Week 4 –Weeping May Endure For A Night, But Joy Comes In The Morning

Bula (Hello) my brothers and sisters :) What have you all been up to? I heard about the bombing in Boston and the earthquake in China. I was sooo shocked! All of us in the base came together and prayed for the lives affected. God is in control, we are living in the last days and Jesus can come back at any time. I want to urge you to give your lives to God if you haven’t already done so and if you have I want to challenge you to go deeper with God. Psalm 91:1 GNT says “whoever go to the LORD for safety, will remain under the protection of the Almighty”

For me, every week begins with the students and staff fasting. We come together at 5am and pray and worship Jehovah. This Monday however, I felt sooooo tired! Many things have happened this week and I have not felt like myself at all!

Pressed Down!

I have been feeling low and discouraged. The language barrier hasn’t helped my mood either especially when everyone around me is speaking in Fijian during meal times and in the dormitories. And to be honest with you all, me reminding everyone to speak in English has been getting repetitive, so I end up going off by myself. One morning, I turned to my only source of hope, my Bible. When I opened my Bible it opened on Nehemiah 8:10. I was like wow, God You are real and so faithful! I felt so encouraged and uplifted. This has been happening to me a lot. I open my Bible and it opens to a scripture that speaks to me! God speaks people He speaks!

The language barrier is such a big challenge for me. With everyone speaking in the language, I feel so alone at times. I know I’m not alone because God is with me always but my lack of companionship with others is really getting to me. Sometimes I just want to call my close friends and family back home in London but the 11 hours time difference hinders me.

Testing Times!

Another challenge I have been facing this week is learning to say no to people. I have noticed there are a lot of differences between Fiji and England. England is a individualist society; people are very independent. Whereas Fiji is a collectivist society-people tend to do things in groups. Here in Fiji everyone always borrows things from one another sometimes without asking because that is the culture here. Some of the students I am not close with have been continually asking for a lot of my things and I feel like if I say no then I’m bad person especially as I’m an international student. It’s getting annoying and frustrating for me. I feel like people are more interested in what I have than in me! God has been teaching me to have courage and speak out. If I don’t, I’m living under bondage because I’m fearing man. He has also been reminding me however that everything I have comes from Him (Deuteronomy 10:14) so I have no right to be selfish and keep things to myself. Balance and boundaries are what I need to put in place.

Joy Comes In The Morning!

In spite of the issues I have been facing this week, the lectures have been a ray of sunshine for me. This week’s topic has been ‘Hearing God’s Voice’. It’s been a breakthrough week for me. It has helped explain why my walk with God becomes so stagnant at times. The word stagnant means; no activity, no flow, sluggish, dull. I’m so quick to speak to God and tell Him things He already knows but slow to listen. If we don’t take the time to listen to God, our relationship with God won’t blossom. He is your navigator, everyday of your life was written before you were born (Psalm 139:16). Do you see now why it’s so important we take the time to listen to His voice?

This week the speaker Siria gave us an exercise to do during the lecture. We had to leave the lecture room, go outside and ask God to speak to us through His creation and then come back and share it with everyone.  I prayed to God and was led to a tree and on the tree contained flowers. God spoke. My eyes were drawn to the leaves, as you notice on the tree there are more leaves than flowers on the tree. The tree represents the rest of the world. God gave me the revelation and told me that I’m set apart for His plan and purpose. I don’t need to focus on what’s going on around me with regards to me being the only international student.  The flower looked beautiful, it was full of life and God said that it represents me! God see’s me as the apple of His eye and feels the same way about you. I was in awe of God. It felt like God was my husband, speaking sweet words and melodies to my ears hehe. I want to persuade you all to try this exercise, God will surprise you!

 

What else has been happening? Oh yes I have found an ENGLISH speaking church praise God!!! The praise and worship reminds me of my church back in London The sermon on point too, the pastor spoke about how being a Christian=Suffering.

That’s all for this week folks. Thank you for taking the time to read my blog. You are always in my prayer.


My email address is: josieagyeman@gmail.com, I would love to hear from you. 

Much love,

Miss Josie Jo

Xxx