For those of you who I sheepishly led astray on that one, no I have not become a man chaser. ( :
It's so much better....
After finally taking off the insulating plastic from our kitchen windows, my housemate and I gloriously popped those things open and enjoyed the rays!! Knowing this would bring our pee wee peeping toms in even closer to our inside life, we decided it was worth it. I am really glad we did.
<------------I am the unit on the end
Sunday I was sitting in front of said breezy window eating some salad at our little TV stand kitchen table when a certain young lady walked right up and had a seat on the other side. I have decided in my rediculous imagination that this will one day be an outreach tool which we will disguise as a pretend drive through window where the kids will walk through and pick up their food as there is no screen and my stove is about 6 inches away from it! How fun, c'mon!
Ok back to the story....
This young lady is the daughter of my neighbors. Her family is Bosnian and came over as refugees. She is on the track team, full of the wrong sort of sass, and incredibly misguided by a certain few somalian girls here.. one of which is even banned from the mosque.
Ire*a and the crew of Somalian girls usually travel in a herd and wreak havoc in the neighborhood, espcially on my doorstep and with the Nepali boys. Cursing, fighting, instigating, hanging on cars, the works. Imagine my suprise when I found out last week that she is a Jesus follower and recently was Baptized.
As she sat talking to me, I asked her a question. "Why are you friends with Hali*a?" She responded with an obvious, "I don't know." I told her I don't think it is bad that she is friends with Hali*a, but the reason behind her friendship makes a huge difference in how good it is. I asked her if she knew that once you follow Jesus God says to start telling others about Him and that she has an awesome opportunity to be doing this in (Muslim and out of control) Hali*a's life. I asked her if anyone discipled her after she decided to follow Jesus. "no." "Not anyone from your church or anyone?" "No." I was not incredibly surprised from the fruit of her life, especially after recently having her dad placed in a care clinic for a heart attack and reacting with a downward spiral of acceptance in the wrong group. We all just want to be part of a family, especially children. If it is broken at home, they will find it elsewhere.
Silence.......
Then she asked me a very pregnant question....Why did you move from Clarkston Oaks Apartment Complex?
I told her....
"God is a powerful God who wants to bring light into dark places, to bring His power in and change it. When He does, it lasts. Hali*a will be good for a couple of weeks maybe, but without Jesus, she will return to her bad way. Jesus is the power that creates real change and I did not see many people coming into Willow Branch bring His power here. God never said following Him is easy... the church is not a place of walls where everyone sticks together..we are meant to bring His power into the bad places. Even though it is hard, it is better. God has many people in Clarkston Oaks bringing His power there, so I needed to move to Willow Branch where He wanted me!
When I was in Clarkston Oaks I discipled young girls.... baked with them, taught them about Jesus and how we follow Him with our lives and tell others like he told us to instead of just using the name "Christian." We would memorize parts of the Bible, sing songs, eat together, pray together, and become women who live like copies of Him. It was called discipleship." "I chose these girls because they had terrible language on the playground and didn't look anything like the Jesus they said they followed."
Ire*a stood totally attentive...
"......Are you going to do that here?"
My heart lit up at the weight of these words. I told her I asked the complex's after school ministry leader because I wanted to respect him. He gave me permission to do this and said he would not be a part of it, but I could go ahead. "but there's one problem..I couldn't find any girls......
...not even one."
Silence...
And in a quiet voice she said, "....I want to."
I asked God in my prayer time on Saturday to give me "just one girl ,at least God, to disciple."
Sunday she was standing in my window and we had made our first date.
Yesterday was our first meeting and to our surprise her bad influence, Hali*a, joined. After sitting outside the window watching us make banana chocolate chip cookies together, the only option was to have her ask permisson as a Muslim to learn about Jesus from her parents and invite her in. When she came running back I was quite surprised! I will follow up on this "yes" as I am not totally convinced. Ire*a, however, is all confirmed and committed, checked with her mom and her mom and I had coffee in her apartment discussing it all beforehand. I plan to continue being a constant presence in Ire*a's life upon returning from South Africa as well.
We made goals and the first one for both of the girls was "stop being bad." and Hali*a's unspoken, and quietly written, "stop crusing (cursing)." ( : Hali*a also said she would like to learn more about Islam, her prophet, and God." I am not sure as to the consistency of Hali*a, but please pray that she would continue to come, that God would use this desire as a way to build bridges between our faiths and disciple her right into the Kingdom.
How beautiful for Ire*a's bad influence, Hali*a, to be present in her coming change! Oh what God could do with this!
This week we studied the Samaritan woman and how RADICALLY strange the ways of Jesus are...how he was not only speaking to a Samaritan, but a woman, and an adulturous one whom He knew all about beforehand. How did He address her in spite of this? He called her "dear." That is RADICALLY strange, and these are the ways we want to live. So I gave them a challenge for this week to go outside of what others would expect them to do and to actively love someone they are expected to avoid.
They have some great questions lined up for me!
Thank you for jumping into life here through your prayers and time reading!
God bless your socks right off, unless of course your feet are rather stinky. ( :
Jenna in Clarkston
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