Hello!

I won’t lie, these past few weeks have been all over the board for me emotionally, physically, mentally and spiritually. Sickness, a death in the family, preaching, doing ministry and asking really big questions of God is a lot to process in a short amount of time. My biggest question this week was “Why does God allow innocent children to suffer horrific things that they have no control over?” The reality is millions of children suffer physical, mental, emotional and sexual abuse. Millions of children are starving and will die of starvation. Millions of children are orphaned and homeless. Millions of children are beat up, robbed and murdered. The reality is while God allows these atrocities to happen, Satan causes them to happen. Check out Job 1:6-12 and 2:1-6.

There’s no doubt about it, there’s a lot of evil in this world. And Satan rules all of the evil in the world but God…God is Sovereign over it all.

Evil is necessary to exist in order for us to have the choice to choose God out of our own freewill. God would not truly be loving towards us and we would not truly love God if He did not give us the choice to choose to love Him.

And what Satan intends for evil, God uses for good. How? Well, if children die, though it is heartbreaking, they go to heaven and will be with God for eternity. If these abused children grow up they have to wrestle with God and decide if they want to choose if God is Good and Loving and Just. I think God allows us to go through really hard things so that we can know and experience God in ways we never would’ve been able to otherwise. For example, if Satan hadn’t sent a tornado to destroy my university campus, then I would not have known or experienced God as Powerful, Refuge, Restorer, and Sovereign. If I never experienced any evil I would not truly know or understand God to be Good, Loving or the Just and Justifier.

Evil happens but God is Sovereign over it all.

“All things work together for the good of those thatlove God,
who have been called according to His purposes.” Romans 8:28

In the end, God will exercise all of His Justice and Satan and those who follow Satan’s example will be punished in hell for eternity. In the end, those of us who love God will live in a completely restored world, with completely restored bodies, minds and souls and we will live forever with God in a blissful, perfect eternity!

“Terror No More”
(Psalm 10:10-18)
“The helpless are crushed, sink down, and fall by his might.
He says in his heart, “God has forgotten, He has hidden His face, He will never see it.”
Arise, O LORD; O God, lift up Your hand; forget not the afflicted.
Why does the wicked renounce God and say in his heart, “You will not call to account”?
But YOU DO SEE, for You notice mischief and vexation, THAT YOU MAY TAKE IT INTO YOUR HANDS;
To You the helpless commits himself; You have been the helper of the fatherless.
Break the arm of the wicked and evildoer; call his wickedness to account till You find none.
The LORD is King forever and ever; the nations perish from His land.
O LORD, You hear the desire of the afflicted; You will strengthen their heart;
You will incline Your ear to do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed,
so that man who is of the earth may striketerror no more.”

 
There’s plenty more to this thought train and some deep philosophy and theology to go with it and I’ve wrestled with those things too. So, if you want to discuss anything further, my inbox is wide open for you to shoot me an email. 🙂

Updates, prayer requests and pictures are below!

I love you all!

Peace in Christ–
Sarah
 

Updates:
–  We now live in another hotel! Our 6^th home in 6 weeks. Haha. We moved so we could live in closer community with one another; I now have 3 other roommates, instead of just 1 and I love em’ all!
–  Some girls in our group are going out at night and to pray over brothels and prostitutes!
–  We’re not going to do street kid ministry anymore because the kids got sponsored to go to school. I’m sad not to get to love on them, but I’m thrilled they are getting to go to school!
–  Preaching this Sunday went well. Thank you for your prayers!
–  I’m no longer teaching the boys— they now have two great new teachers, Sarah R. and Erin! Now I’m joining Kerina and Jessi  in teaching adults conversational English!
–  For three afternoons a week for the next few weeks we will be doing “creative outreaches” in the city.
 
Prayer Requests:
– Creative City Outreaches: Pray for us to indeed be creative, for people to come and for God to blast open the door for relationships to be built and for the Gospel to be shared in word and in deed!
–  Pray for one of my new students—he’s a 52 year old man and he recently gave us a list of 22 questions about the Bible and God. It’s awesome! Pray that God would give us the answers and that we would be able to clearly explain them to him and that he would be saved!
–  Good health and energy and unity for my whole team. I’m feeling MUCH better; thank you for your prayers!
–  As always, please pray for the salvation of the girls at the center, for our students and for God to pour out His Spirit on Battambang and on us!
 
 

Pictures from our children’s group on Sunday!

With Love From Battambang—
Sarah