I wanted to do something a little more lighthearted this week, so I’m giving you all a tour of my where I’ve been living the past couple of weeks!
Welcome to my house
I am not a photographer and my camera is not that great, so ignore the quality of the photos. 😂
Exterior
Most of my time is spent outside my tent doing trainings and eating meals and spending time with my team. When we have free time and when the events of the day are done, I come home to my tent! It’s very welcoming because it’s my own space.
Front porch
My shoes live in my front porch where they are protected from the rain.
Garage
My back porch serves as my garage, where my big pack is waiting for our next travel day!
Pantry, Closet, and Laundry Room
My backpack holds all the random stuff I’m not using right now, so it’s basically my storage closet. I have apples, mini peppers, and nuts in my pantry right now. I ate all the cookies… In the center is my laundry bag, which I got from Ava, my team leader. Somehow it fits pretty much all my clothes, which is crazy!
Library/Home Office, Dresser, Toiletries, and Work Bag
The pocket in my tent houses my books and my kindle. My work bag has my Bible, notebook, pencil and pens, and my toothbrush and toothpaste so I have them when I’m near the sinks for meals and teaching. The packing cubes have all my clothes, except most of them are in the laundry bag right now. The blue bag has all my toiletries and shower stuff for the days we’re fortunate enough to get showers.
Bedroom
I spend a lot of time here trying to sleep during free time. Usually I only get like 20 minutes of sleep, but every little bit counts! Honestly, it’s not that uncomfortable. Half the time I wake up not on my mat, but as long as I sleep until my alarm, I must be comfortable enough, right?
Laundry Line
There is a communal laundry line, but for things like my towel and the things that haven’t dried by the end of my squad’s laundry day, my hammock straps work great!
Bathroom
No comment…
Spiritual Warfare 101
This week the emphasis of the teaching was on spiritual warfare. It makes sense that we would need some instruction on that because Satan hates what we’re doing. I’ll share a few key points.
- God designed the spiritual world to follow basic principles like love, faith, prayer, and sin, similarly to how He designed the physical world to follow basic principles like gravity and inertia.
- The kingdom of God is near, but it is in constant conflict with Satan’s kingdom in this world.
- A lot of demons appeal to our fleshly nature in order to tempt us to sin. This means that one way we fight the enemy is by putting off habitual sins.
- Demonic influence, oppression, and possession are manmade terms. The only word used in the Bible to describe people who are having issues with demons is “demonized.” Christians cannot be possessed because they already have the Holy Spirit, so there isn’t room for any demonic spirits to take full control. They can be oppressed by demons, which can look similar. We have the power to resist anything that comes from Satan because we have authority from Jesus that came through His victory on the cross. We also need to be careful not to leave open doors for the enemy through living in bitterness or pursuing other forms of worldliness.
- They ended the teaching on spiritual warfare with a teaching about prayer as a means of relationship, a means of worship, and a means of warfare and gave some ideas for ways we can pray for the lost, which is effectively spiritual warfare.
- We also had a session looking into where demons show up in the Bible and how Jesus and His disciples dealt with them. That was helpful to see that nobody is just making this stuff up. It was also neat to see how Jesus spoke with authority over darkness.
That’s kind of what they taught us this week, but I’m still developing my perspective. Right now I’m okay with not knowing everything.
Hiking Failure…
We tried to hike Mount Yonah, but unfortunately, we got halfway up, and then it started raining harder, and then we hiked right back down. It was kind of sad, actually. We did see a beautiful rainbow the next day, so I guess that makes up for not seeing the view from the peak.
Laundromat Day!
Today, we got to go to the laundromat and Walmart, and Chick-Fil-A! It’s basically a holiday. Actually, I didn’t get to go to the laundromat because there weren’t enough seats in the van, but I sent my clothes with someone else, and now they’re clean! Unfortunately, the dryers at the laundromat weren’t super effective, so the clothes are only somewhat dry. I need to hang them up on the clothesline I got at Walmart.
Going forth
Fortunately, we are not staying at training camp forever! In just two days, we’re going to Mississippi to do one week of domestic missions! I don’t know much other than that we’re going to be staying at a house owned by Mennonites and sleeping in real beds! We also have to figure out our own meals as a squad, so we will be having a lot of sandwiches for lunch. I’m just content with the fact that we get a change of scenery and a bed. After domestic missions, we’re coming back for about a week of debrief and then we fly out for Malaysia on October 7! It’ll coming up so fast!
Prayer Requests
As always, there are a few things I and my squad could use prayer for.
- Sophia could still use some help getting a new phone to replace her broken phone so that she can fulfill her logistics role effectively. Reach out to me if you would like to help with that.
- Ella, who is on Team Radiant with me, has the flu, so pray for a quick recovery, as well as overall health for everyone here at training camp.
- Continue to pray for unity in the squad and in the individual teams. There are a lot of very different people coming from very different backgrounds, and we’re already hitting some bumps in the road when it comes to empathy and compassion.
- Pray for effective ministry in Mississippi and that we will have gospel opportunities and represent God’s kingdom well. Also pray that we will grow in our ability to serve humbly and exhibit the love of Christ.
- If I’m being totally honest, I’ve been missing Pennsylvania. I don’t have my typical support system or my Berks county farm fields, and I miss them. I also really miss church because there’s so much that’s unfamiliar here. So… please pray for comfort and the ability to connect with the people here so I can feel more at home.
Thank you all for your continued support!
