Brokenness is Beautiful

Hey guys, 

Life in Senegal has been a whirlwind as usual, and as usual there is so much to put in this blog post and so little time. I'm going to start as always by thanking you all sooo much for even taking the time to read this, and above all for making everything I'm doing and experiencing here possible. You all are a completely invaluable and irreplaceable part of my ministry.

As many of you read on my blog already, Stephen received Christ on Monday and is our new brother. :) He came to church with me for the first time this morning! 

Lately, God has been teaching me a lot of things and I have kind of left those things on the back burner when posting for the sake of time and wanting to tell you about what's going on as far as ministry, so I'm going to spend a lot of this blog post talking about that. If there is one word that describes what God has been teaching me since I've been here it's "brokenness." There are certain parts of your heart that are weak and vulnerable that you can get absolutely professional at covering up and pretending they aren't there... In America. Here those parts of your heart are exposed blatantly and they have to be dealt with and improved upon if you want to survive. God is and has been daily breaking me of my critical spirit, my independent spirit, my need to be right, and my protectiveness of my rights, time, and comfort. He is breaking me of my desire to be served, my desire to be a success, my drive to be recognized, my confidence in how much I know, and many other things. In the absence of those things God has begun to grow in me things like an encouraging spirit, an awareness of my need of my teammates; he is teaching me to yield my right to be right, and to be content in discomfort and sacrificial with my time. He is teaching me to serve others willingly and not seek recognition for it, to use my gift of evangelism out of a desire for Him to be glorified and not out of a desire to be successful at ministry, and shown me how much of a blessing and an honor it is that He has chosen to use me at all. He has shown me that for anything to happen it requires a work of the Spirit and my knowledge of the Bible or ability to talk isn't going to save ANYONE.

There are 2 great examples of how God has been teaching me these things. One is our new building. The people who own the complex we're staying in moved all the guys from the building we were in to another building within the same complex. The old building had a real mattress, not a good one but a mattress none the less. This building has a thin piece of foam with sheets on it. The other building had consistent power, and all the outlets worked. This one has sketchy power and none of the outlets in my room work even when the power is on. Which, by the way means no fans in my room. Oh and did I mention my mattress has bed bugs and we've had major moisquito infestation issues in this building? Yeah, God has been teaching me that what it took for Him to redeem me was not comfortable and neither is living life as one of his disciples if you are doing it right. A comfortable life is a wasted one.

The second example of this is the story of me and my friend Babacar. The first time I met Babacar I got into an argument with him, a heated argument that I had to walk away from. it was not Christ like and quite frankly it was embarrassing. None of the people here know the first thing about the Quran, it's just a cultural thing that they brainlessly follow and when you try to talk with them about logic and theology and doctrine they will argue for hours but not have any idea what they are talking about or have anything to back up what they are saying. Much of what they say the Quran says in order to support their arguments is not only not in the Quran but actually directly contradictory to what the Quran does say. What you have to do is have patience, listen to what they are saying no matter how ridiculous it might be, and try to get past the logic and to the heart level. In Babacar's case I did not do that, I let the brainless arguments get the better of me because I felt like I had to be right, it was incredibly prideful. God broke me over this afterwards because I felt like I had ruined my witness with him and perhaps the witness of my teammates. A day or two later, my teammate Kyrus calls Babacar up to meet and he says he can meet. I was not feeling very confidant and I decided to stay out of the conversation, and let Ky do all the talking. However, as I was sitting praying for the conversation I felt God rebuking me and telling me he had a plan and to get in the talk. Filled with God's Spirit instead of my own I was able to work through the arguing, and remain patient. None of the things that had bothered me the other day bothered me this time around. I got to the heart level with him, made things personal instead of just doctrine, and had one of the best spiritual conversations of the whole trip! I was even able to apologize for the other day and use that as an example of my imperfection and how Christ on the cross forgives me for that, and gives me his perfection before God. I was also able to share how I now have the Holy Spirit in my heart to redeem me from my mistake and work in me to change me so I didn't act like that again. It was amazing, now Babacar is one of my best friends here in Senegal. Because of what happened we have a connection that goes more than skin deep. Pray for him as we continue to meet with him.

Thats all I got for now, so here are some prayer requests:

- Babacar, that his heart would be softened and open to the Gospel. That he would come to know Christ.

- Stephen, as we continue to build him up in his faith and he learns what it means to walk with Christ.

- My heart, that God would continue to work in my, break me, and teach me. Pray that I will be filled with the Spirit daily so I can remain patient and selfless, and that God would give me words to speak.

- Pray that every Senegalese student at the University of Cheikh Anta Diop (UCAD) would come to know Christ as their Lord and Savior.

Again, I will reiterate that I am dying to hear from any and all of you, so please if you're reading this I'm talking to you! Leave a comment on my blog or shoot me an email if its personal and let me know how you are doing; and if you have any feedback about my post whether its just that it encouraged you or you have a question or whatever please feel free to write that as well.

In Christ,

Matt