Good-bye to Ivana

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Today the girl we met from Poland is going back home. We met her for coffee to say good-bye. I wrote her a short letter with some Bible verses I thought she might like. We are going to try to get her in touch with a girl from Jesus Revolution that is in Poland so she can get into a church there. Hopefully when we are in Poland next year she can come to some of the concerts and show us around her country. It was so cool being able to spend time with her and seeing how God touched her. I pray that she will continue in seeking Him. We had a teaching on water baptism right before we went to meet her and joked about seeing if she wanted us to baptize her in a fountain but we were never bold enough to ask her. That would’ve been pretty cool though!

We also continued a teaching entitled “Holiness and Purity.” All of the teachings we’ve had are so good but I’ll just tell you one thing that really stood out (if you ever want a copy of any of the teachings let me know and I will send you my notes):

“Instead of asking how close to sin can I get and still go to heaven, ask how close to God can I get and still be on earth.” If we all did that then perhaps we would be able to be true reflections of our holy God - how wonderful the world would be!

At the end of the teaching, we got a little more teaching on marriage. He said a very interesting thing about marriage, that if we had the mind set that we can have only once chance in marriage we would see each challenge and difficulty differently (we would actually fight for it). When we have no consequences, it is much more difficult to think something is worth fighting for. It is sad that Christian’s divorce rate equals or perhaps is even more than that of the secular community.

He also spoke about not being unequally yoked. He mentioned how some people think it is so heartless to follow this b/c “what if you fall in love with an unbeliever.” His answer to this was, “is it you or your feeling that decide everything for you?” We have to decide things for ourselves or else we will have awful lives that always go up and down. To base life on feelings will result in “having a very shaky house”. He told us to do whatever is needed to run from the devil’s trap, don’t even start to indulge in what the devil tries to entice you with. It seems so simple, yet I know, I myself have even been deceived in this area (thankfully not to the point of marriage). This is a decision each of us has to make now (I know mine is made).

Oh by the way, for those paying attention to the countries I said I would be touring next year, I was mistaken, I am not going to Siberia. Instead, I am going to Serbia and Albania.

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