The One Who Spreads the Good News

Guys it was my favorite day — church day!! It always brings me to tears to hear worship in other languages. It’s just a little more of a glimpse into heaven :)

The pastor talked about prayer today and preached from Matthew 6. (I even managed to find it in the Arabic Bible in the pew in front of us ;) (not that I could read it!)) it was so awesome — there were way more people in church than I expected! And our hosts provided us with translation headphones so we actually knew what was going on which is unusual!

I loved how the pastor talked about God our Heavenly Father and how He just wants us to be in His presence. One thing he said that stuck with me is when he was talking about his own kids asking for ice cream. Kids will ask you over and over and over for the same thing, sometimes not even giving you a chance to respond! And the pastor challenged us to look at our prayer lives and see if we see any similarities. Do we ask God over and over for something? Or do we have a relationship with Him? Do we talk to Him about other things or just spend time in His presence?

After church we packed lots of pills in preparation for tomorrow and got a look at the wonderful space we have for clinics! All of that should be good and I’m looking forward to hitting the ground running in the morning!

One incredible thing that I’ve never experienced before was the pastor sat down to pack pills with us! He is a super cool dude! He packed multivitamins and chit chatted, shared his testimony, and preached some more — as you do.

He did not grow up evangelical and it took two of his friends dying suddenly for him to take a step back and look at his life and his relationship with Christ. He decided to turn away from Catholicism and dove head first into Jesus and scripture! He went to seminary and became a pastor and runs this church with his whole heart along with the Syrian refugee ministry. You’ll never guess what his name meant… the one who spreads the good news!

His parents never cared about the meaning, he was named after a politician. But since he was born, the Lord knew his path! And boy does he spread the good news!! I hope we get to see and talk to him more this week along with his wife and three adorable girls.

We packed pills well into the afternoon and then went to this MASSIVE restaurant for lunch/dinner. A three hour affair packed full of delicious food — it just kept coming out! It was soooo yummy! And the whole atmosphere felt like it was out of a movie — the restaurant sat 1,000 people, had multiple levels, waterfalls and trees indoors, a play place, bowling, pool, live music, a magician (who was going table to table mariachi style), and tons of hookahs (bleh)

We laughed and ate and talked the afternoon and evening away and finished with fresh fruit for dessert.

Back at our hotel, we had a team meeting and our team leader shared his testimony before we all headed to bed, tired, but excited about what the Lord is going to do tomorrow. Hopefully we can follow in the footsteps of our pastor and be called “those who spread the Good News.”