First Wave

We all arived in City J several days ago. Our first task is to read the complete Bible as a team out loud here in the East part of the city. Speaking out the Word of God is a declaration of God's character of Who He is and we believe is the first part to seeing many come to know Christ. We have spent over the last 48 hours reading the Scriptures. We have three hour assignments in groups of three to four and then late night assignments in groups of two during the wee hours of the night.

The East side of City J reminds me much of Phnom Pehn in Cambodia. It's the wet season now. Water pours down in turrential rain here soaking down the streets in huge puddles. Many of the homes here are flooded up to a foot of water.

Our apartment, however, is try for now. It is a three bedroom apartment oddly right next to an auto shop. It has a very small kitchen, living room, and dinning room. All fourteen of us fit snuggly in this little apartment. We're very thankful for the airconditioners in each of the bedrooms which blow cold air in the hot and humid nights.

One exciting thing that happened was that we were invited into a Mosque yesterday as we were prayer walking. I immediately noticed the spiritual oppression as soon as I walked within its gates. Anyone who has walked into a temple and has felt the darkness in those places will know what I am speaking about. But we met several of the school teachers there who seemed very friendly to us. We prayed outside the Mosque walls asking God that the veil of misunderstanding would be lifted from their eyes and the Muslims would know the true God. I'll speak a little bit more about Islam later in my blog but Muslims do not know the compassionate and loving God that we know. They live in fear not knowing where they are going at the end of their lives. They worship a distant and unemotional God. But there's hope for them. I believe that Muslims can be some of the greatest Christians because they can take their zeal and apply it to their relationship with Christ.

We here are part of the first wave of hundreds and thousands that will be going to City J, crying out that the Lord will bring salvation into this city. But here there is much hard ground that needs to be broken up. The hard ground of the soil of City J needs to be tilled and the harder we hit this ground, with our prayers and in our faith, the greater work God will be able to do in the succeeding waves.