What a weekend!

Sarah and I recently traveled to Johannesburg where we held the youth leadership training seminar. This training went extremely well.

The people participated very well and when we had them break into groups to discuss and work on their vision statements and to make goals in order to fulfil that vision they were all working very hard.

This seminar was a lot of fun for me. It is great when we can get together to strengthen ourselves for the kingdom and have a great time doing it!

On Sunday we were at I.A.G. Geluksdal. Sarah gave me the opportunity to preach that Sunday morning. As I prepared for this service God put a message of suffering and hope on my heart. The message was based out of Acts 16 with Paul and Silas. I was very excited for the Sunday because I knew God wanted to do big things!

This was confirmed Saturday as I heard that one of the youth in the community had just committed suicide the week before. We have been hearing so much about this thing of suicide in so many different places and with so many different age groups. I believe God is telling us we must begin to share with people the message of hope, and how in this walk with Jesus there is suffering. But John 16:33 says "In the world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." I thought, wow God you are awesome that this is the message God had already showed me to preach.

On Sunday they began to sing a song called "Because of Who You Are." I'm sure many of you have heard this song, but it says Jehovah Jireh, My provider; Jehovah Nissi, Lord You reign in victory; Jehovah Shalom, My Prince of Peace, Lord I worship you because of who You are. As we sung this, wow! You could tell God was moving and I began to see how God wanted the service to go. I felt there was to be people at the altar before I even shared the message. In my mind I thought okay if that's what You want God You lead. So as they introduced me and I went forward, I asked the worship team to come back and I said some more things and all began to sing. As they sang again God was moving mightily and one lady even came forward without me saying anything, I felt this was confirmation. So then I got the mic and spoke some things and the front was filled with people praying. The message went well, it was very fun for me to preach this message. At the end two girls gave their lives to Christ. And afterwards I found out that the one was planning on committing suicide and she said now she has hope in Christ! I couldn't help but cry at this. How awesome is God!

It just shows again, the importance of being obedient to the Holy Spirit and speaking what God tells you to speak, no matter what you may think needs to be said because of your own thoughts. Sarah and I were thinking we needed to preach on the baptism in the Holy Spirit but God told me this and wow am I glad I was obedient.