Stories, ER visits, and Saturday sunshine :]

Well you guys...last week was another rollarcoaster ride with Jesus.
But it was good. =] Not quite the California screamer or whatever its called...
no not quite that fun. More like the Wild Thing at enchanted village...full of twists and turns that leave your neck aching and your head throbbing afterwards. ha!
For the past two weeks it seems like everybody and on base has been sick!
Sick with flus, colds, african diseases, etc. haha. Last week me and all of my housemates were sick the whole week, we ended up taking my roomie Jamie to the ER Tuesday night (she's been really sick sense she got back from Africa)...it was a crazy week. But amongst the cloud of sickness and spiritual warfare God definitely had His love and mercy shine through.
I was blessed Wednesday through Friday with the opportunity to sit in on the dts lecture. The speakers this week were 2 guys, Lyn and Ed from a ministry called One Story. What they did was they taught us how to story tell in relevant ways within the context of missions. The whole lecture was totally interactive. We got into the dts outreach groups every day and had "simple church" together. There were a couple different aspects to the week. The obvious thing we did was tell stories. The guys would split us up into our outreach teams and tell us a story from the Bible. We were not allowed to read the stories they were telling; we were only allowed to listen to them tell it orally. They did this so we would gain insight on how we would have to share the content of the Bible and even the gospel message in unreached areas that do not even have a Bible in their language (or a written language at all). It really opened our eyes to the realities of sharing the Bible throughout the world in ways we had not previously thought of. Another realization that came was that it was simple, fun, and easy for us to remember what happened in the stories after we heard them be told a couple of times. This encouraged us to start diving into Bible stores with confidence instead of intimidation.

Another huge part of the week that Ed and Lynn brought to us this week was the concept of "simple church." They explained to us thatall we need to do church is worship, prayer, fellowship, and teaching from the Bible. It is that easy! We practiced this every day they were here. The day before, we would volunteer to lead certain times of the meeting. That night we would prepare whatever we said we would, whether it be a song for worship or a teaching out of the Bible or anything else. The next day, we would simply participate in church together. It was so refreshing to do! All of us absolutely loved it. We were all able to participate and make it a group effort while also being sensitive to the Holy Spirit and having the freedom to be flexible.

That was really the best part of the week for me because ever since the fall God has been laying the concept of simple church thick on my heart. So being able to in a sense "practice" simple church and physically do it was huge for me. It was a tremendous blessing! And being able to actually do it gave me alot more confidence to walk out what God is calling me to do! It was awesome :]