OUTREACH PHASE JUNE 2023

WELCOME AND HI AGIAN!!!

Hi Again and Welcome back!!! I am so excited for all of us to read this update because God is and has been doing so much here in Egypt. He has faithfully been proving Himself as a loving God who hears, sees and cares about the details. I pray that this update would bring you refreshment, help you experience God’s love in a clear way and help you to also be convinced that God see’s/understands you. God is a God of details and I hope to show that in the testimonies I plan to share.

Since my last update our team has spent two weeks in Israel having lectures and ten weeks in Egypt doing various ministries. During this time I have had the pleasure of really growing in the Fear of the Lord, especially in the area of relationships.

Like with every update I want to begin this time with some prayers & thanksgivings and share the prayers that I have been praying over this update as we read it! When praying I was reminded of Jesus’ last teachings before He gave Himself over to the cross, specifically John 15:9, where Jesus explains just how much He has loved us.

John 15:9
“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love”

AS THE FATHER HAS LOVED JESUS, SO HAS HE LOVED US!!!!! WHAT!?!? To me this blows my mind!! Jesus is declaring that the same love that the Father has towards Him, is the same love that Jesus has for us. The same LOVE that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit experience is the same love that God has towards us. This trinitarian love is what is offered to us. This trinitarian love is what pursues us. This trinitarian love is what we get to abide, dwell and rest in. WOAH!!!!

My prayer for us is that we get a revelation of this trinitarian love that He has towards us and that God would also help us to have the eyes to see how He has displayed this trinitarian love towards us in our past. When writing this update, I had the sense that there are some of us reading this that feel tired or burdened and I want to encourage us that God sees you and wants to invite us to speak to Him about how to enter into this (joyous) rest found when abiding in His love. If this is your desire I want to invite you to pray this prayer below with me. Lets pray!

My Prayer for Us:

Heavenly Father, thank you for loving us first. Lord, we do not deserve the love that you have towards us. So thank you so much for how you have pursued us and loved us. Thank you for the cross and your faithfulness towards us. I pray that you would give us a revelation of just how Good of a Father you are in our current circumstances and in our past. Lord, I invite you to give us a perspective shift, whatever perspective shift that is necessary for us to be convinced that you are a Father who gives good gifts and that you are a Father who delights in our presence. Please Lord, let us see the delight you have toward us. Help us to see the delight you have towards us. Help us to abide in your love and be so sensitive towards the love you have towards us. I ask for all these things in Jesus name, amen.

THANK YOU: THE FORGOTTEN, FELT SEEN

Thank you, thank you, thank you so much!!!! I am so grateful for how you have faithfully supported me both prayerfully and financially in this season of outreach. I have seen God do so much here during my time in Egypt and want to start with a testimony to give you a preview of what your support has done here in the Egypt.

While in Egypt, house visits have become a regular part of our ministry. In one particular house my team and I got to share the gospel with a refugee family from the Sudanese community. The conversation was great and we had a deep conversation about the bible as we explored books like Jeremiah, Isaiah, The Gospel of John, Ecclesiastes and Revelations. The highlight that I want to share with you is not the content we covered but what they said afterwards. When we were ending the house visit the family had expressed to us that they had never experienced having people come to teach and encourage them in the word of God before.

These were there words:

“You coming here is an answered prayer”

“God sent to us a Canadian, American and an Australian to teach us and show us God’s love”

“Because of this I know God hasn’t forgotten us, He sees us and that He truly does love us”

Hearing these words made me cry because I could see both the initial pain from feeling forgotten and their joy that came from feeling seen by God. Conversations like this occurred regularly as a result of your generosity. I cried so much at this particular house visit because I heard God’s voice so clearly say “whom shall I send, and who will go to the forgotten & lost?”. Partnered together we have helped God answer the prayers of so many families like this one, families who have felt forgotten, unseen and unloved. Together we have helped them to feel seen, valued and loved by God and by the church. For that I want to say thank you so so much and thank you so much for entrusting me to steward your finances in this way. I pray that as you read this update you would also experience God’s delight towards the many things you have enabled my team and I to do. Your contributions have not only made it possible for me to step out into missions but also my team. So my team and I thank you!!!.

SUDANESE HOUSE VISIT:

I got re-invited to have dinner with Ibrami and his family. This is short video from the time.

OVERVIEW:

As mentioned above, since my last update my team and I have gone to both Israel and Egypt. My co-leader and I spent two weeks in Israel and 11 weeks in Egypt leading a team of 7 students. We have had the pleasure of watching God do so much in and through our team. As leaders our heart posture is this, yes we may be the staff/leaders on this outreach team but ultimately Jesus is our outreach leader. We have seen God so faithfully prove His faithfulness to lead, speak and open doors. In this update I plan to talk about His faithfulness as I talk about the following topics

Lecture Phase In Israel
Outreach Phase In Egypt
Prayer Requests

QUESTIONS:

Before I share on the topics above, in prayer I felt to share a series of thought provoking questions that God has been unpacking with me and asking me throughout my time in Israel and Egypt. As you read through this update and as you go about your day I felt to challenge us to also ponder about these questions ourselves and see what the Lord does through it.

These are the questions; When we look at, think about and respond to those around us….

Do we think about their Heavenly Father, who calls them son or daughter?
Do we think about how powerful is the One who loves them?
Do we think about how great His love is towards them?

In summary, how does our knowledge and understanding of who God is and how great is His love influence our love towards others? Do we let it influence us? These are the questions I would often meditate on when I found it challenging to love strangers or my team. Choosing love isn’t always convenient or easy which is why I needed to do this. I needed to repeatedly think about how great is God’s love towards those I met so that I could act from a place of compassion not compulsion. I wanted to want to give genuine love, not be in a place of feeling forced to love. And when I would read through the gospels a word that would constantly stand out to me is the word “compassion”. Jesus was moved with compassion towards those He met. (Luke 7:13, Matthew 9:36, 15:32, 20:34, Mark 6:34, 8:2-3, John 11;34-38). I believe that in part, His compassion towards those He met came from His intimacy with the Father and His understanding of how much His Father loved those He met. I know that there were many other things that contributed to His compassion but this understanding of God’s love towards those who I met is often what I relied on to moved me.

LECTURE PHASE IN ISRAEL:

I so enjoyed my time in Israel and I have so much gratitude towards the Lord for how He spoke to me, made me feel loved and deepened my understanding of Him while in Israel. When reminiscing about my time in Israel I was reminded of two instances where God talked to me about His love for me and His love for others.

The Garden:

The first notable experience I had and felt led to share was at the Garden Tomb where some scholars believe that Jesus' body was laid. During this time the Lord invited me to read all four of the Gospel's accounts of Jesus’s betrayal, crucifixion and resurrection. Before and while reading I kept inviting the Lord to please speak to me and inspired by the verses Jeremiah 31:33 & Hebrews 10:16 I prayed asking for the Lord to write His law & love in my Heart.

In this time I wept, I saw my sin so clearly. I saw how undeserving I was of His love. I wept asking many times saying things like “how could you love a sinner like me?”, “why would you want to call me son?”. When He answered I cried even more. At the time He gave me a very personal answer and I also pray that He would also give you a very personal answer as to why He loves you. But I would like to summarize it like this with the hopes that you could read this as if God was speaking it to you.

“FROM: THE ONE WHO LOVES YOU MOST”

“I, your Heavenly Father, love you more than you can imagine. It will take you an eternity to fully discover the depths of my love towards you. And I am fully aware of your sin, but my love towards you will never change. I didn’t love you because of what you could do for me, I loved you because you are you. You have always been worth loving. Because you are you. I love you, sincerely the One who loves you most, your Heavenly Father.”

If you are reading this, I pray that you get to this place where you are fully convinced of this description of God. God is the one who loves you most, and when we ask He is faithful to reveal this love to us. I share this story of the Garden because I want to encourage you that He is faithful to reveal Himself and His love towards you. When praying I felt to encourage us to read through Zephaniah 3:17 and imagine God the trinity rejoicing over you with gladness.

Zephaniah 3:17

The Lord your God is in your midst,
a mighty one who will save;
he will rejoice over you with gladness;

Baptisms:

In Israel we also had the opportunity to baptize two of our students, Ella (17) and Zach (20). They are two students that I have had the pleasure of walking closely with in their discipleship as they are my one on ones.

Throughout our time in Amsterdam, Israel & Egypt I watched them grow closely to the Lord, grow in their confidence regarding their identity and their voice. I also got to walk with them through their insecurities that I used to also have. Like feeling unworthy to speak, doubting their worth/value and feeling like a burden to others. If you have had these same insecurities, you probably understand/know how hard it is to feel worthy to be loved by God and others. So watching God faithfully work in and through their lives during our time together has been amazing. I have loved watching them heal and mature in their faith & identity in Christ. It has brought me so much joy to see them step out in ministries and share/preach the gospel with so much confidence. So I want to invite you into this joy. As you look through these baptism pictures, know that your prayers and generosity bore this fruit too. I pray that the Father will reveal to you His joy that He experiences when He sees His sons and daughter fall more in love with Him and deepen their relationship with Him.

BAPTISM PICTURES

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The reason why I felt to share these two stories out of the many is that I believe that the Lord is inviting us to pray these two prayers.

Lord please help me to see the love that you have for me and those around me.
Lord please help me to delight in what brings you Joy. Like seeing your sons and daughters grow in intimacy with You.

Jesus teaches us in John 15:9-12 that the fruit of Christ-like love is Christ-like joy. These prayers combined with a moldable heart will lead us to experience the joy, His joy, that He desires to be in all of us. Imagine the joyous fruits we could enjoy if we were fully convinced of His love towards us & others. Imagine the joyful fruits of delighting in what brings our Father joy. This is why I felt to encourage us, let's seek to grow sensitive towards His love and joy together.

Like I said above, we did many other things in Israel. Below are some pictures from Israel and an overview of what we did in Israel:

Visit the Garden Tomb, Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Golgotha, the Old City in Jerusalem & the old town of Caesarea, where the Holy Spirit first fell on the Gentiles.
Visit/meet other Missionaries with a heart to evangelize to the Jewish and Muslim believers in Israel.
Baptize two students.
Prepare for outreach to Egypt.
Have lectures on God’s Kingdom & God’s Heart for Israel & The Nations.

PICTURES FROM ISRAEL

OUTREACH PHASE IN EGYPT

MINISTRY OPPORTUNITIES IN EGYPT & TESTIMONIES

Going into this section about MINISTRIES a prayer I prayed was “Lord how do you want me to talk about our time in Egypt”. Many things happened in Egypt; God was faithful to answer many prayers, heal the sick, give dreams, give word of knowledge and lead us to divine appointments. God did a lot in Egypt and I can’t simply include them all. So when praying I felt to specifically focus on testimonies of God’s faithfulness towards our persistence. This is because when recalling my more notable testimonies/experiences I noticed a pattern of persistent prayer.

If we want to read an example of Jesus teaching on persistent prayer we can read the Parable of the Persistent Neighbour found in Luke 11:5-13. As we read through it, notice how Jesus ends this parable with an explanation that God is a Good Father. God isn't a neighbour who gives so that we would stop asking, instead He is a Good Father who gives to us because we are His sons & daughters. If you do decide to read it, I pray that God would speak to you and give you a revelation about the fruit of persistence for our lives and God’s desire to respond to us because of our identity in Christ.

As I talk about the fruit of persistent prayer, I don't want us to look at it like a formula where, persistent prayer = our answered desires/prayers. Rather my desire is that as we read these testimonies of God’s faithfulness towards persistence, we would grow in excitement towards persistence in our prayer lives. Yes persistent prayer hasn't always resulted in my prayer requests being answered; but persistent prayer has trained my eyes and ears to recognize how God is moving around me, to recognize how can I align my heart with God’s heart better and lastly recognize what God is doing in/through me. Although God doesn’t always answer my prayers the way I want, I find that He is always answering and persistent prayer has helped me to see how He has answered, see where my heart is in relation to His and see what God is teaching me by how He has answered.

This is my desire/hope for us that our eyes and ears would be sensitive towards God and trained to recognize Him and His answers.

So my plan for this portion is to give an overview of each ministry we got to be a part of and when led I will share a testimony from that ministry. Also when reading the explanations of the various ministries and the testimonies below, I want you to also realize that these victories are yours too. Together we have helped God to answer the prayer in Matthew 9:37-38. So before you read this update of our ministries I encourage you to pray, “Lord help me to see your joy and delight in your joy. The joy that you experienced watching these ministries happen”.

Matthew 9:37-38

37 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; 38 therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

SUDANESE COMMUNITY:

The Need in Sudan:

Many of our ministries in Egypt were with the Sudanese communities in Cairo. They have fled Sudan and South Sudan as a result of the ongoing wars in these two countries with the hopes of finding a better life in Egypt. Sadly, many of them have expressed that it has actually been worse living in Egypt. In Egypt a majority of the Egyptian families make around 3000 egyptian pounds a month, which is roughly $130 Cad. These refugees make even less and often are required to work more hours than their local Egyptian counterparts. The heart of our contact in Egypt is to equip the Sudanese communities with knowledge of God’s word, skills/opportunities to advance in society and give them hope for the future as we teach them about their identity & value. This is the vision we had the opportunity to partner with and steward. We did this through a variety of ministries listed below.

House Visits:

In the beginning of this update I had already shared a little bit about this ministry. It was a ministry we did once a week where we would visit 4-6 different families from the local Sudanese churches. Typically we would buy groceries for them and also share a short message. During these times our aim would be to build a relationship with them and cater the message to their circumstances. This ministry was one of the most fruitful ministries and we even saw a muslim family member give their lives to Jesus. We saw people's backs, knees and eyes being healed. This ministry brought has our team and the locals so much joy. I have many other stories to share from this ministry but the one that stood out is from our time visiting Doria and her Family shown below.

For context, Egypt is a closed nation. Where Egyptian law forbids public evangelism outside the walls of a church. Doria is a muslim with some of her daughters being Christian and some not.

Testimony:

Going into this house visit a prayer that I kept praying while at this house was “Lord show me how I can love this family best and how I can help them to feel so loved by you God.”

Present day Cliff: I have been praying this prayer regularly as I interact with different people and looking back this prayer has really helped me to become so sensitive to how God has been loving me and loved me in the past. Something specific is that I vividly saw the love He has displayed in His no’s and closed doors. Have you ever asked God to reveal to you His love in His past no’s or past closed doors? If you haven’t I would highly recommend it.

In my head I kept praying to the Lord saying “Lord, Lord, Lord they have to know your love, please they have too”. I persistently asked the Lord that they would feel His love. When praying I felt an overwhelming sense of love and compassion for the family so I turned to one of my students and said “Pray for me, I'm gonna be bold”. I then proceeded to share the Gospel and my testimony from an angle of “God’s transforming Love'' a love that freed us from sin and gives us the ability to live as His children. I don’t remember exactly what I shared but I remember their response; “I WANT TO EXPERIENCE THAT LOVE TOO”.

Full of God’s love towards them I proceeded to say something quite bold, “That this love can only be fully experienced through accepting Jesus Christ as Lord, Savior and as the Son of God. He is not a prophet.” This was something radical in their eyes and initially wanted to lead them into a prayer to accept Jesus but our local translator/contact advised against it since it was Ramadam and potentially disrespectful. Deciding to honour our local contacts' wishes and trust in the Lord's ability to continue the work He was already doing I decided to lead them into a prayer where they could experience more of God’s love.

When we visited the house again they kept telling us about how they could feel and see God’s love towards them so much clearer since our last visit. There was also a tangible shift in the atmosphere within the house and this second house visit was filled with so much more joy and they kept sharing with us testimonies of how they have been experiencing God’s love & joy in their lives since we left. I believe this is just a part of the journey they are on and that God has more for them. Below is a picture of this family, please pray that they would give their lives to Jesus and that God would send other believer to encourage/love them.

HOUSE VISIT PICTURES

(The first picture is of Doria and her four daughters)

CHURCH & VISION SEMINAR:

Another ministry we would do with the Sudanese community is take part in their Sunday services. Once a week we would share testimonies and preach a sermon at a local Sudanese church. Our team enjoyed these church services so much and at several of our altar calls people raised their hands to accept Jesus as their Lord. Also we got to pray for many people and even see healings. It was so amazing to see our students grow in confidence in their ability to preach and teach. Even more exciting is that this has helped some of our students heal from the feelings of being unworthy to speak or be heard. Please enjoy some Sudanese worship.

Another notable thing we did with the local Sudanese church was run a week-long seminar where every day of the week we talked about identity and entrepreneurial skills. At the end of this week there was a tangible shift in this church's hope and excitement for the future. We also noticed that many of the attendees were discussing the potential to meet up to do things like this seminar again and to discuss solutions about the current struggles within the Sudanese community. We saw God move this week and we saw Him inspire a whole community to pursue hope for a better future.

SUDANESE WORSHIP

African Hope Learning Center & R3 Center:

The African Hope Learning center was a school which offered education for the refugee children living in Cairo. Once a week we would teach/act out a different bible story based on the school curriculum. We would teach a lesson through a skit, short teachings and games that aligned with the message of the story.

At the R3 Center we also volunteered their once a week where we taught in their english, sowing and music classes. It was a ministry where we had the opportunity to also invest into the sudanese community and give them practical skills.

SUDANESE MINISTRY HIGHLIGHTS

SYRIAN HOME VISITS:

In Egypt there is also a large population of Syrian refugees who have left their home as a result of the ongoing civil war in Syria. They too face the same financial struggles as the Sudanese refugees; but the main difference between the Syrian and Sudanese refugees is a majority of them are muslim believers. This means we didn’t have the luxury of connecting or building a relationship with them through the Church or other Church ministries. This also meant that we didn't have the luxury of being able to directly share about the Gospel due to the differing beliefs. Despite it being more difficult, both our local contact and our team still had a huge heart to help them financially and to help them get to know Jesus.

This ministry taught my students and I the importance of preaching the Gospel through other methods and actions. Unfortunately I was sick for a little over a month in Egypt (a combination of food poisoning & covid) and through other circumstances I missed many of the Syrian home visits. From my students' testimonies and my own personal experience I truly believe that many families were led closer to the Lord as we built relationships and shared testimonies of God’s love towards us despite our sin. This is a radical concept in their view towards God.

SYRIAN HOUSE VISIT

(I only have one because I can’t post the other pictures online since it includes our local contact/translators)

PARK EVANGELISM:

With this ministry we had to be extra careful because we were in a more public setting. Despite this obstacle we have had some very fruitful conversations during this ministry. One notable conversation and testimony of God’s faithfulness took place during our conversation with Joesef.

For context, the significance of this story goes back months in advance to when we were still in Amsterdam. In Amsterdam a heart posture and habit my co-leader and I decided set for the team was that we would every single day for the months leading up to Egypt and while in Egypt we would begin the ministry day with 15 mins of just intentional listening to the Lord. And through this habit a recurring name we heard was the name Joesef.

Testimony: Divine Appointment!

On this particular day the park was full of people but despite this it was oddly hard to start a conversation, considering it was quite common for locals to approach us since we were foreigners. In the beginning we had a couple surface level conversations but no luck finding an open & deep conversation. We were initially discouraged but over and over again throughout our entire walk I kept praying and persistently asking for an open door to share the Gospel. Two hours passed and eventually we got tired so I decided to just sit on a bench while my students played soccer with some of the kids in the park. I was about to go join them too but I felt the Lord say “wait on the bench, I can bring someone to you.” . In that moment I felt so foolish, because this entire time I was looking and asking for an open door but upon looking back I realized I never asked God for wisdom on how to see His open door.

Shortly after hearing God’s voice a young man joined me on the bench. He spoke a little English and after conversing with him I found out he flew all the way from China to Egypt so that he could learn Arabic and understand the Qur’an. After getting to know him a little, he explained that he had to leave to look for his friend. Then right after he left, another God appointed thing happened. His friend that he was looking for comes to sit on the same bench. This was Joesef! God brought the open door to us, he brought Joesef to us. Under God’s guidance we were able to start up a conversation with Joesef and his friend which led to us having an amazing discussion about faith, about what christianity believed, about what islam believed and shared some testimonies of what God did in our lives.

HANDS TOGETHER BIBLE STUDY:

This was a bible study that we helped lead for several weeks with a group of Coptic Christian women. Each week we taught on a different topic like hearing God’s voice, spiritual disciplines, knowing Jesus, etc.

For context: One of the most important foundational beliefs of the Coptic Christian Church is that both God and man are responsible for personal salvation. God, through the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ, provided forgiveness of sins, but that is not enough. Humans must also work for their salvation through fasting, almsgiving, and receiving of the sacraments such as infant and adult baptism, a liturgy of prayer, and the anointing with oil.

This group of women had so many questions about God, the bible and other theological debates. When I say “so many” I mean tons upon tons of questions. It initially frustrated members on our team as their questions would often derail or go off track from the topic of that week. But as the weeks went on we realized that the opportunity to discuss the bible and ask questions was a rare opportunity for them. This made my team and I so much more appreciative towards the access and resources we do have in our home countries.

Testimony: Word of Knowledge!

This testimony takes place during our team's second time with this ministry. Unfortunately I was sick the first week, therefore it was personally my first time attending this bible study. This is an important detail to this story because it meant I didn’t know anything about these women going into this day. On this day we planned on teaching about “hearing God’s voice” and as a team we recognized that being able to give a word of knowledge to these women would be such a powerful testimony of hearing God’s voice for these women.

A “word of knowledge” is the ability to know what God is currently doing or intends to do in the life of another person. It can also be defined as knowing the secrets of another person's heart. It requires hearing God’s voice, to know something or share something about someone or something you have no personal knowledge of.

Going into this ministry and during the ministry a prayer I kept praying was “Lord show me how I can help these women feel so loved by you and how can I do this ministry in a way that pleases you Lord”. I also prayed persistently for a word of knowledge for these women. God answered this prayer and immediately upon entering the room the Lord highlights one woman to me and says “This woman is holding unforgiveness toward her father and I want to help her heal ''. It was a pretty confronting word of knowledge and I wasn't sure when to say it or how to say it. So I just prayed “Lord, how do you want me to say it and when do you want me to say it?” “How do I say it in a way that would make her feel loved and not shameful?”.

Eventually a moment came where I could share what I heard. I was asked to share a testimony of hearing God’s voice so I talked a bit about how I hear God’s voice regularly. Then I proceeded to share what God spoke to me. Rather than directly confronting her by saying “you are holding on to unforgiveness towards your father” I waited to hear how the Lord wanted me to share it. I asked her, “Are you holding onto any unforgiveness?” she said yes. I asked her “is it towards your father?”. She said yes and then proceeded to tell us a detailed story of how her dad had left her and her family when she was four but still remains involved in the lives of her cousins, who were also at the bible study. So she struggled with seeing her own dad being present in her cousin's families but not in her own life.

She also told us that she had been struggling to feel God’s love, she described God & His love as something so far away. So I prayed for her and kept her in my prayers asking that the Lord would reveal His love towards her. The next week when I asked how she was doing she told our team that ever since I prayed for her, she had felt God’s love towards her as if He was face to face with her. She also said that she has been hearing God’s voice on how to heal and how to forgive her father. She no longer felt distant from God and fully believed that she could hear God’s voice!!

MOTHER TERESA:

The Mother Teresa House (MT House) is a ministry run by nuns that volunteer their time to provide care & housing for the elderly/disabled. Some of these sisters like sister Faulstiva, have volunteered with this MT House for several years and have plans to continue doing so. During this ministry we mainly partnered with sister Faulstiva to prepare games and programs to get the patients active and engaged. We would also help feed the elderly women and clean up after the mess. Egypt is very very sandy and some sandstorms have occurred during our stay, therefore we had several opportunities to also help the MT House clean up the building and wipe down many surfaces.

To be honest my team and I felt like we learnt & received more from this ministry than we gave. We learnt a lot from how the sisters spoke about the patients and from how they loved the patients. There was this overwhelming presence of peace that followed sister Faulstiva. I have never met someone like her, the way she spoke, talked about the patients & did things allowed me to see Jesus so clearly in her. It challenged my team and I. It challenged me to pray prayers like “Lord how can I live in a way where it is so easy to see you through me”. Imagine being so much like Christ that people would receive revelations of who Jesus is just by being around you.

Testimony: Jakeya

Through this ministry I discovered a new side of God’s love as I had the opportunity to love in a new way. In this ministry I had the opportunity to feed this elderly woman named Jakeya. She was blind, had no teeth and too weak to feed herself. Leading up to this ministry and on the day of, a prayer I consistently prayed was Lord I want to understand your love more and I want to love these people in a way that pleases you. When I had the opportunity to feed Jakeya, I will be honest for a moment I had a selfish thought of, “aww man this is gonna be annoying, it's gonna take so long to feed her ''. I hated that thought and I told the Lord “I never want to think this way about the people I serve”. So I persistently prayed asking the Lord to understand His love towards this woman. It took me about an hour to spoon feed her this bowl of porridge and the entire time I felt the Lord leading me to tell her things like “you are worthy to be loved, you are valued, you are worthy to be heard and seen, you are worthy to be a daughter of God''. I sang some arabic worship songs over her and I just kept praying for her. Then I got this banana to feed her and I knew she had no teeth so I had to cut it up and crushed this banana. As I continued to pray over her, sing songs and speak encouragements over her something in my heart just shifted. I wept hard, I know I cry a lot but I cried really hard this time. The other sisters started asking my students “why is this grown man crying so much while cutting up a banana, is he okay?? ''. My students just laughed and said “ahh that's just Cliff being Cliff”. In that moment I had this vision of God holding me as His child in His arms. He was praying over me, singing songs over me and speaking encouragements over me just like how God had led me to love on Jakeya. I heard Him also say to me, Cliff I am feeding you and I will be faithful to feed you. I finished that day just so confident that I was a son and that I am safely in my Fathers arms. It was peace that helped me to look at my uncertain future with so much trust and confidence towards the Lord. The amazing thing about this is that this feeling of God’s love has not left. It wasn't just this revelation and this feeling that lasted for that moment but has continued throughout the three months of being on outreach.

PRAYER REQUESTS:

Thank you so much for reading through this update. My hope with this update is that we get to rejoice together at all the things that God has done. As I share these testimonies and talk about the various my team and I got to serve in Egypt my desire is for you as my supporters to know that your support has really blessed people across the globe and that these victories are yours to enjoy too. My prayer is that the Lord would share with you the joy He experienced as He watched my team and I love and shepherd those whom He loves.

Once again I want to say thank you so much for enabling me to continue serving God in this way. I hope you were blessed by this update and I pray that God spoke to you through it. I also want to thank you for praying for my team and I during our time in Egypt. If you have any prayer requests please message me because I would also love to be praying for you too!!! Again thank you so much!!!! I look forward to updating you guys again :).

Our students have now graduated and are transitioning into a new season. For some that means doing more bible schools, stepping into missions or going to university. If you have time to pray I wrote some prayer points I have for our students and some personal ones aswell. Thank you!!!

Students:

Pray that the Lord would protect our students, that the Lord would protect the seeds and lessons that were sown in this season of DTS so that it will continue to bear fruit where ever they go next.
Pray that our students would continue to fall deeper in love with God and that thier love for people would also continue to keep growing.
Pray that our students would find a safe and healthy christian community where they can continue growing in their relationship with God and continue being mentored.

Personal:

The words '“Trust Worthy & Faithful” keep popping up in my head when I spend time with God. I felt to specifically ask for prayer that the Lord would continue to disciple me into becoming someone whom He would describe as a Trust Worthy & Faithful son.
I can’t do what I do without a growing love for God, His word and His people. Therefore I want to ask for prayer that I would continue to fall more in love with God, His word and His people. I ask for prayer for revelations, mentors and opportunities to grow in my love towards these things.
I can't follow God without His wisdom/guidance therefore I want to ask for prayer for a eyes, ears and a heart that is so sensitive towards God & His desires for my life. I want to ask for prayer for wisdom on how to follow Him in all areas of my life like relationships, finances, fund-raising, callings, wisdom on how to be a better leader, etc.

THANK YOU FOR READING & PRAYING!!!!! Love you all lots, thank you :)

ENJOY THESE RANDOM FUNNY MOMENTS

Blog 7: God's Faithfulness in the Middle East