Where to even start?!
The past couple of weeks have rocked my boat. I mean like, you surrender to Jesus and get in the boat with him but then you have these moments, not the suffering bad kind of rocking the boat, but the moments where Jesus moves in your midst to bring about more change, more love, more miracles, more life, more of HIM. We have definitely had to overcome some hard stuff in the past couple of week but when His fire comes, more things not of Him are uprooted and brought to light so we can get rid of it and move on to more fruitfulness!
While in the states, Jesus brought up a few times that when we came back here, it was time to baptize some of our children. The timing was His perfect timing.Nothing I could of made up but just leaning into Holy Spirit to lead and direct. The scripture that says “let the little children come to me...” was strong on my heart. How could we not offer baptism to let them obey the Word?! Our house parents spent more time teaching on it and making sure those that voiced wanting to be baptized truly knew what they were doing and why. That it wasn’t just this religious act to make you better than other people but that it was an act of obedience to please our Papa God and make it known to the world that they were following Jesus. It was a beautiful day that I will never forget. The week before, we had all of our long term volunteers arrive. There’s five of them here for the summer. Keela, Joe, Anna, Christy and Morgan. We were talking before the baptisms how we might just cry at seeing our kids baptized. Well, tears were far from what happened! That was the most joyful and powerful baptism we had been a part of. Our house four dad started worship as the baptisms started. Oh and did I mention, it was 35 children and staff that were baptized! So when the worship started, the joy and power from Holy Spirit fell. Everyone gathered around the river... or creek... or ditch, or whatever you’d consider that spot we walked to. It was some cold water too since it’s now raining almost everyday. So it was another start to Jesus bringing more fruitfulness in our midst. The day after there was many testimonies and I know there’s more we still haven’t heard. One of our girls told her parents that night “I feel so new and empowered that I could just go to China and preach the gospel to everyone!” Many felt more boldness to live as Jesus tells us to. The day after, we had our first team arrive and one of our girls, Daisy, got up to greet the visitors with much confidence. Her mom said she was never able to do that before but it was a result of baptism. David, one of our boys, also did a greeting with more confidence than he has ever had. Its beautiful to see them grow up and see Jesus give them confidence in every area of life.
For several years I have spent so much time being part of the initial rescue of our children. Researching where to find the most desperate, helping to research the history of the children we find and going through the legal steps to bring them in. It’s a lot of going here and there. But the long term goal is that they would not just be rescued but redeemed. The redemption God does is also known as discipleship. Just like spiritually, we are called to make disciples not just converts. We also are to train and raise these children according to the Word of God, not just rescue them and maintain them. It’s in the everyday walking out your salvation where true lasting change in Jesus happens. The initial rescue is powerful and often “glamorous” but its the walking it out where real change happens. We are so grateful for our house parents and teachers that play a vital role in doing this. I was talking to a friend on all of this lately and she gave the example of this being like teaching a child to read. At first it seems like a tedious task to teach a child but when you start out letter by letter, recognizing the letters, being diligent to keep learning, all of a sudden one day the child is reading novels. It’s the everyday mundane that seem like its not making much change but one day you look back and see how much growth has taken place.
After coming out of the water, a few of us were there to pray over them. They were immersed in Holy Spirit and commissioned to go and do as Jesus did. Which is the third part of our mission: Rescue a life. Redeem a sould. Release the Kingdom. The releasing of His kingdom comes through believers being equipped and being doers of the Word not just hearers. Which would be like one of our children, eleven years old and saying "i'll go to another nation to share His love!"
Just had to do this intro into the others stories from the week of how Jesus moved mightily!
And don’t forget to keep going to our Mattaw website where we are continuing our 60 days Mattaw. www.mattawchildren.com
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