The first night, Louie Giglio spoke about Phillipians 1:21-24:
"For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body,"
The next morning Francis Chan spoke about his love for God and just broke down on stage while expressing what his love for the Lord is like. While he was saying this, the entire stadium of 11,000 people was dead quiet and I'm pretty sure almost everyone had tears in their eyes. I sat there thinking, "wow, does my love for God match up?" I am so caught up in the everyday things, that I am totally missing out on what this life is truly about and what my true purpose here is. Our purpose here is to share the love of God with the world! Not to worry about all the things we go through everyday, but to share HIS LOVE! I was completely blown away after this! I hadn't realized how much stuff I was caught up in.
Francis Chan also then went on to speak about Phillipians 1:27:
"Above all, you must live as citizens of Heaven, conducting yourselves in a manner worthy of the Good News about Christ"
God doesn't need us to share the Gospel but instead chooses to allow us to spread His Name. Can you believe that? God chose us! We are to be living in a manner WORTHY to share His Name!
Later that day, we learned about the Koso people in Africa. Their real name is not Koso but they are called that to protect them from persecution. The Koso people are predominately Islamic and it is against the law not to follow the Islamic ways. The Koso people are an unreached people group- meaing that less that 2% of the people have heard about Jesus. There are a few followers of the "Jesus Road," (as they put it) but not many. The Koso people also do not have the Bible translated into their language. Just stop and think of what it would be like to NOT have the Bible? I can't even imagine it! So we raised money to translate the Bible for these people, I think it was around $225,000 (I'm not completely sure).
On Sunday, we learned about how Haiti is still going through extremely difficult times. We learned of a family whose house burnt down and a husband lost his wife and oldest daughter. His youngest daughter was trapped in their house for two days and had to have her arm amputated. The father would walk his daughter to school an hour and a half each way and tutor her how to write with her left hand by cellphone light at night. After everything this man went through, he accepted Christ as his Savior. That is so awesome! Passion saw their story in the newspaper, and decided to go to Haiti. They bought the girl a prosthetic arm, and brought them back to the United States. They also came to Passion and shared a little more of what they have gone through and asked us to continue to pray for his family and for Haiti. In Haiti, everything is covered in rubble and in order to rebuild the city, the ruble must be cleared away. We raised money for Haiti to by a bulldozer and fund a team to clear away one spot for a house a day and you can still donate to helping Haiti at http://dosomethingnow.com/causes/haiti-rising/.
Seeing these two people groups, how much devastation they've gone through, and how they haven't even heard about Jesus, really made our hearts on fire to reach the Serbian people this summer. We realized how comfortable we are in all that we have been blessed with and how there are people living with absolutely nothing, and they don't even know that a Holy God is deeply in love with them! Serbia is also and unreached people group meaning that less than 1% are evangelical Christians. The Serbian people are mostly Eastern Orthodox Christians, which means that they have no idea that they can have a relationship with Christ. Our hearts went out to the Koso and people in Haiti, but our hearts went even further to the Serbian people.
We thank you for all of you pray and support and ask that you continue to pray for us as we prepare for our trip. We ask that you also pray that what we and others learned at Passion will continue to make us grow deeper in our relationship with Christ and that we don't lose focus.
Sorry this is EXTREMELY long but I had a lot to say!
<3 Bethany
