As requested, here is the list of the Bible verses we read and were sustained by during our time in Cambodia. I deliberately chose familiar and much-loved verses/passages for these times. We followed with a time of prayer with a different team member 'closing' for us each day.
Isaiah 41:10
So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand
Micah 6:8
He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
Psalm 46:10
Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.
1 Corinthians 3:16
Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you?
Psalm 25: 4-5
Show me your ways, O Lord, teach me your paths; guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long.
1 Peter 5: 6-7
Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.
Proverbs 16:3
Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your plans will succeed.
Romans 12: 1a ( from The Message)
So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering.
Hebrews 12:1-2 (after briefly talking about the wonderful catalogue of ‘the faithful’ in Chapter 11. The picture is of a race, not a sprint, but an ‘in-it-for-the-long-haul’ run. And I just HAD to slip my beloved Hebrews 11-12 in somewhere!
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
Psalm 28:7
The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped.
Joshua 2: 1-13
Then Joshua son of Nun secretly sent two spies from Shittim. "Go, look over the land," he said, "especially Jericho." So they went and entered the house of a prostitute named Rahab and stayed there. 2 The king of Jericho was told, "Look! Some of the Israelites have come here tonight to spy out the land." 3 So the king of Jericho sent this message to Rahab: "Bring out the men who came to you and entered your house, because they have come to spy out the whole land." 4 But the woman had taken the two men and hidden them. She said, "Yes, the men came to me, but I did not know where they had come from. 5 At dusk, when it was time to close the city gate, the men left. I don't know which way they went. Go after them quickly. You may catch up with them." 6 (But she had taken them up to the roof and hidden them under the stalks of flax she had laid out on the roof.) 7 So the men set out in pursuit of the spies on the road that leads to the fords of the Jordan, and as soon as the pursuers had gone out, the gate was shut.
8 Before the spies lay down for the night, she went up on the roof 9 and said to them, "I know that the LORD has given this land to you and that a great fear of you has fallen on us, so that all who live in this country are melting in fear because of you. 10 We have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to Sihon and Og, the two kings of the Amorites east of the Jordan, whom you completely destroyed. 11 When we heard of it, our hearts melted and everyone's courage failed because of you, for the LORD your God is God in heaven above and on the earth below. 12 Now then, please swear to me by the LORD that you will show kindness to my family, because I have shown kindness to you. Give me a sure sign 13 that you will spare the lives of my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, and all who belong to them, and that you will save us from death."
1 Peter 3:14 (this was when Jeff was so ill and in hospital).
But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. Do not fear what [others] fear - do not be frightened. Take courage.
2 Peter 1:2-8
Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.
3His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 4Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
5For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; 7and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. 8For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
To Kit and the other members of this remarkable group. These are my very early comments- not on your passages which sound beautiful but about your work.
I only know about your work through a mutual friend of Kit's - if she objects not to my singling her out. You are all equally to be congratulate and I do so now. I wanted Kit to laugh when she hears the "mutual friend" initially termed this a "rehab" group until she realized the definition of the term - a term explained to her by yet another friend from Idaho. Please know your project has merited support across the globe.
What wonderful work you all do and have accomplished. My thank you to all for sharing it with the world. You are to be commended for helping vulnerable young people in a part of the world where they need all of us who seek justice and good to intervene and care in the way you and your spiritual movement have done so.
Sincerest regards and again, thank you. Shalom.,
T livni
I read most of this and literally cried. I have a professional degree in helping people, especially children and women with this kind of issue and amazingly have recently uncovered some of my own problems as a child and accompanied by my therapist and a relative who also is a superb therapist, revisited the site. The building still stands though it no longer serves its former purpose - and why does saying that remind me of the "House of Special Purpose" used top murder the last Russian Czar and his family? Its purpose was actually one of healing but for me it holds horrible memories. I say all this because I did not handle the revisiting all that well so I am amazed and awed and literally stunned by how well those young children coped by visiting it. It makes me feel as though I need to be stronger and I grieve for them. We in the west have so much at our disposal and they have so little.
I appreciate the work you all have done and want to congratulate you all for following your heart and a call from God to do this very special work. I am Jewish but it is all the same God and I have been educated in Catholic schools enough to have learned how to offer my suffering up top God whether as a Jew or as someone he loves enough to provide the strength to cope (sometimes well, sometimes not) with much but always offer it as a way it can be a prayer for hope and love. I always hop[e and trust these instances will make one a better person and a more caring and moral soul.
I am certain this experience will stay with all of you forever and if I am correct about the term eschatology - which we do not utilize really in my own religion - that you have brought some escatalogical hope to these young women and to this village. They too may practice another religion but one hopes that in the Christian sense, they will have a second coming - their own brand of escatology. I do hope this makes sense and what I understand of Christian theology is not as "rusty" as it sounds. I do know it is about a larger second coming but that is hopeful for Christians and I am thinking maybe you have given them their own type of eschatology?
Thanks again for being such super role models and ambassadors for who we should be in North America. The people of Cambodia need to know we are not all like the evil they have had the horror of seeing and perhaps experiencing. I am sure the new house, Rahab, (and yes, I can type and spell it now Katie and Zippy :-) ), will go a long way to help them fell that.
Siobhan
Post a Comment