However, through the conversations our house church has been in, I am seeing now that confession of sins is a prerequisite to true fellowship.  If I am unable to confess my deepest struggles to God (who already knows them anyway), how will I be able to open up and share that with my brothers in Christ?

1 John 1:7 says. “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.”  Having a light-filled relationship with Jesus not only cleanses us of sin, but paves the way for true fellowship with one another.  I now realize that I must be doing my part in my relationship with God before I can give an honest effort to have fellowship with my brothers and sisters in Christ.  If I am refusing to walk completely in the light and expose myself before Jesus, then I will never be able to walk in that light alongside my wife, or alongside my closest friends.

It is interesting realizing that this fellowship on the outside requires a personal discipline on the inside, because it was the outward fellowship that brought me to this understanding.  This must certainly be a movement of God within us, seeded through one or more of us that are already living in that Light.

Therefore, how do we acknowledge that struggle to maintain the power, and how do we learn to give that power away?  Raised firmly in the middle-class, my parents instilled in me a personal pride and confidence that I can do anything.  In addition, my first words as a child were “Momas do,” meaning “Thomas do” because I could not yet pronounce my own name.  At that young age, I wanted very much to do things my way and maintain control over my situation.

When it comes to social justice, Soong-Chan asked, “Why do we gravitate to places where justice doesn’t cost us anything?”  We want to help people, but naturally will want to do it our way because we are in the position of authority.  God has blessed us with enormous resources, even many we don’t even know about.  Sharing those resources will not be easy.  But searching out new ways of taking advantage of those resources (even running them dry) and then giving away all that power – that’s going to be really hard.  Ultimately that’s what God is calling us to do.

Caution!  Dangerous and Convicting statement ahead!!  (don’t be mad, Soong-Chan said it first)
For those relocating from white middle-class to minister in non-white communities, I have two things for you:  1. You must be willing to give up all that power.  2. You should have a non-white mentor in your life to guide you.  If you don’t have both of those things, you will likely become a white colonialist, and not a missionary for Jesus.

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You, in your present state even with all your sin, are the salt of this world.  Jesus came and preached a message of life and hope for all people.  Sometimes I forget that I am a part of that “all people.”  It isn’t too hard for us to think down on ourselves because of what we have done or think that we need to get our act together before we can be salt and light again.  I found this message to be extremely practical for those who are just trying to learn about what a relationship with Jesus is really like.  I think that in the context of the day, Jesus is telling us that Your unique personality is vital to the kingdom of God.  And no matter how messed up you are, you can still be a light right now.  Don’t think that getting your act together will cost you your fun personality.  If you already like who you are, good.  God made you unique and wants you to be yourself.  If you don’t like what you’ve done, join the club!  Everyone has lots of things about them that they wish were better and the truth is that no matter what we do, we still can’t achieve perfection in this lifetime.  So stop condemning yourself for your past, especially the most recent past.  “For there is no condemnation for those in Christ!” Romans 8:1.  Instead, embrace your new identity in Christ and remember these two things.  Your blessing has already come.  And you are a light to the world.

That’s when God gripped my heart.  He would not allow me to think of anything else but this poor woman’s situation.  I crossed the street, took out $100FJ and but it in my hand.  I walked over to a small step where she couldn’t see me and sat down.  I prayed and decided that if God were to lead the woman over back to sit with me, then I would give her the money in my hand and talk with her about how much God loves her and see if she can’t get herself out of her situation.  Well… God knew this was a rare chance of generosity he found me in and He wasn’t going to pass up this opportunity to use me to bless this woman.  So of course she walks right up to me and sits down!  I could tell by the look on her face that she wasn’t sure why she was doing what she was doing, but she sat right down.  I told her what I had just prayed and that God wants her to know how much He loves her and sees everything and is active in her life.  She lit up of course even before I handed her the money – that’s when she jumped up so happy.  I prayed for her and then she ran to tell her friends.  Her friends came over to me and asked me to pray for them too.  Of course I did and we all cried and smiled.

On my way back to my hotel again, I was followed.  I walked faster, but the man behind me caught up to me and stopped me.  He was a young man about my age.  He said that he saw what I had done for the women on the street and asked if I could pray for him too.  He told me that when he was 15, his parents kicked him out of the house because He became a Christian.  He had been homeless ever since.  He could only read and write in Hindi – which was of little use for finding a job in Fiji.  He asked me to give him money for a Bible in both English and Hindi.  I was not in the habit of just giving money to homeless people so we walked to his church.  They told him that he could come back the next day to purchase the Bible for $120FJ.  That’s an expensive bible, but there was no other way for getting him this Bible once I had left the country.  We went to a bar and I asked the bartender if He could charge my credit card for $150 and give me the cash for it.  The bartender was very nice and did for me.  I gave the man the money and told him to use the rest to buy some glasses because He could not read very well without glasses.  He was so overwhelmed with gratitude and I was so overwhelmed with how easy it was for me to change his life!  We talked and prayed a little while longer.  I left him with my address so he could write me.  He had also not eaten that day and I felt so bad for not keeping my leftovers from the restaurant.  20 min after I got back to the hotel, he knocked on my door.  He had lost the paper I had written my address on and wanted me to write it down again.

I left Fiji knowing that God used part of my vacation to bless His children that needed love.  I received two Christmas cards and an email from the man that year when I got back to the States.

Rugby was also a sport that I learned to play at Griffith University.  A bunch of guys convinced me to play on the school rugby team.  That was the biggest culture shock I had yet to experience!  The lingo used in professional sports never follows the rules of the English language, so I had to learn the language of rugby at the same time.  The “deer in headlights” look was a common pose of mine whenever I was commanded to do something on the field.  But the Aussies were pretty nice to me, despite my $9 cleats and absolutely no experience.  We practiced twice a week all semester which led up to one massive game at the end of the school year.  There were two teams at Griffith and they had a pretty big rivalry.  We were going to be the underdogs in this one because the other team had a real coach and the players were all older and bigger.

I don’t know how we did it, but we ended up winning.  I received quite the shiner under my eye after taking out a guys legs.  Other than that, I didn’t really play much on the field.  I made few mistakes and took some hard hits, but that’s about all I was good for.  In the end it was very rewarding and coming back from behind in the second half was an unbelievable feat.  Adrenaline was so high, I can’t even explain it.  The party afterward took both teams and a lot of fans to the bar.  It was very civilized despite the heated rivalry and all that energy went into bringing all the guys on the team really close together.

In both cases I was the only player that was not Australian on the team.  This was the best Australian experience I had as the majority of my other friends at Griffith were not from Australia and were study abroad students from other parts of the world.  I also got a sweet pair of short shorts out of the deal!

Acts 16 – Paul and Silas pray, praise in prison
Message: Once I was going, then I left.
On the most ordinary days, God gets time to do extraordinary things.

Don’t lose the Christ in Christian.  Church is the easiest place to lose your close connection with God.

God’s personal message for me started in Jonah until “the wind blew” and God showed me the entire book of Obadiah.  It seems that in my life, running is useless.  I will be brought down to live in a lowly place, my possessions and food will be robbed, I will be betrayed by those closest to me.  But in the end justice will be served and God’s kingdom will reign.

Thank you! Father, Jesus, Holy Spirit.

The very next day after the reef trip, we took a tour of the Daintree rain forest about an hour north of Cairns. This was almost more interesting than the reef only because we had the best tour guide ever. His name was Dave and his stories of encourntering animals in the wild rivaled those of Steve Irwin. We also got to see the only place in the world where a rainforest meets a coral reef right along the coast. More pictures of that will come later too. The rest of the week was mostly spent relaxing on Mission beach about 2 hours south of Cairns. From there, we drove to different beaches in the area and also spent a lot of time just outside our place on a private beach. The whole trip was so relaxing and I wish I could have spent much more time there.

Please pray for my grandmother, Alice and my Aunt Cathy. They are both struggling with health issues right now. Thank you all for your love and support back home.

Tom