Why I am here...

One of the reasons why I’m here became abundantly clear tonight.  My new good friend the South African, whose house is where we hold our Mon. night Bible Study abruptly lost his job on Thursday.  He called me for prayer and support, which I’ve been constantly praying for him.  He and his lovely wife have me over for a home cooked meal before our small group.  Im very honored and its nice to have a home cooked meal again.  I kind of felt led that I should ask the group to pray and fast for the South African in his difficult situation.  Not only did he lose his job but his visa expires four weeks after the termination of his contract.  So in four weeks he faces the prospect of being deported.  So not only does he lose his job, but he faces the prospect of having to pack everything up in his big house and ship everything back to his home, if that is where he is headed.  Oh it should be noticed, that he didn’t do anything wrong.  The economic crisis has claimed another victim.  The whole construction process shut down for his development.  So naturally he is quite worried about what the future will hold.  I told the South African during dinner, that I felt compelled to have the rest of the small group to fast as well.  He thought that was an ok idea, though he had never fasted before and wasn’t sure how it was supposed to work.  So during our study, the video this week, was on Nehemiah.  One of the questions said read Nehemiah 1:4 and what did the Bible say Nehemiah did when he heard about the temple walls?  “He cried, wept, fasted and prayed.  Is the answer.  He fasted?  A crisis happened and he fasted?  Is this a word from God?  I mentioned to both the South African and his wife how much God always speaks to me.  He mentioned that he doesn’t know if God speaks to him.  Well with me reading Esther the week before with Esther telling her people to fast and pray during a crisis….the next week read Nehemiah saying the same thing.  Do you think there is a pattern here?  Do you think that God is trying to speak to the South African?  So I explained this all to the rest of the group.  They were a bit hesitant since none of them have ever fasted before.  I explained how it works with me, and they were all willing to give it a shot for the sake of their fellow South African.  So its cool…God is using my life experience to help guide these guys in a powerful principle in the scripture.  None of them would have fasted had it not been for this crisis.  So not only is God going to help the South African through the crisis, the others are going to pick up a powerful tool in their spiritual arsenal. 

When I got home, I got this nice email from the South African:

Hi Rick,

Thanks for a great get-together again tonight. You really mean so much

to our group and I can honestly say that in the past few weeks we've

grown more than the previous 16 months. Your presence is a blessing to

us all and I'm really excited to see where's this is going.

Thanks for the fast suggestion. Can't wait to do my first proper fast.

Always wanted to do that but somehow never really got round to

actually doing it. Any suggestions as to how I can start preparing

myself?

 

Cheers

 

So I mentioned that God is using me to change the world.  If he is just using me to help the life of a South African during this difficult time in his life, that would be enough. 

 

By the way…on a completely non-religious note.  The South African rented Tropic Thunder and he absolutely hated it.  He turned it off ½ way through the DVD.  He’s the fourth straight non-American I met that hated the movie.  Now, I loved it.  I thought is was very American and had a lot obscure industry humor.  But I don’t think people from outside the U.S. understand our self-effacing humor.  Freedom of the press/speach is a very good thing.