6.26.09

It’s hard to believe it’s been one whole week in the schools. I have been so honored to feel the Lord’s presence teaching right alongside me. No, in me. What a wonderful mystery the Holy Spirit is. Crazy profound, if you ask me.
I’ve been sharing my testimony this week at school, and I don’t think I can count the girls who have come to me wanting to meet to talk about depression and suicidal thoughts (sophomore year of high school, for me). In my testimony I said that looking back, I wouldn’t have wanted God to take away the depression because in that time I grew so much closer to Him. True. But I don’t think I really valued the fruit of that season until speaking with these girls.
After one of the classes, an 8th grader (about 15 years old) name Theonette asked if we could talk after school. I asked what she wanted to talk about. “Oh, you know, Jesus. Just, well…Jesus.” I think I can do that. We met on the broken steps to the Assembly Hall. I had brought along an old Bible study lesson, just in case she was interested in learning about penal substitution. We found a spot where the cement wasn’t crumbling quite so much and sat down together with two of her other friends.
So what did you want to talk about, I asked her again because I didn’t know what else to say. Jesus, she said again looking at me like duh I already said that. What about Jesus was my response. Everything. Her eyes were moist. Her smile was stretching to each side of her young face. Everything.
We talked about who God is. What Jesus has done in our lives. What we are trusting Him to keep doing in us. She told me she had only been “Repented” for three months. Her parents weren’t Repented. She lived alone in a hostel. She has only two Repented friends, the ones with us.
She asked me to sing to her about Jesus. At this point I had no reservations.
“In the morning when I rise, in the morning when I rise, in the morning when I rise, Give me Jesus. Give me Jesus, Give me Jesus, you can have all this world. Give me Jesus.” She repeated after me and we sang together in the now-vacant school yard.
“I’ve been praying for a friend, Miss Amy. And I wonder, you know, if you’re the friend God has sent me. Oh, I sure do hope so.”
I’d be absolutely honored, Lord.
I left that conversation ashamed. Why didn’t I know what to say when someone asks me to talk about Jesus? He’s the Love of my life, isn’t He? I go to Bible school. Isn’t this what we’re being trained to do? To know how to answer people who want to know about Jesus and even those who don’t? to give at least a militant answer for the seeker? But I didn’t. I had an agenda. And apparently Jesus wasn’t a part of it.
I’m learning. I don’t write these things to beat myself up. I’m just in a process, on a journey, to know how to do Jesus-life here. I want to, but I’m so programmed, so structured…so trained. I’m missing Jesus.
I’m learning.
We ate ox tail for the first time tonight. It was absolutely the best meat I have ever eaten. So tender and full of flavor – have I mentioned how much meat they eat here? So much, and I’m so thankful. We Iowans are feeling more at home.
During the meal, we talked with our host “uncles”, Romi and Henry, about salvation. They are under the firm belief that you can loose your salvation. And we, well, blatantly disagree. It’s hard for me to know what to do with it all. They believe suicide cannot be forgiven because you can’t repent afterwards. Even a pastor who recently committed suicide, they believe lost his salvation. “it’s too bad,” they said. “He was a man really blessed of God. It’s too bad he’s in hell.” At this point I got so upset I had to stop talking. At least I’m learning to do that! They said anyone who commits suicide is burning in hell right now. All I could think about was my Tonya. I went into my room and cried for a while.
This belief, I’m finding is penetrating all the youth culture. It adds to the problem of suicide because students can’t admit they struggle with it. The discussion was heated. Romi raised his voice. We agreed to disagree. But we left that night hugging and saying out I love you’s. And I meant it. I really love these brothers.