Taking Captive of My Thoughts
After a great weekend enjoying company with the girls and also sending off my mom at the bus stop at Tsim Sha Tsui, Jackie and I head back to the base for a new week. The topic for the week was “Worship, Intercession and Hearing God’s Voice.” One of the leaders of the base, taught us during the whole week. Her teaching was so amazing! She was super engaging, always joking around, and making it fun! She showed us a couple funny videos from YouTube, showing ways to worship and what it really means to worship. Our leader was really clear about the difference between worship and praise. She also touched on the personal, relational aspect of God!
Work duties were pretty challenging at first, waking up early, doing breakfast for everyone, trying to get a little more creative than just oatmeal and peanut butter sandwiches.
Oatmeal every day was getting a bit tiring! Yet I was so thankful we had food all the time! We got so many snacks during lecture time. The girls and I kept bonding over our passion for food! I remember having many different conversations with Ashley, about her past and her background. She has an incredible testimony, she knows what it’s like to live in the world, and how God has completely transformed and turned around her life.
The days were still pretty HOT, and showering with cold water was one of my favorite highlights of the day. Housing with the girls, helped me observe the way we lived. So far, we didn’t have any conflict with one another. Some of us are a little more flexible with things placed in different parts of the room, but it was building my character on being encouraging and respectful. Many times, Sophie told me she’d observe how I was organized and tidy, so she also wanted to be more organized. Aw! I am NOT a tidy person at all, but somehow, through DTS and knowing that we’ll be rooming together through many months, I want to make sure no one is affected by my lifestyle at home. Hopefully I wouldn’t create any problems or conflicts by the way I do things in the house. Didn’t realize this side of me until now! Usually, I hated cleaning, I still strongly dislike sweeping, yet I do like a clean house :) As long as it’s not dirty, it’s all good!
Doing DTS with my sister! Many people have come to us asking, “WHAT! How are you doing your DTS with your sister? Wow! It’s my first time seeing this.” haha! The Lord is good and He’s blessed our friendship as sisters :)
I was still struggling when it came to hearing God’s voice and taking captive of my thoughts.
I would also think about what others thought of me. I was letting my thoughts control my emotions. Thoughts that came with envy, jealously, lust, pride. It was just a week where I battled and battled with evil thoughts. I knew these thoughts were coming from the enemy, but I wasn’t really doing anything about it. It would get worse each day. God had changed it completely. The evil thoughts were also gone. Little did I know, through the following weeks, those thoughts would yet again come back, over and over again. I realized that they were strongholds from the village we are currently living in. Strongholds of envy, comparison, worship towards wealth. Through idol worship, a lot of demonic action can happen. In Jesus’ name and His authority, these thoughts were not controlling me anymore.
Spiritual warfare is real, guys!
Journalling was way more fun during week 2. I was able to collage, and build some beautiful pages. My favorite spread was the one that represented the locations we are going to for outreach. “Here I am, send me” and a picture of my sister and I. I collaged so many pages, it was like collaging back in my “uni” days. They call university, “uni” here! Anyways, I collaged like 10 pages in 3 days. Week 2 was amazing. It’s was just the beginning!
