Day 15 (Tuesday 6 July)
Today we spent a bit more time on the devotion and sharing in the morning. Because we haven’t set any specific time for having devotions in the morning for this trip, we have been missing devotions many of the days. Some of the time we have had the devotion in the evening instead, but that wasn’t always possible either. But since we didn’t have any activites that we had to rush to get to this morning, we were able to spend a bit more time at Ivy’s place to do the devotions and sharing with the team.
These are some rough notes from the sharing that each team member had:
Tina:
“I think it’s interesting to see that even though we are from different countries and churches, we still have the same God.”
“When I wrote my testimony I was struggling because it was a painful memory for me, but I thought it might help people.”
“Now I feel that I’m having hard time because I still haven't prepared my devotion. I don't really know what the problem is. I believe in God and that He'll help me, but I think the problem is that I think too much. I want to put more faith in God and let him work through me.”
Tore:
“God has been strengthening us as a group. He has been testing us by putting us close together, so that we can see both the good sides and bad sides of people. But in the end, I feel that it’s good that we have learned more about each other.”
“When going to the urban street missions, God has shown us that he loves everyone, no matter how far down they are. God can always reach out to anyone.”
“It's easy to see other people's problems, and ignore our own problems. Pray that we won't just see the speck in other's eyes, but not the log in our own.”
Vilhelm:
“When at the Fusion Toronto, observing the regular people in the streets, I could see people that have everything. Before that, we were serving people who had nothing (when handing out sandwiches to homeless people). In my mind I was thinking: How could the people who had everything not help the people who had nothing? But when I thought more about it, I realized we are just like these people, not doing anything to help those around us, just living our own lives. This helped me realize how little we were usually doing in our normal lives.”
Leon:
“When he said that everyone had to share the testimony at the big RHCCC services, a lot of people were kind of worried. But for me, I don't know why, but I was never worried, even if I had to stand in front of a thousand people. I think that maybe it's a gift from God that I don't feel worried about these things. I think also back when I was studying, I never felt worried about doing presentations. I don't mind standing in front of people and talking.
On one side it's a strength, but on the other side, it makes me have to focus even more on God. Because when you're worried, you'll ask God to help you, but if you're not, you might forget to focus on God. So it's more important to remember to focus on what God wants me to say.”
“While preparing for this trip, I think I'm not very good at delegating work, I like to do things myself. Because I know I can do it, and also because I don't want to burden other people. I get the feeling that people don't want to do something, and when I feel that, I don't want to tell them to do it. When I came here, pastor Ivy said that we should try things anyway. So I want to learn when I should tell people to do things anyway, and when I should not do that. And become better at delegating tasks.
Sometimes when people don't want to do something, I might feel that they won't do it well if I force them to do it, so it's better if I do it properly myself. But maybe I need to trust that when I tell someone to do something, they will do it properly, even if they seemed reluctant to do it.
Also I think I'm very careful about telling people how to do things, because I don't want to yell at people. So I try to tell them things with love. Like telling people to throw their own garbage in the garbage bins. I can help people with things, but I can't keep telling them all the time. We need to be able to tell people when they do something wrong. And we need to be able to accept it when someone's telling us that we are doing something wrong, instead of making excuses.”
Nina:
“My biggest challenge so far on this trip is sharing my testimony in Mandarin. Actually, when coming to Toronto, I thought it would be more stressful. So far, however, things have been pretty all right. But now I feel like I’ve been given a big trial tomorrow.”
“I don’t really know what God wants. I’ve always been in the worship team, but he wants me to be a leader (at the summer camp this year). Grace tells me I shouldn’t be worried, but I don’t know… Being a worship leader is really stressful, and I feel like there’s so much pressure on you, there are so many expectant people. So I actually feel a little relieved that I’m not a worship leader.
I’m not worried about what might happen, but I’m worried about what I should do. Is being a worship leader my calling? I’m praying for a revelation from God about what he wants me to do.”
After the sharing, we went to the Faith bookshop to buy some Christian books, bibles and CDs. We looked around there for almost two hours and in total we bought two boxes of books! We brought the books back to our house before going to auntie Helen’s place to have karaoke, food and a worship workshop.
Elin lead the worship workshop for the youth from Ivy’s church. Most of our team also attended the workshop, which was mainly about what worship meant and that the most important thing is to keep the focus on God and Jesus.
Went home after the sorkshop.
Day 16 (Wednesday 7 July)
Woke up early today to go to pastor Raymond’s house for the senior fellowship. We led some worship, and then Elizabeth, Nina and Hanfeng shared their testimony in Mandarin. Even though Elizabeth and Nina were quite nervous because they weren’t confident in their Mandarin skills, I think they did quite well. After the testimonies Tina led a bible study in Mandarin. We also ate lots of food and did some planning for the summer camp video that we’re supposed to make.
After the senior fellowship we went home (to Ivy’s place) and had a devotion. We ended up postponing the communication workshop because some of the guys were going to play football in the evening, so we had some free time instead. Some of the youth from church were also there with us. Around 17.00 some of the youth went to play football while the rest stayed behind.
In the evening we went to the church office for another prayer meeting, and had Tore, me/Johan, Tina and Enoch share our testimony, before we talked about prayer topics and splitted into groups for praying. We prayed a bit for the people who committed themselves to Christ in their discipleship retreat, for our short-term missions team, and also for a sick girl in their church.
After the prayer meeting we splitted up for bubble tea and ramen.
Tomorrow we plan to have the communication workshop that Ivy is leading, and then Hanfeng will have another worship workshop for the youth in Ivy’s church.
