at my hands, and right when she did her eyes bugged out of her head! I was like "Oh God what's wrong with my hands!" She said, "Ummm, Barbara, what cleaning products did you use?" and I was like, "well I used this one and bleach?" She was like "Oh my God, you used ammonia and bleach together?!" I was like.."ummmm yea?" So, I had a nice little chemical reaction on my hands and they blew up for a few hours...so word to the wise...don't mix your chemicals (unless I am just the only one who doesn't know that..which is very possible! :) So, along with the chemical reactions, last night we got home from shopping to discover the MOTHERLOAD of cockroaches!! It was like a whole tribe of them! So, while Carol was chanting "Oh my God, I can't handle this, I can't handle this", I attempted to spray and squash them while screaming and jumping up and down...oh yea it was a sight. But aside from the bugs and the chemicals the house God has given us is so beautiful and we are so thankful for it!

Soulwinning, church and Bible School has been such a joy...I met two girls on the street a couple weeks ago and they came to church and accepted Christ, and have joined the worship team! They are so sweet and the church is having a baptism this Saturday and we'll be going together so they can get baptized! You really see this is God's work...we are just the privileged vessels to carry the message of grace. In the Bible School classes we are studying the book of Romans and Galatians...P. Renaldo is an amazing teacher! I feel as though I am hearing about grace for the first time...I realize how little I understand..in this earth we truly will only scratch the surface of the unsearchable riches of God's grace. I was thinking of the verse in Hebrews the other day which says "It is good for the heart to be established in grace..." And God started speaking to me about what His grace really means in relation to every other area of my life..especially my walk of faith....

God is teaching me that to walk by faith I must live a life of grace. Faith says “I’m trusting another to do what I am unable to do”, and grace is the way and the means by which God accomplishes His plan. That is the reason why God has to bring His people to places of “human impossibility”. If there were options which were available to us that, if we tried them it could fulfill God’s plan then we would certainly try them. But God wants me at a place where there are no more options but to trust God to fulfill His promises. I'm also learning that impossibility is the most important element to enlarge my capacity of faith and also in learning grace. We were “dead in our trespasses and sins.” Eph 2:4 “But God..” Grace is given when there has been an offense, a hurt, an insult; not when the person has treated me fairly. If fairness was a prerequisite for grace then it would cease to be grace. Grace is revealed when we are unable to be something, fix something, or change something. If the heart is established in grace it will not be “driven or tossed or carried about.." Unbelief comes or has an affect on the heart which is not firmly established in grace. I am seeing the need to be rooted and grounded in grace and God’s love so that when the winds and waves of unbelief and doubt come we won't have to be so shaken.

It's amazing cause Grace reveals our complete inability and then gives us the divine resources of God’s strength to walk in something we could never do! As our hearts are established in grace we will not be unbelieving, but believing (our faith will be strengthened). As our hearts are established in grace we will receive more grace because we're living in humility...we'll have roots to keep us grounded when the winds and waves of unbelief and doubt come..we'll be able to love beyond all human capacities to love...we can forgive the unforgivable. Grace is the key to appropriating all the attributes of God in our lives, and the only thing that can deliver us and keep us from a heart of unbelief. Praise God for His grace!

So I love you all and hope everything is going well at home!

Love,

Barb

4 comments:

  1. Oh if you could only see how hard i am laughing right now...ahahaaha

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  2. I just read the second half of this.. I felt like I was reading a devotional! Very edifying.. can't wait to see you !

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  3. Hey! Wow, those are amazing thoughts about grace, I'm provoked and humbled... I'll have to email you and update you on stuff here, God is so faithful in every way. It sounds like you and Carol are both experiencing it there, too. I love your posts, they're so edifying, definitely praying for all of you! Love ya!

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  4. GIRL< YOU ARE A WRITER FOR SURE!!! I would like to print that post and reread it about 40 times....maybe 50? YOU are a treasure!!

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