Week 8: Conversations, Both Individual and Corporate

One more week in the books. Another week of spending time with crazy, wonderful English, Scottish, Welsh, Irish, and Northern Irish people. They are truly incredible people.

This week was a calmer week in terms of activities. With Andrew and Grace out of town early in the week, Daniel and I spent the week building bunk beds, putting up new mattresses, and taking apart the old ones. After two days using a screwdriver, I felt like I was developing rheumatoid arthritis in my right hand. There are still some red spots on my hand from the screwdriver, nearly a week later.

This week, I began reading through the Psalms. I had been reading a Proverb a day since July, and so I felt like I needed to change things up a bit. So I started reading the Psalms. We as a team found out that one of our church members reads a Psalm every night. I thought it might be the perfect opportunity to further engage and encourage them in Christ. Since we would both be reading the Psalms, we could share ones that stuck out to us in the week. Later I found out they do not read the Psalms in any order, however, I still feel that I can encourage them through my reading of it also. This will also encourage me and push me to not simply read the text, but to study it, mull it over in my mind. I've heard people use the illustration of a cow chewing its cud as what we should do as Christians with the Word of God. We should read it and take it in, then a little while later, bring it back up into our minds, and think on it some more.

Throughout this week, I have been preparing for today. Today was marked on our calendars here as the day that I would preach at the church on the estate. For those of you who don't know, I never preached before in my entire life. While my training in university has made me comfortable with talking in front of people. This was a whole new animal to try and wrangle. My experience with public speaking has been with sub-10 minute speeches. The majority were under 3 minutes, and about the weather. This one was expected to be 15+ minutes. Thankfully, God has placed an illustration on my heart for children early in my time here. This illustration was to describe what it means to be a Christian. I was able to in a way, use the illustration through the text I was given. For those who are curious, the text was Luke 18:9-14. This passages talks about the Pharisee and the tax collector. I focused on how they approached God, and how we should approach God. Well, today was the day. I preached. With the church being made up of mostly non-Christians, specifically, non-Christians with loads of children, there were plenty of distractions. Yet, I was surprised and blessed by how closely some paid attention to the sermon. I know that my voice isn't the most exciting of voices to listen to, and the fact that they listened and paid attention for 15+ minutes (I have no idea how long I preached) is solely something to give the praise and glory to God for. I pray that as they paid attention, that God spoke to them, that they would see for themselves that they can do all they want to look like a Christian to the world (like the Pharisee), but that will not make a lick of difference when they come before the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

This weekend I also had the opportunity to speak about Christ and Christianity to a Swedish girl who is working for a local family. She brought the children to a bonfire night we had in Harby. The children come regularly to our Bible study on Friday nights for the youth of Harby. Although she isn't a Christian, or even interested in Christianity, she and I were able to discuss religion, our thoughts on it, and also through our discussion we talked about holidays, in Sweden, England and America. I was able to tell a little bit about why we celebrate Christmas, and Easter. I pray something sticks with her, and that she would start to ask questions, to herself, as well as to the family she works for, who are also Christian.

I know there are not any pictures in this week's update. However, I plan on having loads of pictures tomorrow, as this coming Saturday, we are going to London as a team! There is also plan to go on the London Eye. If that is the case, there will be LOADS of pictures.