The armor of God

So, I have always loved the passage describing the armor of God, but have wondered what each piece means practically. Why does each piece represent the quality that it represents? Finally, I sat down and thought through it and the gained insight into each piece. I don't know if this will make sense to anyone else, but I'll try to explain the best I can...
The Belt of Truth- The belt is what holds the outfit together. Without a belt, your pants fall off and you are exposed. It is truth that holds everything else together, because if what we do and say is full of lies, then everything we stand for is a scam. The truth that God brings us through his word protects us from shame, because it reminds us of the fact that in Christ we are no longer sinners, but can live without shame.
The breastplate of righteousness-  The breastplate protects the heart; who we are at the core. If we are living in righteousness, we are protecting the person that God created us to be. When we live in righteousness, we are living the life that God has called us to. Without a breastplate, a soldier's heart is easily pierced and the soldier dies. In the same way, without the righteousness of Christ that he gave us freely, we are condemned to die.
The shoes of the gospel of peace-  Shoes allow us to walk or run without our feet being in pain. Each day that we come to, whether it is full of chaos or frustration, we can hold on the good news that Christ has redeemed us. Because of this good news, we can have peace: An incredible peace that allows us to walk through all sorts of tribulation in joy and freedom. This peace brings freedom from fear that Satan tries to instill in our hearts. These shoes of peace allow us to "run with perseverance the race marked out for us." (Hebrews 12:1)
The helmet of Salvation- Satan loves to attack our minds, causing us to doubt the truth of God's salvation. Am I really saved? Is God really real? Does Christ's salvation really apply to me? Assurance of the salvation of God, and reminding ourselves over and over again of this wonderful truth is the best way we can protect ourselves from doubting God and His goodness towards us. When we doubt, we begin to enslave ourselves, either to try to gain salvation by works, or to give up and relent to sin in our lives. It is important for us to guard our minds with the knowledge of God's salvation.
The shield of faith- It is when we stop trusting in God and his promises that the devil has a foothold in our lives and can strike us with his lies, with his deception, and his destruction. It is only through faith in God that we can have life and freedom. It is our faith that frees us from the devil's schemes that lead to death. 
The sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God- It is through God's word that we can overcome the devil. This is our one offensive piece of armor. Every other piece is to protect us. The word of God and His Spirit is what we can use to fight and destroy the devil's schemes. The Spirit gives us wisdom to understand God's word and use it to speak into our hearts and the hearts of others, so that the devil's lies will not take hold of our lives. As Christ fought off temptation with the word of God, so we also can use God's word to fight off every doubt, every deception, every temptation that the devil tries to use to win us over and enslave us to him.

An adventurous start to the day

So, it is only 7:40 in the morning and I have already started my day off with an adventure. This morning, I walked to the bus stop and was waiting for the bus and apparently was really tired, because I just got on the next bus that came my way. It happened to be a bus that would take me to school, but not the usual way that I take, so when it took a strange turn, I got off of it. I thought about getting back on when I saw which bus it was, but then realized that the bus that I generally take was right behind it. What I forgot to take into account was that I had turned in the wrong direction. So, I got on this bus and started riding it and was wondering if I was going the right way, when it finally got to the bus interchange and confirmed my fears. I had taken the right bus in the wrong direction. Thankfully, I leave early enough for school that I was able to get on the right bus in the right direction and still be here on time, but I don't have much time to get work done before 17 small bodies flood my classroom. As I write this, I am reminded of what we talked about in bible study yesterday relating to Hebrews 12:1. We discussed the phrase "let us throw off everything that hinders." We talked about how it is often good things that hinder us and make us focus on those things, rather than the goal, which is Christ. Often we are on the right bus heading in the wrong direction. We do the right things, but for the wrong reasons. It makes me ponder where my goal is? What direction am I heading? Why am I doing the things that I do? Is it to glorify God, or seek approval from others?

"As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord"

I was watching the movie 'Courageous' tonight and it is so inspiring- for fathers... One of my favorite scenes is where Adam is doing his research about what it means to be a godly father and he says that he never knew how much the bible says about being a father. It made me wonder what the bible says about me in my stage of life. Then, I started wondering what that really means. I'm not a teen any more, I'm not a parent, or a wife. As I was looking at the books related to the movie, I noticed that there is a book for men- not me... a book for women... mainly about being a mother and wife, and a book for teens. I'm not trying to complain, but there are so many single adults who do not have much direction in their life. We either invest our lives in trying to get to the married stage of life, or marry ourselves off to our work, or having fun. What does the bible say about being a single adult? As far as I know that was not at all cultural in biblical times, so there is not much there, but maybe I should look it up. What can we as a church do to lead our single adults to live bold, godly lives? As singles, our houses our small, but we can still serve the Lord.

A sprinter's heart

I have realized lately that I am a sprinter at heart. When I was little, I remember I would do pretty well when it came to short races, but long distance races were exhausting and frustrating to me. I love swimming fast, quick spurts, but if you ask me to swim laps for very long, I get bored and frustrated.

The same is true about most things in life. I get super excited about doing something and I'll start on it, but if it takes very long to do, I won't complete it. I love getting involved in a lot of things, but I'm not very good at being consistent. I like to experience things for a short while, but then I give up. I will keep my room clean for a short time, but soon it is messy again. I will try to learn something new, but as soon as it gets frustrating, I am out. I get really involved in a new ministry for a while, but soon I get distracted with other new and exciting things to do.

That is one reason I am so amazed by God's faithfulness. Even though I mess up over and over again, God's doesn't try to move on to someone who might be better. He keeps working on me. Why? I'll never know.

My goal for this year is to be more consistent in the things I set out to do. Whether it's helping with the middle school youth group, keeping my room clean, losing weight, or learning how to surf. If I set out to do something, I don't want to give up on it.

The blessing of family

There are many days when I walk home and am grateful that I do not have the responsibility to take care of a family. I'm already not very good of taking care of myself, how would I have time to worry about a family?

Then, I get reminded of the beauty of family. I experience a home with kids running around and a mother cooking delicious food. I see an old couple walking along the road and talking. I can't even express the incredible longing that lies in my heart. The longing to live in a community, where I come home to a family that will love me through thick and thin, on the good days and the bad days. The longing that I have always had to have a close relationship with my grandparents who could teach and guide me. The longing to have someone to vent to and someone to listen to. The longing for a comforting lap on which to lay my tired head.

So I turn to God, the one called love, who leads, who guides, who listens, and comforts. I turn to the God who has a plan that is for the good of those who love him.

Messages Magnifying His Majesty

Recently, God has been teaching me a lot.

At work, my class has been very hard to handle, many of them have been absent, so it has been overwhelming trying to get anything taught or any work done, since I am always either dealing with discipline issues or catching students up from missing days or weeks of school. However, through this, God has reminded me of the importance of being completely dependent upon Him. He has shown me how truly, no matter how frustrating a person may be, each individual is made to reflect His image in their own unique way. He has reminded me of the importance of giving my all and having a joyful heart in the midst of hard times.

At church we have been going through the study of Exodus. It has been a good reminder of God's love for us, His power, His atoning sacrifice, and His constant presence even when He seems distant. I was thinking this evening about the Israelites and their 400 years of enslavement and comparing it to the 400 years of silence between Malachi and when Jesus was born. In both situations, I am sure people wondered where God was, as sometimes I wonder in my own situations. Yet, then God comes as the "I am." Christ comes as Emmanuel (God with us). He is existent and present in our lives.

In a staff devotions at school, God keeps reminding me of the importance of living each day bring God the glory. This also connects to the Exodus study, as we have talked about how God delivers the Israelites to demonstrate His glory.

Also, with His little nudges each day, God keeps reminding me that it is not about me. That he prefers me to serve those around me through small acts of love than to work on showing that I am a great teacher or doing things for me to enjoy. He is reminding me that I need to poor myself out in love to serve those around me. As I have been overwhelmed with making sure that I eat and sleep and still get at least some of my work done, I have not spent the energy I should in serving God in this way yet.

God has also been blessing me in great ways.
- While my class has been challenging, they seem to be growing and maturing and this week they behaved incredibly well and we were able to do many fun things in class and get a lot of work done as well.
- Since I broke my foot in May, my foot has either been in a cast or been in pain. This week, I started going to physiotherapy, and it has improved tremendously. This weekend, I plan to go jogging at least once to see how it does.
- God is allowing me opportunities to get more involved with my church, which has helped me feel so much more at home.
- The 4th/5th grade girls' basketball team that I am coaching has a great attitude and loves playing, even if they are playing a team that is much bigger and rougher than they are. Our team was moved to a harder division, which has been really challenging, but I think will stretch them and make them better basketball players in the end.
- Today we had middle school girls help out in our classroom. They were a huge blessing as they helped my students get unfinished work done, prayed with my students, and then played games with them.
- God has allowed me opportunities to get to know my staff members more, through prayer groups and dinners out, which has been phenomenal.
- Even though my class is hard to control, they love participating, even in Bible, which was a struggle last year. 

The road to Emmaus

This past week was the first week that our church started a series on Exodus. I started reading a book called redemption, talking about the story of Exodus through the lens of God's story of redemption. The introduction emphasized the point that we often try to make ourselves the center of our story. However, the story is really about God. I have been challenged to look back on the events of my life and put them in perspective with who God is and his story of redemption; to take each moment and remember that I am not the center, but God is using what I am going through to bring glory to himself; to remember that God has a great plan that I can put my hope in daily. Today, I reflected on different ways God has manifested himself through my life (i.e. as a restorer, through the way he always heals my broken bones and other injuries). How awesome it is to just look and see God in history, even if it is just a small part of His great story. In church this morning, I was challenged to respond to God with a willing and joyful heart, because ultimately every moment of my life is about Him. Isn't that what Jesus was telling the disciples on the road to Emmaus?

Oh, but how I forget that He is the center of it all! Every day, I get overwhelmed with the work I need to do, I put my desires in things other than Christ alone, I fear the future. God has already written the story, and I need to seek Him first. Then everything else will fall into place. I need to realize, that I am insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but God has graciously chosen to weave me into His story.

What a Barabbas I am!

This morning I was reading the end of Matthew and it hit me again how similar I am to Barabbas and how awesome God's grace is. Like Barabbas, I have committed numerous treacheries against God. The only difference, is his were that everyone knew about. Christ, in his grace died and in doing so, saved Barabbas from his death as a criminal, and me from my death as a sinner. How great is God's grace!

Reflections on his life-giving glory

This evening I sat for a while watching ripples of water in the bay. I got up and started walking to take a bus home and I saw this fountain that was turned off and the water was still. I looked at it and thought how pathetic it seemed in comparison to the swaying ripples of water that I had just seen. I thought about how life-giving God is and how he gives us surprises, or little joys in our days- they don't have to be much, but they can add so much to our lives if we accept them (kind of like the little ripples in the water). I thought about how we as humans often take the life out of things. We forget to take delight in the little things and our life becomes flat and lifeless.

Later, I started dreaming about my future and then dismissed it as fantasies. Then, I sensed God say "Why do you dismiss those dreams so quickly? Don't you know that I created you to dream? Don't you know that I have dreams too?" He reminded me of his dream- to have every man, woman, and child with him in heaven. He has spent enormous amounts of love creating each one of us and wants to continue to pour out his love on us. Wow! what an awesome dream and responsibility on us who do know him to tell those who do not yet know him. As I continued to sit and ponder, I thought about how some of our dreams come true, and that is great. Some do not turn out the way we planned, but we can either be disappointed and frustrated by it, or we can make it into something even more beautiful than what our dream was. Now, to make my realities even more beautiful than my dreams...

A slow purification process

So often I get frustrated when I repent of my sins and tell God that I am going to try to change and then continue to make the same mistakes. However, this evening as I was thinking on that, I realized that even though I do, over the years it becomes less of a temptation and I start to improve in whatever area I am struggling with. I was reminded that sanctification is not simply a one-time event where we are forgiven and immediately change our ways. Rather, sanctification is a process that takes time. God reminded me of the disciples, and how they doubted Jesus over and over again. Through years of the disciples not demonstrating faith, Jesus remained faithful, until finally they had enough faith to sacrifice their lives for His sake.

Finding God

Jeremiah 29:13-14 "You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the Lord

These past two weeks have been very long. I miss my class from last year a lot. Partially I think because they were my first class, but also because they were a lot of fun. The class I have now is full of large personalities and I have not yet figured out how to control them. Even when they seem to be doing better in my class, they act up in every other class. Anyways, all that leads to a teacher that is exhausted at the end of the day and in search of refuge. God, as always is faithful in allowing himself to be found.

 God sightings these first two weeks of school

• Having a group of teachers that gets together and focuses on eating healthy by fixing food for the week together every weekend.
• Being prayed for by the Korean church where I volunteer.
• Having a refreshing and restoring weekend with my church.
• Building a great relationship with one of the third grade mothers during out church retreat.
• Reading prayer journals of students who earnestly are praising God for who He is as the creator of the universe.
• Having staff devotions every week with videos of Francis Chan.
• Having an amazing prayer group with other ladies that work at our school.
• Being reminded of the image of God in each of my students as they presented posters about themselves.
• Seeing how interested my students are in each others' lives, even if it means 13 of them are asking questions at the same time and none of them can be understood.
• Meeting up with an old family friend, who was incredibly encouraging and having dinner after an especially tiring day at school.
• Hearing from the doctor that even though my foot is in pain, it has healed really fast. 
• After a Starbucks conversation, walking home and realizing that I believe Abba has put a number of things in place to lead me to Indonesia in a few years (I really have no idea when, but I'll wait on His perfect timing). 
• Seeing the courage of a student in my class who is not only going through chemo, but willing to share about all the details with his classmates.
• Watching students decide to help each other with their work after I had told them they could draw or read, but had never even suggested helping other students.

Wow! Things seem to change completely when we look at the great things God has done!

Please be praying for my student with leukemia who is going into treatment on Monday and will not be in school for 2-3 weeks. He turns 9 tomorrow. Also be praying for two of the third grade students in the other class who do not know the Lord. 

A refreshing weekend

After a tiring first week of school, I left for Malaysia on a church retreat. It was a wonderful weekend of worship, fun, rest, and learning. On our way there, God answered prayers by clearing the roads so we could get there quickly. We were the only ones at the border crossing!!

As a church, we were reminded of the 5 pillars on which our church was built. The pastor talked about being intentionally gospel centered and we played a game in which we were to apply the gospel to real-life situations.

After a sermon on the importance of knowing God's word deeply, we answered some Bible trivia and after a sermon about being a community on mission, we played a game called the underground church. This game involved Roman soldiers trying to capture Christians and stop them from building a church, Christians who were trying to convert all the non-Christians through 'prayer' and build an underground church, church planters who planned where the church would be, and non-Christians who were focused on gaining 10 treasures (one of which ended up being true joy, which they could only gain by becoming a Christian). We also got to hear the mission plan of the church that is focused on planting churches in cities in the surrounding area.

My favorite service was about experiential faith and the importance of not only knowing about God through his word, but through a relationship with him. Through this relationship, God blesses us with Spiritual gifts that we are to use to bless others. As believers, we are to be desperately dependent on God, eagerly expecting him to work, diligent in our pursuit of godliness, and desiring of God.

Finally, we ended our retreat hearing about the importance of city renewal. we were reminded of the truth of Tim Keller's quote: "In cities you have more image of God per square inch than anywhere else in the world." How awesome it is that we get to invest in the image of God! We watched a video about Singapore and the huge ministry opportunities this small nation has. Some statistics: Singapore is in the top 10 most wealthy nations in the world, but it is one of the top countries for economic disparity between the rich and the poor. 26% of the national budget goes to national defense, while only 0.6% goes to social services. These are the only ones I remember, since I am not good with statistics, but it makes me really excited to be living in a country where there are so many needs to be met. Oh! and Singapore is #2 in Asia for most unhappy working people.

Confessions of a Third grade teacher

The first day of school is quite an exciting time of the year. It's full of energy, life, fears and goals. Today was the first time I have had a first day of school as a teacher in my own classroom. Yesterday, I was supposed to write a professional development plan for myself, in which I create a goal for myself and write out how I am going to accomplish this goal. However, as I prepared to start school and worked on this at the same time, I panicked. I started thinking about all the things I did not do well last year and how much work I still had to get done before school started. Oh, what Satan can do when he pulls your mind towards all the negative things of life! Pretty soon I was in tears while I skyped with my parents, believing I was a horrible teacher and doubting if I should keep teaching. Thankfully, God is a big God and as soon as I got off skype, I was encouraged by my roommates singing worship songs.

When I got to school, I was still very nervous. Then, when I went to pick up my students to bring them up to my classroom, I started to relax a little as I greeted students. As the day went on, not only did I become more comfortable, but so did the students. They began to become fairly chatty... something we are going to have to crack down on this week. I am very excited for the energy this class has and look forward to a full year of seeing God work in awesome ways.

Our theme this year is “build up” and is focused on 1 Thessalonians 2:8, which says “so we cared for you. Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well.” I am very excited to see how students learn to build each other up and how God works in their lives this year. Please pray for the students in my class as I believe many of them have a very low self-esteem. Pray that I might speak God’s words of love into their hearts that they might grow to know how precious they are in His sight. Also, please pray for protection over the devil’s schemes to tear us down- both in my life and the lives of my students.

God sightings today... 

... receiving a teacher's survival kit  (http://familycrafts.about.com/od/giftsforteacher/ss/Teachers_Survival_Kit.htm) 

...seeing a student erase what he had done and work more carefully when I told another student that it didn't matter if he couldn't draw well as long as he did his best.  

...receiving a Starbucks frappucino in the middle of my teaching day.

...listening to students talk about how they saw each other doing good things throughout the day. It is amazing what students observe and how great they are at encouraging each other when we give them time to do so. 

…on my way home from school, having a teacher (who is also a parent of a student in my class) stop and encourage me.

Returning to Singapore

I have been back in Singapore 2 days and already realize that I have forgotten many things about living in this county. This morning for example, I was paying for some groceries and I almost froze when I couldn't remember the pin for my debit card. What if I typed it wrong? That would be embarrassing! Thankfully, I did remember and got through the line without a problem, but it gave me quite the panic.

After being in a country where you never get the right of way as a pedestrian, even when your light is green, I had a little trouble tonight on my way home. As I walked home, I came up to a crosswalk where pedestrians are always given the right-of-way. I paused and waited for the car that was stopped right in front of the crosswalk, expecting him to go, until I finally realized that I wouldn't get run over if I walked in front of this car.

Summer Summary

This summer, I visited family and friends in three continents, 8 cities and took 11 plane flights.
Singapore
Three days before the school year ended, I broke my foot. Thankfully friends that live close to school let me stay at their apartment so that I could get a ride to school more easily. Once school was over, I stayed in Singapore for another week. I was very grateful for this week in which I was able to get accustomed to using crutches, take my time cleaning out my classroom, rest and spend some time on my own.
Then, I flew to Chicago through Seoul, South Korea. I was so grateful that our school nurse was on the same flight from Singapore to Seoul, since I was nervous about traveling with a broken foot.
Chicago
In Chicago, I spent 2 weeks with my brother, his wife and four kids and my sister. We spent many nights staying up late playing games or watching movies.
One day my sister took me shopping and I was trying to push myself around in a wheelchair and got stuck between clothing racks. She also took my nephew, niece and I to Indiana to visit our grandmother for 4 days. It was fun to watch my uncle take the kids out to drive tractors and bale hay.
I went to the hospital and got my crutches and caste replaced with a boot to walk it. After 4 weeks where I had not walked a step, it took a while to adjust. 
During this time, I started reading Nehemiah. What an amazing book, full of God's work and goodness and a reminder of our job to respond as Nehemiah, with prayer, diligence, and preparedness to fight the enemy.
After this visit, I flew to Memphis, Tennessee for a conference nearby in Mississippi.
Memphis
In Memphis, I learned more about what it means to be a Third Culture Kid (TCK) and how I can help other TCKs who are growing up with so many challenges and opportunities. I met a wonderful woman named Libby Stephens, who has a huge passion for TCKs and was grateful for her insights and understanding.
I was challenged by those around me as well. One thing most TCKs struggle with is fitting in to a culture. However, when I get to spend time with other TCKs and talk openly about the struggles of a TCK, I often forget about those around who do not relate to this experience. I forget that we are all human and struggle in different ways. I forget that they may want to fit in to the TCK culture when that is the dominant culture, just  as I want to fit into their culture under other circumstances.
During this time, we studied 1 Peter 1. I was reminded that we are elected to be strangers- not to belong in this world, so that we can obey Christ and spread His word throughout the nations. Through this there are struggles, but we are called to put our hope in Jesus Christ, no matter the circumstances.
Colombia
After not seeing my dad's family in 5 years, I got to see all but one of my cousins and meet two cousins that I had never met before. What a blessing that was! My family went to the beach and enjoyed beautiful waves. While at the beach we stayed at the hotel where a beauty pageant was going on.
During the last two weeks of my time in Colombia, I got to see the great ministry that my parents have in Colombia. My dad is teaching at the seminary there and I only heard great things about his class. More importantly, however, both my parents have a huge ministry with the students they live with on the seminary campus. They often have students over to their house for meals, they have provided some students with work, and are building relationships to invest in the lives of so many students hungry to know more about the Lord. What an amazing privilege it was to see my parents who have gone through so much and know the Lord so deeply being able to invest in these students who are so thirsty for Him.

In general, this summer has been a huge blessing in allowing me to rest after a hectic year in Singapore. Besides what I have already written, something I have been reflecting on all summer has been the following:
I will never belong to a place or community on this earth completely. Even within my family- my extended family keeps asking me when I will come 'home' to live and my immediate family does not always understand why I don't come live closer. I'm a Colombian who speaks with an American accent, an American who does not understand the worldview of the American culture. I have lived in Australia and Japan, but know very little about either culture. All this is a great privilege that I have. The privilege of understanding the outcast, the privilege of reaching the nations, the privilege of living by faith in a heavenly home, rather than relying on an earthly home.

2012 update

God has blessed me this past year with the privilege of serving him in the bustling island of Singapore, located in Southeast Asia. I have been working at a Christian international school that is part of the Network of International Christian Schools. From August until December, I got to know many of the high school students through my job as an academic counselor. I also had the amazing opportunity of investing in the lives of many of the middle school students as I taught physical education and accompanied a group on a service trip to an island nearby. In January, I was blessed with my own classroom of third grade students.

Besides teaching, I have helped lead a bible study for third and fourth graders at our school. It was so amazing to see how God works in the hearts of his little children and to hear what wisdom they have, even when they are so young. I have also been helping out at a Korean church that is starting up in the area as well as volunteering with the youth group at the church that I am now a member at.

I am looking forward to returning to teach a second year, with all its adventures, challenges, and blessings. I hope that you will join me in prayer during this year. Please pray for…
… my own spiritual growth and strengthening, so that God’s love could overflow into the lives of my students.
… my students to grow in their understanding of God and His word.

The Lord has blessed me with a salary that covers my expenses. However, there are a number of projects that I would love to give to financially, including sending our students on service trips to countries nearby. I would appreciate your involvement in these ministries so that God’s kingdom would come to all parts of this world. If you would like to give financially please go to the following website: http://nics.org/Donate-start and under destination choose the option “Missionary Support.” Then, type in my name, or the following project number: 003552. You can also write a check made out to NICS/OASIS and send it to 3790 Goodman Rd E Southaven, MS 38672 U.S.A. To assure that your gifts are tax-deductible, please do not put my name on the check (you may put my project number on the check, instead). 
                                                                                                
If you want to hear more about my adventures, you can read my blog: http://setasaseal.blogspot.com/ or ask me to send you e-mail updates. Thank you so much for your prayers and support!

-Erika


Romans 15:17 “Therefore I glory in Christ Jesus in my service to God.”

Set as a a Seal Song of Songs 8:6

The past couple weeks I have been amazed again at the wonder of the Lord's grace. I have sinned against him over and over again and yet, he forgives me. Often, I have wondered if that forgiveness would ever end. The other night he reminded me of his high calling in Matthew 18:21-35 where he charges his disciples to forgive one another not just seven times, but seventy times seven times. If he calls us to such a great task, how much more willing would he be to forgive us?

When we call upon him to give us grace in our time of need, when we accept him as our Lord, our Savior, our restorer, he cleanses us and presents us joyfully before God. Jesus, the one we continue to hurt with our sin wants to take the church as his bride and joyfully present us before our Father. Like a young man in love he is proud of us and wants to show us off before God. Wow!

In his act of love for us, he sets us as a seal upon his heart, with Love that is stronger than death. He is jealous and desires us to be his own; his alone. (Song of Songs 8:6)