Week 8?

Last week was personally a busy week. On Tuesday I spoke to the AIDS support group. I talked on Isaiah 6 and the Isaiah’s response to salvation. After God forgave his sins, Isaiah’s response was “Here am I, send me.” This is the only correct response to our salvation. Once we realized the vastness of our sin, and the vastness of God’s love and forgiveness how can we not give our lives to serving our creator and redeemer? There’s a quote from a Relient K song that has always stuck with me, even though I find them annoying, “The beauty of grace is that it makes life not fair.” This is so true. We deserve eternal punishment, but God has removed our veil to see His glory.

I gave the sermon on Sunday. I preached on 2 Corinthians 3:18. If we have experienced God’s salvation we should also be experiencing a transformation into His image. There are people all around us that believe that doing good things, or being a nice person means that they are saved or that saying a prayer when they were a child is the cause of salvation. Are we bearing fruit? Are we being transformed? I don’t say all of these things to scare you or to make you doubt anything, but God’s word is telling us that everyone (“And we all with unveiled face”) that has experienced God’s salvation should also experience a transformation within our lives. I ended with a similar point from Isaiah 6; if we are God’s children, our sole purpose is to love Him and His people.

Sunday also started a weeklong of goodbyes. The church prepared a meal for the entire congregation as a goodbye meal for us after the service. I will miss these people and this church. I can hardly believe that I have been here for eight weeks. Yesterday was our last day working with the workers. I will miss the kids in my classes, but the men that I have been working will be the hardest to say goodbye to. Some of the best relationship I have developed this summer have come from this group of men. After work I went to one of their homes to meet their family. I left with Ken about 5:30. He lives about ½ a kilometer from the compound. He lives with his grandparents and three of his cousins. His grandmother is almost 70 and his grandfather is around 90. Their hospitality was something I have never experienced before. I had some tea with Ken and talked with him for about an hour before I went back to the compound to play soccer with some of the other workers.

This summer has changed my life forever. I have not even begun to process all of the events of this summer. This is what I do know: I will be at the Atlanta Airport at 8pm EST on Sunday night, and I am not ready to leave.

He must increase, i must decrease,

Justin