Plans, plans, plans...

Many people come and take Living Waters and they have Big Plans.  It is natural to have hopes - that’s a good thing.  But sometimes we can allow those hopes to build up momentum and they can become Plans.  We want God to deal with A, B, and C, and we’d prefer if He kindly left alone E, F, and G, thank you very much.

Sometimes I find myself praying that people will be open to surprises.  God may have plans to touch something entirely different.

Psalm 94:11  "The Lord knows all human plans; he knows that they are futile."

Often in prayer, after a big emotional release, a participant will say, "Wow, I had no idea that was in there."

Prov 19:21 "Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails."

Below is a video of a guy that had Big Plans.  His plan was to propose to his girlfriend in the middle of the forest and to capture her reaction on a video camera.  A lovely idea, but our plans are not always God's plans... or even the dog's.

Some observations on ministering in Indonesia.

Me with my small group

I found it interesting that 4 of the 5 guys in my group had been abused by their mothers.  I usually assume the fathers to be the abusive ones.  Now I don’t know if this was specific to my group or if this could be applied to the general population.  Nevertheless, it was interesting.  The damage from their relationship with their fathers was usually that he was an absentee father – he had simply gone elsewhere to find work.  Regardless of the reasons, God was able to do some great healing work in the guys in my group.

One humourous observation:  Indonesians apparently have no rhythm.  (And I realize that I am an extremely white boy as I write this, and my rhythm is challenged at best.)  But I found it funny that as we sang worship songs, one third of the congregation is clapping on the “off beat,” one third is clapping on the “on beat,” and the other third is doing something else entirely, but no one seems to notice or care.  Frankly, I wish I were that free.  I get so self-conscious if my rhythm gets off that I will just stop.  I pray that someday I won’t care what people think about my clapping abilities.  But I will also say this about the Indonesians – boy can they sing!

Durian

If a coconut were to have a porcupine explode inside of it, it would resemble Durian. If you were to crack open that porcupine coconut, and find several large soft albino kidney beans, this would be the fruit that you eat. If I were to combine the creamy nature of avocado, the stringy-ness of a mango, with a whipped mixture of sugar and butter, and then for the olfactory component threw in Jeff Kuhn's socks after he's been hiking in the woods for two weeks... this would be my experience with Durian.

Indonesia

I’m in Denpassar in Indonesia.  Toni and I flew out to be a part of the training for the Indonesian LW team.  The picture above is of me teaching with my translator.  The training is wrapping up and it has gone very well.  It has been a huge challenge because I was leading a small group of five guys and I had no assistant leader, and English was the second language for four of them.  One had very limited English and the others had to help serve as translators.  It has been nerve-wracking at times, but God is good and we have been able to build trust anyway.

I am going to try Durian tonight.  It is also known as “stinky fruit.”  I am inside and it is now sitting outside on the porch and I can’t believe how much I can smell it inside.  My Filipino friend Tony says that it tastes like heaven but smells like hell.  We shall see.

We still have another day of training, and would anyone who reads this please pray for Rina, who is a member of our team here and her father died this morning.

I am tired and looking forward to going home.  I miss Joanne and my children.  Two of the local leaders here have brought their children and my eyes light up when they come in the room.  I miss my kiddos.