This week, Tom Piekarski (from South Bend, IN) came to speak about “church”. He brought his daughter, Cami Anthony, and her daughter, Lydia. It was awesome to see a family, “standing on the shoulders of the generations that went before them” for God. What Tom really talked about and affirmed was our identities in Christ because we have to know who we are in order to pour out as ambassadors of Christ. He used seven verses that we studied every morning (Eph 1:3-5, Ps 139:13-16, 2-6, Jer 1:5, Acts 17:26, 1 Peter 2:4-5, 9-10) about who God says we are. (You, yourself, should stop reading this, right now and go read these. Don’t continue until you’ve let these verses meditate in your brain and marinate in your heart.
We also affirmed each other’s spiritual gifts in our small groups and talked about unity in the Body of Christ. We, as the church, are called to actively participate in God’s plan for our lives, and share in the ministry of reconciling others to God, through Christ. We are to encourage and build up one another in prayer and fellowship. (2 Cor 5:17-21).

I, Jen, had a huge revelation this week in the area of spiritual gifts. I know that I have the gifts of encouragement and prophecy (and these were affirmed through others). What I have been struggling with over the past 2 years is that I wasn’t able to label why I was not being fulfilled by teaching. Others commented that I was gifted in teaching (it was my major and occupation) and I did enjoy parts of it (the helping and encouragement aspects), but I just could not put my finger on what my dissatisfaction was. That’s because this week I discovered that teaching is not my gift. My gift is evangelism. I get fueled up for God when I can share my faith and help and encourage others. I admit that while teaching is a small part in evangelism, it’s not my main focus. So now that I’ve identified what my main gift is, it changes the direction that I’m moving in. GOOD STUFF!

David and I know that we want to work in ministry together and I think that with my gift of evangelism plus his teaching gift that we would make one awesome tag-team!

On another note, we had Thai dance class all week. We learned 3 Thai dances (2 traditional and 1 “hip-hop” which is code for country line dancing in cowboy hats) to take with us on outreach to China in November. When we come Stateside, there will be a performance happening in a town near you…or not.  “In America, sometimes you need Bill Johnson or Jesus Culture to get you excited about the Lord, but here in Asia, all you need is the power of dance.” (my funny quote of the week)