God uses strangers

September 12th

Ok....so remember how in yesterday's journal entry I talked about the randomness of our staying in this small town called Limon.
Well...it gets better. Apparently, Tiffany had a prospective student stay with her one weekend at her college who is FROM there!! Sadly enough she is still in college, so we didn't get to see her. BUT after finding that out, Tiffany texted her to ask if she knew of a good church we coud go to. Well it turns out that her father is the pastor at one of the churches in Limon, so she suggested we go there. Also that same weekend she met this girl, Tiffany had had a great hour or so long conversation with this man.
Funny enough, she had just told me on our way to our search for internet on friday about this man of God, whom she'd had a great conversation with, and whom she could tell was filled with the Holy Spirit because of the way He spoke and his gentle spirit.

So, how's that for a "coincidence" huh?  I feel like this journey will bring a lot of these so called coincidences, which in my honest opinion are NOT coincidences at all, even though a lot of people would beg to differ.

So this morning, we checked out of our Safari Inn,  and headed to Church which was 2 blocks away. We entered one of the smallest churches I've ever been to (keep in mind i've been to a ton, with my parents being missionaries and all ya know?), and we were welcomed so warmly!

People just gravitated to us, shook our hands, asked for our names,  welcomed us etc....

Pastor Bill (Tiff's friends father) came and hugged us and was so excited to see TIffany, even though they'd only met once. He also asked us to stay after the service so he could take us out to lunch.

The service was long but good. It reminded me of the 509, which I miss terribly. So after the service, we waited and I totally felt the way I used to feel when I would wait hours and hours after church in Senegal for my dad to stop talking to the world so we could quiet down our belly grumbling and go home haha.
Nonetheless, while waiting we got to meet pretty much every one that was at the service and talk a bit with them. We were treated like family.

Lunch was excellent. I got to talk to the pastor's son about Huntington University because he is interested in pursuing film and just graduated from highschool. I also got to talk to the pastor's wife who was sitting next to me, and the best was sitting next to an older lady and talking to her. We had similar lives between both of our fathers being pastors at one point, and never having a true home base, and having traveled a lot.
She knew about my job and knew I had lived in  Indiana for college, but eventually straight up asked me where I was from.
Honestly, a lot of times, I find ways to avoid answering this question with accuracy by saying "I went to college in Indiana and it became a home to me" or "I lived in Colorado before starting this job" or "I guess my home base in the US is North Carolina." Most times I'd rather give such simple answers in order to avoid the long story of where I was born, where each of my parents are from, what they do there, how they met, etc etc etc...
I've repeated this story SO many times, that sometimes I just don't want to deal with it.
However, when this lady asked, her sincere interest intrigued me so I just gave it all away. From start to finish, left to right, talked about mom, dad, nabrissa, ianis, me. I didn't give every little detail but she got a solid summary of it all:)

At the end of it, she was in awe. She was just so excited about it all. She proceeded to tell everyone at the table I was from Senegal, and kept telling me how much of a blessing it was for me to have shared all of that with her.

So, God taught me to get over myself, and use this exciting life story He's blessed me with to bless others by just sharing it. It's not hard, and it's who I am so there is no sense in hiding it just out of pure laziness.

Lesson learned.

A couple hours later, after saying our goodbyes to everyone except for Pastor Bill, (but including his wife who knew her husband well enough to know that he  wasn't anywhere near ready to go home), we had great chat with him.

He shared how excited he was for what God had in store for us, and how we were going to be blessings to many. He looked deep into my eyes and kept repeating, do you know how great of a plan God has for YOU? I bet you have an idea but don't even realize how great it is. He said I was amazing because I didn't give God any limits and was absolutely open to whatever God had in store for me. He spoke to me as if he'd known me for years, and at that moment I knew God was speaking through him and what a humbling experience.. He talked about how we are on an assignment from God and how special we are because we are taking it seriously and are committed to fulfilling this mission. He also looked at me and said I needed to be patient for what God had in store for me. I said I'd finally come to a point where I accepted to wait, where as before I was just ready to go. He goes "well that's because you have a lot of zoom in you, but you've gotten to this point in your life through hard times, that didn't have to be so hard but that's the way they happened and they interconnected in your life in a way that you've come to be where you're at and think the way you think, and truly count on God and have peace about where He's leading you. and I can tell that, but honestly obedience is far better than sacrifice. In fact it is better to seek after God's heart then to attempt to do things that need to be done."

There are so many great things he shared with Tiffany and I, and he prayed for us at the end of our conversation and I could just feel the Holy Spirit speaking through Him!
At the end of the prayer he asked God to "give us joy through our journey as our hands are placed in His and  He guides us to where we need to go and who we need to meet."
THis man I met this morning, and He was able to speak straight to my heart.

I can't even express how I felt after this surprise from God. A solid time of fellowship with strangers that are just united through the body of Christ.

Now how amazing is that?

I keep thinking that God is going to send me to dark places where I can minister to people forgetting that along the way He has a plan for me to keep being ministered and encouraged through other believers.

The church was called Oasis of Life and I truly felt refreshed after leaving it and its people.

I thank God for this morning. I also thank Him for safe travels He provided Tiff and I with.

We arrived  in Scott city, KS to a cute cottage.

We will be here for 3 days and have already made ourselves at home :)

The family who owns this cottage is very sweet and are making themselves available to us in any way. THey were however having drama right outside our cottage. Their former employe for another business they have just recently got fired and came here to complain. This lady made a huge scence, and the owner of the cottage felt so so bad. She apologized to me 100 times. I kept telling her that TIff and I were some of the most laid back people and we didn't care, and it didn't affect how much we love this place, and that she didn't have to worry about us on top of worrying about what was going on already, and that things happen and people are people, and we understand...etc.....
I must admit, the yelling was pretty intense!
After a while, I prayed for the situation to be resolved in peace, and for God to put His hand over these people whether they believed in Him or not and 3 minutes after praying, the fight was over and the complaining lady drove away.

:)

Anywho, we have a 45 min drive tomorrow morning at 6am  (well 7am cus both towns have diff time zones to our advantage) and will have a show in Tribune, KS.

Hopefully God will use us and the video tomorrow to encourage kids and hopefully make a difference in their lives. As pastor Bill said earlier, we are different because we set up these presentations out of love and care, and the kids can tell,  where as some people would just do it for the excitement of traveling or just to have a job, in which case they would go to the school, set up, maybe talk to kids out of necessity, tear down, and peace out.

Well...it's about that sleepy time. Thanks for joining me on my journey. Be blessed and feel free to leave comments or share encouraging stories in return.

in Him alone, DJO