Hello again friends!

So here is a brief update on campus life! Bible studies have been going strong! God is working so beautifully in the hearts of every one of our students. Two of the women in my bible study have been asked and accepted into discipleship just this past week! That means now they are on their way to becoming student missionaries who can turn around and bring in women and lead a bible study and create more disciples! Praise God for their eager and humble "yes" to God's call in their hearts!

We've been talking more in my bible study about prayer and about having a relationship with Christ. The ladies have been so open to learning more HOW to pray and really relate with God about their lives and what's going on in their hearts. Recently, I took this topic to prayer, and God shared a really beautiful meditation with me that I'd like to share with you all...

To preface, earlier this summer as I was praying with fellow missionaries and religious at summer training, a woman told me she had an image of my standing at the foot of the cross, but that I could only look at Christ's feet, and never at His face. She told me that she thinks Christ wants me to look at His face.

Alrighty, so this leads me into the meditation. Get out your bibles and flip to John 5:1-18. This is the story of the Cure on the Sabbath (please read so you can follow along!). Something that really struck me was that Jesus came over to the man who is lying next to the pools and asks him "Do you want to be well?" and the answer the man gives struck me as odd. He tells him “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.” Instead of telling Jesus, the Son of God, this miracle worker, that YES he wants to be healed, he tells him the reasons he cannot be healed because he cannot do what he thinks he needs to do to be healed. (read the footnote on what the Jews believed about the pools being healing).

Alright, so what is happening here is that Jesus is staring this man in the face and the man doesn't even recognize Jesus as his healer. 

So, application to our life. We do not know how, when, or where God is going to work. We cannot know who or why unless He reveals it to us (just as Jesus was doing for this man). Our job then is to be able to recognize the face and voice of Christ when he speaks into our life, our heart. Would you know Jesus if He came and stared you in the face? It's very easy to become preoccupied with following the footsteps of Christ. Learning about his movements, his ministry, etc. But if we don't know HIM, how can we know for sure that the footsteps are His? If our eyes are on the ground, on following the footsteps, we miss the face, we miss Him who we are following. We must know and recognize Jesus' face in order to be able to fully follow Him with an open and trusting heart. We cannot trust that whom we do not know. 

Don't be like the paralytic who looks right past Jesus, answering his invitation by telling how YOU think things should be! Look at Christ's face, come to recognize his voice, and relate to Him what you need. He knows how to best help and heal you. Allow yourself to know Him and trust Him :D

Just a little something to meditate on. I thank God for the blessing of having all of you in my life. You're all in my prayers!

P.S. I forgot to include that we are all gearing up for the FOCUS National conference SEEK2013! We're currently in fundraising efforts to get all of our students there! Please let me know if you're interested in contributing!!! 


God Bless,
Monica :)