Faith...

So I've realized that my faith is a lot smaller than I thought. As I anticipated, my 17 days in Brazil this July were perfect in that they put me back in a place where I could hear lots from God. And speak and nudge he did.

I remember that at the new year, I didn't feel like looking back on 2007 with much happiness and sadly, I've felt the same way about 2008. It has been hard. And sad. And depressing. And I am so tired. So when my mom ended up in the hospital just before I was scheduled to go to Manaus (for my fourth time), I must admit that I felt a blow at the possibility of not being able to leave--I was so looking forward to a time of refreshing away and in a beautiful, familiar place. Thankfully, I was still able to go and have indeed returned somewhat refreshed. Not necessarily any happier and still tired, but with some things to mull over and with the knowledge that God is out there and is speaking to me.

So yeah, I have realized that I have no trouble believing in God for provision--I have seen it so many remarkable times. But I have discovered that my faith is small in believing that God wants to heal and wants to see people happy with their heart's desires fulfilled. I am NOT seeing these. In my own life and in the lives of those closest to me. And I'm not particularly happy with God about it.

After a week at the YWAM base outside of Manaus, our group took off on the YWAM boat for a 6-hour trip up river to visit 3 river communities. Sleeping on the boat in a hammock is something I really enjoy and getting away from the mosquitoes at the base was a nice change. In the days, as the boat was docked, the group would walk into the communities and visit families. The dentist on the team ended up pulling out many teeth and every day, I ended up going off in a motor boat with just a few others, doing my best as the translator. We would visit families who lived on their own tucked away up various tributaries. I must admit, taking a group who wanted to pray and read the Bible to people is something I have become unaccustomed to, since working mostly with young Canadians who are not necessarily Christians. But this team had an average age of 50 and they were all from an evangelical church. The suggestion to pray and share God's word with the families came from our Brazilian YWAM friends anyway, and the village people all knew them personally. We were not unwelcome whatsoever. I needed to swallow my young Canadian tendencies and get into it.

So there was one family of 6 or 7 who all lived in this one room and in the house, there lay an old man on his hammock. They told us, he hadn't been up or eaten for 14 days. He looked horrible. Skin and bones. Our YWAM friends offered our prayers and asked the man if he believed God could heal him. (Actually, I don't know if she said, "could" or "would".) And Francisco spoke out, clear as day, "Eu creio." (I believe.) In that moment, I was overcome with emotion. I felt compelled to lay my hand on him. I felt compelled to pray for his healing, although I had no words to say. I just stood there, crying and touching him while listening to Portuguese prayer. Then we left.

Later that evening, Newton, our boat captain came to me to tell me that Francisco was up out of his hammock, feeling better and eating. This was the third person that our group prayed healing for and then later heard (or even saw) an improvement. The next day, we went to take him some soup, but he and his family were already en route to Manaus to seek treatment now that he was well enough to make the long journey. I found out that Francisco's sickness was cirrhosis of the liver from drinking too much. This struck me even more: that this man could believe so strongly in God's ability and desire to heal him, even though it was his own shortcomings that caused his sickness. Oh yes, how small my faith is.

Through conversations with DTS students, through morning team times and Bible reading, through Brazilian church songs, through a sermon given by a team member and through stories like this, God has been nudging me (or maybe hitting me over the head) to press in and actually pray. To not give up. To consider the hard things joyous and a chance to grow my faith.

I spoke with my dad last night for over two hours. It was really nice. I told him some stories and some of this as well as talked to him about light-hearted things like native issues in Canada. :P I was impressed as he talked about his own struggles with everything, yet I could hear his strong faith in it all. And even a strong belief in a physical miracle. It is so good for me to be at this end. Far too many times do I feel like I am supposed to be the strong one, but here now is my dad demonstrating to me a strong, strong faith. And a strong endurance (he told me a difficult story from his life that I'd never heard before).

(I gave up being strong a couple months ago, by the way.)