Thankfulness

This post is from Yuemin:

Because Thanksgiving is coming up this Thursday, I would like to say thank you to those of people and events.

I would like to thank you for IFI organization. I came to Christ in January 2013 through attending IFI in Cincinnati. Thanks to Julie Rhine’s huge assist for my spiritual growth. I found out about the IFI internship program in Columbus, applied and was accepted.  Thanks to Estera for her thorough planning for ISEED program, which is intensive discipleship program. her devotion to the program make it more structured and meaningful.

I would like to thanks Linworth Baptist Church. I started attending Linworth in August, and getting more involved in the local church ministry. I thank God for this opportunity to develop both my professional and spiritual growth. With this gift, I work as a financial intern at IFI and also involved as an ISEED trainee.I am also thankful that Linworth has chosen to sponsor me for this program through a gift from one of their members, Russ Paine, who is now with the Lord.

I want to thank Gene & Phyllis Greene for their hospitality in allowing me to become a part of their family and treat me as one of their children. Besides my parents, nobody treat me that well.

Without those helps, the dream of being a qualified accountant and doing ministry among Chinese students will delay and being flawed. Your generosity also encourage me, if I would be financially affluent in the future, I would also support him or her for pursuing him or her dream and their spiritually growth. 

Enter His Gates with Thanksgiving

“Praise the LORD! Oh, give thanks to the LORD, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever. Who can utter the mighty acts of the LORD? Who can declare all His praise?” Psalm 106:1-2

Since it is thanksgiving week, I thought I would share with you one or two things I am thankful for. I am most thankful, that my Creator loved me enough to send His Son, Jesus Christ, so that I might have life, and have it abundantly. I find hope and joy in God’s promises. The LORD has led me through so many ups and down, valleys and mountains from a very young age. Oftentimes, I wondered why God had allowed certain painful memories in my life but now as I look back, I truly believe that it was for a great purpose. Now I’ve come to realize that my hardest times have absolutely lead to the greatest moments of my life thus far. Hence, I am very thankful that God never sends any of us into a situation alone but rather he sends his grace along and he knows we can endure. It has been incredible experiencing God’s power in my life as well as the lives of my loved ones. Without God, I would have given up on life long time ago (haha). But through his son Jesus Christ, my strength and courage have been renewed over the past few years.

            As any international student would tell you, my first year here in the US was quite a YEAR! It was challenging in numerous ways to the point where I felt like I wanted to hop onto the next plane to and go back Rwanda. But God being God, he stepped in and saw me through what I call a “roller coaster ride”. I cannot thank the Lord enough for the many ways he has blessed me throughout the past five years.  He helped me overcome low self-esteem, shyness, feeling inadequate and many cultural challenges.  I am grateful for Wofford College and its international students’ office for the love and care they showered me with during the course of my college education.  Wofford College has been a great support system to me since day 1! They connected me with an international student ministry in Spartanburg, SC through which I have grown both spiritually and emotionally. I am very thankful for everyone who is involved in any kind of international students’ ministry (IFI and many other organizations). Words can never be enough to express how grateful I am for people who have a heart to tirelessly serve international students. You all are investing into eternity. Thank you so much for taking care of us and providing a home away from home to many internationals in this country.  May you all be richly be blessed for all you do. Thanks for investing your time, resources, energy and everything in order to reach out to as many internationals as possible. Last but not least, thank you  Estera Pirosca for all you do for the ISEED program. 

Personal spiritual retreat

After struggling about whether to go for a retreat I scheduled one month ago, I decided to drag my tired body to drive for 2 hours to Cincinnati.

So here I am: surrounded by woods!

Here I was able to have a prayer walk, enjoy the nature and praise God.

I am planning to go back to China and I believer the Lord called me to do so.

Occasionally I would be anxious about what will happen when I go back. What if my dad push me to get married? What if my dad is preparing for the documents for me to immigrate? What if I can't find the fellowship similar to the one I enjoy here? What if I am asked to do some unethical things at work?

Oh Lord! Please help me! Apart from you I can truly do nothing. Even thinking about the future can create headache...

The Lord commands, "Amity, be still and know that I am God."

Here I am, not yet home, but is weary already. When can I learn to be still? When can I go rest in Him? When can I stop being obsessed with doing something? When can I say no to "self-sufficiency?

"In quietness and confidence would be your strength....."

Thankfully this prayer retreat helped me shift the focus back to God and ask for His wisdom.
Here I learned to slow down and hear what God has to say. I trust that within God's moral will, I can make the decision boldly sometimes knowing that He will bless me and the decision.

On the way back to Columbus, a thought came to my mind. It is fun to have an adventure with God the Father! Unknowns can be exciting! Hey...and we already know who will win!

Now, when I reflected on my faith journey after the retreat, I can see the seed of peace and patience has grown up a little bit more. Only He can do it!

A Trip to Heartbeat International Inc.

This post is written by Yuemin:

On Oct 22^nd, Estera and three ISEEDers are invited to have a field trip to Heartbeat International Inc. Ellen Foell, who work, as the legal specialist in this company, led us visit the entire company, introduced with every staff within this company and gave us an inspired presentation about the value of life.

Heartbeat International is a non-profit organization to assist women all over the world to escape the temptation and pressure to abort their babies. It has 200 affiliates all around the world. The mission of Heartbeat Inc. is to diminish the occurrence of abortion and take every opportunity to rescue as much life as they can. In order to fulfill their mission, Heartbeat Inc. set up the 24 hour contact center and cutting-edge website for those women who are vulnerable with abortion. Also, they build increasingly number of pregnancy center all around the world.

After visiting the whole company, Ellen gave us a presentation about The Value of The Life. I was impressed about this presentation. Previously, I did not know how harmful the abortion is, however, I really renewed my mind after this presentation. The embryo has the heartbeat after 7 weeks, but many of them are killed due to many reasons. Needless to say, abortion is absolutely equivalent to murder. In some less developed country, some motion life honor killing case the increase rate of abortion. Every single life is the masterpiece of God, but why does human-being cruelly wipe them out. Currently, the abortion rate goes up annually in the worldwide. Heartbeat Inc. makes every effort to make contribution in saving as many babies as they can. Their motion of selflessness touched me tremendously.

In the future, wherever I am in United States or China, I have the strong willing to try my best to help with anti- abortion and save many babies. 

Protecting God's artwork

Discipling Students to value life.

Last Wednesday, we visited Heartbeat International whose vision is “To make abortion unwanted today and unthinkable for future generations”.  It was such a privilege to visit this Christian organization because it is always encouraging to know that God is still raising people who can stand in “defense of his most valuable artwork”.

There is such an overwhelming rise of abortion rate around the world; it is so sad and unfortunate to see God’s artwork get destroyed every day. As Ellen Foell said: “The transformation of every human being into the image of Jesus is the ongoing work of God. When we cut off life, at either end, we are cutting off the work of God.” When a baby is conceived, God starts to intricately weave his/her life together for a great purpose. Seeing how much the abortion rate has gone up makes me wonder what God must be feeling. Have you ever spent hours working on something for e.g knitting, art, drawing or whatever it might be and then just before your work is completed someone comes and smashes everything up and literally “cut your work short”?.  It really hurts. So, I cannot image how God feels when his work gets demolished while He was just getting started. But, being a merciful God, He still loves us unconditionally and He never gets “discouraged.”

I was very touched by Ellen’s passion to hopefully one day be able to “eradicate” abortion worldwide; I could see it through her words. It is about time for more Christians to partake in advocating for life to be preserved and make the anti-abortion stance part of a larger pro-life worldview. The global society needs more organizations, people like Ellen (and her co-workers or as I call them WARRIORS) to speak against abortion and save that which God intends to flourish (life). 
We are all called to create a better world for babies to be born. Abortion is such a controversial issue and it should not be. Unfortunately, so many people still believe aborting a baby is a choice and human right. If I can quote Ellen: “When do our human rights become human WRONGS?” How painful is it that, in our society, it has become easier to hold up a sign favoring abortion (with a picture of a dead baby on it) but a lot harder to actually show grace and sympathy to a woman who got pregnant? Needs support to keep the baby?

Last but not least, I encourage you (who is reading this) to meditate on Proverbs 24: 10-12:“If you give up when trouble comes, it shows that you are weak. Save those who are being led to their death; rescue those who are about to be killed. If you say, “we don’t know anything about this”, God, who knows what’s in your mind, will notice. He is watching you, and he will know He will reward each person for what he has done”. Me and you can save at least one baby from being aborted today. It is time to ACT.  PRO-LIFE IS THE ONLY CHOICE BECAUSE IT IS GOD’S CHOICE. 

My prayer is that God continues to raise among us if not all of us pro-life activists with a heart to protect the most vulnerable.  

God PROs LIFE!

Last Wednesday, I had a chance to visit "Heartbeat International", a pro-life non-profit organization with other ISEEDers. I appreciate that IFI exposes us to other ministry and helps us see God's wonderful work. It was an unexpected experience for me and struck me personally. 

For those who don't know about this organization just like I did, its mission is to reach and rescue as many lives as possible, around the world, through an effective network of pregnancy help ministries that renew their communities for life. I didn't have any knowledge regarding the topic of abortion except knowing some people around me who had that experience. 

Isn't it a good reminder that every one of us are so precious in God's eye? He looked at His creation with a big smile and thought it's good. He loves even the unborn baby in the mom's womb. However, because of the fallen world and our sin nature, we lots of times make wrong decisions that upset and irritate God. One of those decisions is abortion. 

We watched the video together about a young lady's decision to abort her child because of broken marriage. Something happened and stopped her drink the herbal stuff that would kill the baby. It turned out that the baby became the laster well-known pianist Beethoven. 

The idea is not that people are killing the talented. It is rather that everybody has intrinsic value. Everyone is God's masterpiece. God's work is to transform every single human being into the image of Jesus. 

My application is that I will treat everybody equally with respect regardless of their status through God's help and conviction. Secondly, like Ellen said, do what God does. 

He protects and values life so we do. He loves people so we do. 

The whole workshop reminded me of my friend who told me about her abortion. I want to pray for her to know Christ and that she will not be ashamed but have the faith that she will be a new creation in Christ. 

A royal diadem in the hand of God

This post is from Angelique:

As most people would agree, moving to a new place always comes with its challenges, dislikes and likes. With that said, moving here to Columbus, OH made me taste each one of the above-listed experiences.

To say the least, Columbus has been a self-discovery place in several ways. I moved up here feeling like some “damaged good” that needed to be either thrown away or kept in a place for it to regain “life”. But, over the course of the days, I have been getting made “brand new” in various ways; thanks to the wonderful people God has been surrounding me with since the first day I got here. I would like to thank God for providing me with a wonderful host family (David and Mai Duff and their lovely daughters Hannah and Sarah). Their home is been my home away from home. They are loving, caring and fun people. Their humility has personally touched me .Mai serves as an example to me in so many ways. She has infused my heart with compassion and love for others. I do not know what your story is but mine, in a nutshell, is that “I have experienced God’s greatness birthed in my brokenness and disappointments”. What I have often looked at as “hardest times of my life” have brought forth delight and a sweet-surrendered dependence on God’s unconditional love. I truly believe that my eyes would not have been opened to see God’s greatness had I not took off this year and invest it in the ISEED program. God is surely using this year to reveal his goodness to me.

I just cannot wait to see all the wonderful plans/things HE has in store for me unfold one by one. I can smell it already. Isaiah 62: 3-4 says “You will be a crown of splendor in the LORD’s hand, a royal diadem in the hand of your God. No longer will they call you Deserted, or name your land Desolate”. This reminds me that I am a precious jewel of God, thus I encourage you (who is reading this) to see yourself as “a royal diadem in the hand of God”.

P.S If you are reading this and is feeling like God is telling you to pray for me, here is my prayer request: Pray that I learn to cope with some of the things that will require me to get out of my comfort zone and those which will challenge me.