Winter 2009 Newsletter
One Strong Word
God has done some really cool things the past couple of months, from the beginning of the tour all the way to the end. To get things started, we had some high expectations for this tour, we prayed for this tour quite a bit, and even prayed for some things that were a little out of the ordinary. Thank God, He’s no ordinary God, amen?
One of the things we prayed for was that God would give us opportunities to minister at gas stations that we stopped at as we traveled. Sure enough, I believe it was the first night out on tour that these prayers started being answered. We were going about our business, when a lady over heard one of our team members singing. She commented how good it was to know there are more young Christians. The conversation progressed from there and we ended up praying for the lady right outside of the store. She left the gas station that day with a legitimately brighter smile. It really blessed me to see God work like that.
God really blessed us this tour. Our van wasn't doing very well when we left home base. Some of our doors weren’t functioning properly, the air conditioner was out (while traveling in Florida, thank you very much), our speakers didn’t work and much more; nothing that really threatened our safety, just inconveniences. Praise God, now one of the doors that was malfunctioning, is working! The back door would only work from the inside before, it is now opening both ways! One of our awesome hosts went to work on the AC and got it up and running, which was a massive blessing to the team. At the same time, our coordinator got to work on our speakers, and got them up and running. Although these things weren’t necessary, they sure are appreciated. God is good.
During this tour, I asked this question of one of our host: “What’s your advice for life, summed up in one sentence?" He went even further and summed it up in a word. He said, "Compassion." It’s a good word to remember. There’s a story Jesus tells in the bible, about the prodigal Son, found in Luke 15. When the father saw his son, he didn't react out of anger, which would be easy to do. He didn’t keep him at arms length until he “earned” forgiveness. He didn’t even have an I-told-you-so attitude. Instead, the father reacted out of compassion. So maybe, in those times, when it would be so easy to judge someone, or be angry, those are the times we should react out of compassion.
There are so many people in the world in need of compassion and I would love to have an opportunity to share some of God’s mercy and compassion with them. If you would like to help me financially in taking a mission trip with NLDC, just click on the Pay-Pal link at the bottom of the page.
God bless,
Zach
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