Where do you find your strength?

I have a couple of stories to share with you this week. I got strength this week from a couple of things that happened this week. 2 of them have to with friends and the other ones just have to do with little encouragements from others.

So this week I was sick again out of something I ate. So on Wednesday I came home from school at like 3:40 which is super early for me and came home and went to sleep because I had no energy. So I wrote on my facebook that I was not feeling all that well and I get a phone call from a friend that I just really started to get to know at the end of last year. He was just calling to see if I was okay and to make sure I didn't have malaria. It was so sweet and it kind of made me feel better. Then I got a better on Thursday and George wanted me and my roommate to see the soccer game at Lincoln on Friday. So we decided to go and I was excited so I got to see my friends George and Elrom.

Then on Saturday I got told since I was a volleyball coach I needed to go thru first aid training and it happened that the guy that was doing our first aid training was my friend Mike who was the life guard at my pool party last year. It was great to see him again and just see him do something that he is very passionate about.

On Thursday in our mailboxes we got prayers from students after chapel. I and the prayer team at home have been praying for one of the high schoolers who has been searching for Christ. Well on those prayers I found one that said something like thanks for sending Jesus to die for me, and it was from this one student that we are praying for. I don't know if he has accepted Christ but he realizes that Jesus came to die for him and that is one step closer for him to ask him to come into his life. Our prayers are working and Christ is working in his life so please keep lifting him to our savior. Sometimes in ministry when you don't necessarily see a lot of results from just planting seeds and you see something like that you just see that all the work and praying for these students is making a difference you regain strength.

The one that has not happened yet but that I am so excited about is volleyball starts tomorrow! We have about 11 girls that have picked up permission slips to play which is just really exciting. But what is perhaps even more exciting is that I have an awesome partner who has the same passion I do for these students to really be a discipleship group as well. Talking with her yesterday in the van about what we wanted to do to make Christ even more evident on our team. We have come up with a couple of different things: Before we start practice each time we are going to have someone share something that they learned about Christ that day or something that happened to them. Then we are going to pray together as a team. This week Daesha and me are going to show them. As a team we are going to have a team verse that we are going to memorize. We have talked about getting shirts with the team verse on it so that it would be the center of our team. We want volleyball to be not only a team but a small group that can encourage and be in God's word together. Please pray for all these girls and Daesha and me as we coach and disciple these girls.

Last and not least I have especially today found strength in sitting and reading the Bible, and listening to worship music. It has been a rough day and the first thing that i thought of was to vent to someone else. However all the people I usually vent to were not home or not online which I think was God telling me I am the one that you vent to. So just crying out to God for strength to deal with people here and just being tired just listening for his voice, and searching in the Bible. Going to humans first is so ridiculous because they don't hold your future or your life. They don't have the words to comfort and loving arms to wrap around you and hold you for a long time but God does and He does all the time. He always has the right thing to say to you even when it is in his stern voice because you have disobeyed or did it your way instead of going to him first. He always does it in a loving way.

Please pray for this senior who has realize he needs Jesus. Pray for salvation. Pray for our volleyball program as it starts on Monday. Please also pray for a struggling relationship with one of my housemates and coworkers. Thanks for all your prayers and encouragements.