OE Updates

Hi.  I know that Rachel mentioned that I would keep you guys up to date with the OE group.  So far, all the updates (which aren't that many) have been very generic.  But today we received one that had a little more substance in it and I thought I'd shoot it your way.  Thanks for praying. - Garth

Dear OE follower:

Today I have just received two updates to pass along.  First from Principal Darren Berg:

I was able to join OE yesterday and it has been great to interact with groups 5-8. Groups1-4 are currently hiking back to Ibele and will hopefully arrive late morning/early afternoon.  Please pray with us that they will return healthy and stretched in their faith.  The overall attitude of the students is amazing! They are working hard at painting, oiling, hauling rocks, preparing meals, and ministering to a local school.

Our accommodations have been great and we are thankful for that. Right now we have some students under the weather but none that are too sick to work on the projects, so this is another praise.  Please also pray for the youth event happening tonight.  Lord willing, we will all be joining the Ibele youth in a large worship service.  Tammy Wisley with the help of our students will be running this program with Todd Adams speaking.  Thanks so much for your prayers.

Then from Group 6:

OE has been great so far.  No one is extremely injured or sick and we’ve been having lots of  fun.  Lots of work has been done such as painting churches, oli kotor-ing stinky bathrooms, digging through mountains and making new trails so we don’t slip.  Our group has done something called kids club. We hiked a half hour away to sing, dance, play games and teach kids our age.  God has really been working in the hearts of both us and these beautiful people here.  Please continue to pray for  us as we minister to the people and try to bless them and show God’s love.  We greatly appreciate your prayers and we miss you mommys and daddys a lot.  See you soon.

And then one of today’s OE devotionals is as follows:

Blessed are the poor in spirit, being poor in spirit means sinful and broken. How do you feel about your sin? Think about it like this, I’m assuming you all have good relationships with your fathers, if you were to turn on them, there should be pain in you when you realize the pain you have caused on your father. The reason why you feel hurt is because you have a strong relationship, you love your father. Now God being your heavenly father, when you sin, you are turning from him and doing what you want. How do you feel about that? Shouldn’t there be some kind of regret and desire to change? I’m not judging your relationship with God at all but if you don’t feel bad about it, maybe you need to build a better relationship with God. Use it as a hint of where you might be with God. Maybe you’re going through tough times and haven’t thought much about your sin, I’m not saying this is the only way to see where you are with God. I want to encourage you to take your sin seriously, even though it might seems small, it can lead to bigger things and get out of hand. Blessed are those who mourn, there is good and bad mourning. It is good to mourn over your brokenness but don’t soak in it. I think the better you can fight your temptations, the closer you will be to God, it says: “Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God.” I jumped down a few of the beatitudes but these three stuck out to me. OE might be the right time to examine your heart, find those heart idols, and see where you are in your relationship with God. Later on in your life, it will become more evident that you will need to depend on God, grow close to him while you can, while you’re in this God loving community. And remember that we are saved by grace and not by our works. Don’t take that grace for granted and think it’s ok if I fall into sin because I’m already saved, know how much of God’s grace and mercy we can take and how much work we should put into becoming better people. Now don’t fall into the trap of being ok when people think you’re a great person because that’s a heart idol. My main point is to encourage you to see how you’re are doing with God and strive to get close to him. Be real about it, if you’re not doing well, don’t pretend that you are doing good. This isn’t something that I have sorted out for myself; I just wanted to share it.  ~ Yali Wilson

OE groups are as follows:

Group 1	Group 2	Group 3	Group 4	Group 5	Group 6	Group 7	Group 8
Josh Jordan	Rachel Erickson	Sam Bruce	Tammy Wisley	Mike Lott	Lisa Kimball	Peter Seow	Megan Orrin
Kooijmans, Anoek	Harris, Josiah	Brown, Joshua	Martin, Ethan	de Vries, Aike		Adams, Jordan	Boyd, Aubrey
					de Jong, Dirk		Breton, Abigail
Lee, Yohan	Smith, Helen	Sumardana, Nathasya	Holsten, Grace	Elliott, Alina	Boyd, Andrew	Mathews, David	Abbott, Jessie
Choi, Paul	Gordan, Cameron	Jordan, Daniel	Brown, Atalee		Erickson, Emma
				Larson, Joshua	Wisley, Ransom	Wilson, Yali	McFarlane, Taylor
Whited, Olivia	Brown, Megan	Harris, Caleb	Lewis, Elisha	Hubert, Daniel	Maris, Yosephine	Kosasih, Kenneth	Lee, Seun
Latumahina, Rebecca	Berg, Jalen		Sitanggang, Ryan	Kim, Haeun		de Jong, Joella	Sardo, Morderex
Tanzil, Keith	Brown, Alyssa	Pikkert, Quinn	Dinkelmann, Daniel	Bakken, Sidney	Ringenberg, C.J.	de Vries, Manin
Kave, Anne	Ahn, Lydia	Wetipo, Josh	Latumahina, Catheen	Seow, Hannah	Martin, Charis	Erickson, Sophie	Uganecz, Tehya
Wilson, Sampari	Kooijmans, Thomas	Osterloo, Izzy	Elliott, Micaiah	Martin, Joel	Kosasih, Kevin	Lewis, Josiah	Darryl Juneau
Schley, Daniel		Bakken, Cassia				Dinkleman, Morgan	Liem, Josea