I awoke about 9:00 AM, feeling refreshed and ready to go about my day. My first order of business was to go to the dining room for a cup of decaf coffee. I had to take the elevator to come back to my room. Some people were getting off the elevator to go to the church service at Ignited church, and they asked me if I was going. That was a good question--I could still make the service if I hurried up and got ready, and it made sense to go to church on a Sunday morning.
However, God had given me a lesson about being Spirit-led instead of just falling into circumstances yesterday, and that lesson was still ringing in my ear. I decided to pray and ask Him what He wanted me to do, even though I was pretty sure He would say "Go to church." I was very surprised at His answer. He said, "Teresa, our agreement was that the daytimes were to be a personal retreat time between you and I. I want you to give Me the time alone with Me that you promised Me, instead of running off to attend a meeting."
I went back to my room and asked God how He would like to spend time together. He told me to go ahead and take my shower. I did so with a sense of excitement, expecting Him to meet me in it supernaturally, similar to what He did on Thursday. But God had another agenda. Instead of a supernatural encounter, He met me by speaking to me in that still small voice. Don't get me wrong, it was a wonderful discussion--but it was more like everyday devotions than experiencing the supernatural.
All the same, God met me and it was a wonderful conversation. He began stirring up some things that I had sort of let die in me, particularly in the area of foreign missions. My last mission trip (to India) had been so difficult and unpleasant that I swore I'd never go back there again. In fact, I decided that my "travel time" was over and I'd focus on missions via the internet instead of physically going there. Even when I made that decision (last November), I knew that I was putting my will above God's will. So I immediately repented and told the Lord that I'd go anywhere He'd care to send me and do whatever He asked me to do. But my outlook on missions had changed, and I was seeing it more as a "cumbersome duty" than as something I was excited about doing. The Lord and I discussed that in the tub and asked Him to re-stir the mission passion in me again.
VISION AND PASSION FOR MISSIONS RESTORED
To my surprise, God told me to get out of the shower and watch the DVD I'd brought with me. It was one of my all time favorite movies, called The Inn Of The Sixth Happiness, staring Ingrid Bergman. It was about a housemaid named Gladys Aylward, who God called to China. But the mission board refused to send here there because they did not think she was qualified. So she worked to save up her one-way passage to China and got on a train and went.
She linked up with a career missionary named Jeannie Lawson, and started working in a remote province where they wanted to open an inn to reach the mule caravan workers. (They served as the news media for China at that time, bringing stories and news from city to city as they traveled.) The "muleteers" loved to have stories with their meals, so she opened the inn with the theme of "Free Stories with Dinner." The plan was to teach the gospel stories to the muleteers and they'd spread the stories all over the remote parts of China that they traveled to. It was a great vision, but unfortunately Jeannie died just before the Inn got going.
Gladys choose to stay and take over the work that Jeannie had started. The mission board would not fund the work after Jeannie died, so Gladys was forced to work to earn the money she needed to open the Inn. The local city magistrate (called the Mandarin) gave her a government job that he needed filled that no one else would take. It was the "foot inspector" to unbind the feet of female children and young women. The Chinese government had issued a law against foot binding but the mountain people did want to follow it. It was a very dangerous position and the previous three foot inspectors had all been beaten severely by the villagers and seriously injured. Gladys somehow won the love and trust of the people and became a key civil servant and a very influential person in the area. She won many to Christ. She also was able to open the inn and continue Jeannie's vision and work, and the gospel began to spread through out the remote parts of China.
When China expelled the missionaries, Jane gave up her British citizenship and was naturalized as Chinese citizen, and her name was changed to Jen Ni (which means "the one who loves people"). When the war with Japan broke out, she ended up taking care of all many orphans and ended up with over 100 to care for. Their lives were in danger and she had to lead them on a very dangerous two-week trek through the mountains to a safe place where the orphans could be safe and cared for. The whole city was waiting eagerly for the arrival of the orphans and when she arrived, she was met by the man from the Mission society who had told her she was not qualified. The movie ends with him inviting her to join the mission and be in charge of the children because she was extremely qualified. While that was a bit of a boost to her moral, she chose to go back to the dangerous invasion-ridden providence and continue the work God had given her to do there.
It had been a few years since I'd seen that movie. By the end of it, I was in tears. I really identified with her struggle, because over and over again people had told me that I was not qualified, but I pushed through and did what God gave me to do anyhow. Then God began to minister to me, to restore my vision for missions and my passion for going to the nations. This part of my story may sound mundane, but it was actually very powerful because God was reviving something in me that had died, and bringing it back to life in me again.
I looked at the clock and realized that there wasn't much time until I had to leave to go help straighten/prepare the tent for the evening meeting. God had put it on my heart to go early, help with vacuuming, straightening chairs and whatever else needed doing to prepare for the evening meetings. I had about an hour before it was time to leave.
I decided that I wanted to go practice healing someone. I planned to go to the supermarket and look for someone to pray for, but God suggested that I log on to the prophetic-school chatroom instead. There were only about 7 or 8 people in there at that time. After I'd been in the room about 5 minutes, God gave me a word of knowledge.
I shared the word of knowledge and--sure enough--one of the people there had that condition. Interestingly, that person had been praying for God to send someone to heal them. In addition to the condition described by the word-of-knowledge, they also had a problem with carpal tunnel syndrome that was very painful. God healed both problems in the span of about 10 or 15 minutes and the pain went away. It was so neat how God arranged this--because He sent me somewhere where someone was praying and asking for the healing, and then He let me do that healing with Him.
When that was over, I had just enough time to eat dinner, get dressed and leave for the meeting.
The Lord opened a door for me to do a mission trip to Brazil on Nov 7 to 17. He woke me up at 3:00 AM on Jul 17 and told me to add this info to this Lakeland report, so that you have an opportunity to pray about sowing into that trip. I have created a simple web page where you can get a bit more info and make donations. The url to that page is http://www.godspeak.net/brazil_donations.html"
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