There is a question we all ask and hear, a few times every day. And our response is always the same, no matter how we really feel. The past few days, this question has challenged me and made me sigh every time I'm asked or see it in an email or Facebook message. Not because it's a difficult question, but because the answer is actually much more complex than the usual, "Good, thanks." So, okay, tell me now really, "How are you?"
Back-tracking a bit, after our time in Taiwan, we made our way to Indonesia. The first stop was in West Sumatra. Excited of the 3 weeks ahead of us, because we had friends and parents visiting us! Clara and Paul brought Arthur and Ashleigh's moms with them.
We spent a lot of time sharing personal testimonies about what God has been doing in our lives this year. It was really cool to hear what's going on with everyone, because we get so used to each other, that we don't even always see all the growth there's been until now. These testimonies and all the bible studies we did together encouraged the parents (and us) a lot.
We even had time to go to the beach and surf! Locals love taking pictures with us.
nIn between, we travelled through Kuala Lumpur, where we met up with some of the Work Your Way guys and were surprised with our first challenge! Experiencing KL for a day, it was so much fun; Frikkie and Ashleigh's mom joining our Buk Tambu team.
Find Mangosteen and the infamous Durian (aka Stinky feet fruit).
Visit the planetarium.
Have your feet eaten by fish. Man, what a stretch for me!!
Java was our next Indonesian island to visit, making our way down to Yogyakarta, with a 13 hour bus ride – which only stopped 2 times. Now that was a stretch! Especially since there are no toilets on the bus...
Yogyakarta is a culturally rich city, and also the student capital of Indonesia. Here, we had our second challenge. It involved much less walking, but we had to eat some interesting stuff, including worms to get bonus points...
We stayed with a very old couple, so one day we decided to bless them by cleaning their kitchen.
One morning we split up, 2-by-2, for a spiritual treasure hunt. This is when you pray and trust God to show you pictures or names and then you go on a treasure hunt looking for the "clues" revealed to you. When you find the person you "saw", you continue to trust God for a word of encouragement of just pray for them and tell them about God's love. This brought one of the teams to a church, which linked us up with a Youth Pastor, who reaches out to the university students and already started many cell groups among them.
A lot of our time went into spending time prophesying over every person in the church. It was such a blessing! I really love the unity in prophesying together as a team. We had a chance to teach them about the gift of prophesy and gave them the opportunity to practice it as well.
Being part of a baptism
Testifying and preaching in their church
Spending time with the youth
And families
Visiting an Islam school
It has really been a very interesting 3 weeks in Indonesia so far. What I have learned is what a blessing it is to have fellowship and how important it is to be open and honest with the people around you. This is something the whole team has been growing in.
But even though the 612 words until now might have you thinking differently, to try and put the last few weeks into words are very difficult for me. Some emotions just can't be explained. The few times I did, I cried so much, I couldn't get anything out. I just felt over-whelmed by emotions.
What I have learned is that many times we won't understand, but stepping in spite of uncertainty, that is faith. But what do you put your hope/your faith in? Colossians 1:27 speaks of Christ, our hope of glory. That has challenged me, is God really my hope of glory? It is really Him that I depend on for everything? Because if it's intimacy with Christ that I desire, then when things get difficult, do I run to people and their comfort first ( as I'm so used to do), or do I trust God to comfort me with His words of encouragement and love? I felt it to your body, because I'm so used to depend on people. I've had to go against my nature, the way I've been doing it for many years. It's hard, but I need to endure. To get to the other side, deeper with Christ. Intimate. As His bride. A precious stone.
Sometimes it's difficult to trust God, especially when you don't see anything happening. But then, pray for and encourage people around you, feel the Holy Spirit moving in and working through you. Allow Him to do what you feel you can't. God will be too real for you not to feel you can trust Him with your everything, even your deepest emotions! God really has a heart for broken-hearted people. I felt so broken, I didn't even want to try and look for the pieces. Luckily God knows exactly where they are. And He brought restoration, teaching me to endure. Thank you, Jesus!
If you're honest with yourself, "How are you?" is not always an easy question to answer. But it's necessary to think about it, every now and again.