Undeserved Clarity

I think one of the ways that God chooses to bless His children is when He allows them to more clearly perceive how He's working in their lives.  I was able to experience this blessing in a number of different ways this week.  

For much of the time that I've been here, I really felt like my view of God in my ministry was just like the photo below:  

Let's say say that those little orange berries represent my view of how God was working here in the Netherlands.  I knew that we were influencing lives as we shared about Christ's love day in and day out on campus, but I wasn't seeing the whole picture yet.  I wasn't able to really connect with students during our conversations those first few weeks.  I felt disconnected even more with the language barrier and the massive spiritual apathy we see here.  

Thankfully, God takes care of us in just the ways we need it.  And this week, I guess He wanted to encourage me by letting me see a wider perspective of His work.  

On Tuesday night we held one of our bi-weekly openhouse events where we have been hoping and praying would be a mix of Christians and non-Christians.  Our prayers were finally answered when a few international students came.  On top of that we were able to connect with one of them, and play ultimate Frisbee yesterday.  And even more exciting he is interested in discussing spiritual things in more depth!!!  

A Christian international student we met this week, posted  a lot of really nice things about the "American missionaries" in his facebook status.  (I will share it on the blog as soon as I get permission from him.  It's really cool!)

Another spiritually apathetic student got to hear about how I had a community of people in the United States willing to fund my mission.  He was genuinely impressed that people believed in something that much to make them willing to give money to it.

Shelby (one of my teammates) and I, also had two really good conversations with students while sharing on Tuesday.  One student is in his first year, and seemed really interested in hearing more.  He said he used to believe that there was no such thing as God, until his mom died and he had an experience that lead him to believe that everything happens for a reason.  Please pray that I will be able to meet up with him again soon.

Needless to say it was an encouraging week, and I'm thankful that the Lord has blessed me with seeing more of His plans in action.

God has blessed me with seeing how He continues to make things new, just like this picture of the plant making the building beautiful again as it grows.  He truly is the one who knows what we need and when we need it, and I'm grateful to have the opportunity to experience His grace like that.