“It’s my last one, but you can have it.”  Remember that Rolo add?  Now my question: “Is it OK to keep the last Rolo for ourselves?”

One of the scriptures that played a huge part in helping me make my decision whether to do Global Challenge or not, was the one about the rich young ruler (Matt 19:16-30; Luke 18:18-30).   
The Rich Man
18Once a religious leader asked Jesus this question: “Good Teacher, what should I do to inherit eternal life?”
19”Why do you call me good?”  Jesus asked him.  “Only God is truly good.  20But to answer your question, you know the commandments: ‘You must not commit adultery.  You must not murder.  You must not steal.  You must not testify falsely.  Honour your father and mother.’”
21The man replied, “I’ve obeyed all these commandments since I was young.”
22When Jesus heard his answer, he said, “There is still one thing you haven’t done.  Sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.  Then come follow me.”
23But when the man heard this he became very sad, for he was very rich.
24When Jesus saw this, he said, “How hard is it for the rich to enter the Kingdom of God!  25In fact, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God!”
26Those who heard this said, “Then who in the world can be saved?”
27He replied, “What is impossible for people is possible for God.”
28Peter said, “We’ve left our homes to follow you.”
29”Yes,” Jesus replied, “and I assure you that everyone who has given up house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the Kingdom of God,30will be repaid many times over in this life, and will have eternal life in the world to come.”  Luke 18

I have sort of forgotten about this scripture until someone mentioned it the other day.  A strange feeling, no, an urge came upon me to read the scripture again.  It was as if God was saying, “There is more I want to show you.”
After reading the scripture again, I came to the conclusion that God doesn’t want just your good deeds, He wants you… all of you!
The very next morning while we were having devotions, Luke, shared with us that very same message and then asked the question that made the penny drop: “What are the things in your life that you are not willing to give to God?  What is standing in the way of you living a surrendered life of following God?”  By a surrendered life I am not saying you should sell your possessions and become a missionary somewhere in deepest, darkest Africa, I am simply asking you what is preventing you from hearing and doing God’s will for your life.  Is it the money, the security, the dreams you have, the comfort, the fear?

This made me think a bit.  What were those barriers in my life that prevented me from living all out for God, that made me hesitate when He asked me to do something?  Was it the fact that I miss South Africa and would never want to live elsewhere, was it that I would love to stay close to my family, was it the worry of not having money and having to live in faith?  I realized that it was all of the above and more. 
We are so selfish in our ways and always think of what we can get out of a situation or how I can benefit.  Imagine if this was the sort of attitude that Jesus went around with when he was roaming the hills of the Promised Land.  We would be doomed to an eternity of suffering.  Few tend to realize that He was also flesh and blood, just like us, with feelings and emotions and fears… just like us.  Would you give your life so that another sinner could live?

This brought me to the realization that there were things in my life that I was unwilling to give up.  After some prayer and serious thinking and wrestling with myself I made the commitment of giving it all.  God is number one and everything else takes a back seat.  This does not mean that my life will from now on be plain sailing, on the contraire it will most likely be more bumpy and full of challenges, but then again, who would want to live a boring monotonous life out of choice!

This might sound irresponsible, childish and outlandish to some, but the fact of the matter is this: My life in my hands does not make sense and does not fulfill me, but when God takes the reigns, it’s hair raising but totally what I was made for.  God had also put Psalm 37 on my heart recently and I was yet again amazed at His greatness and faithfulness. Verse 23 tells us that He directs the steps of the godly, but my favourite verse in Psalm 37 must be verse 4.  “Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you your hearts desires.”  The Lord knows what your passions and dreams are.  Do God’s will for your life and see how he blesses you and makes your dreams come true.

My question to you then: “What are you unwilling to give up?”  My advice, stop being trapped by the fear of the unknown, give all of yourself to God, give Him your last Rolo!

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” – Jeremiah 29:11





 

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What a wonderful feeling to be back in “civilization” after 2 months.  Clean streets, western food and a clean, soft bed.  This was my first feeling after arriving in New Zealand at the end of April.  “The West” however was not without its own challenges.  What we gained in comfort and familiarity, we lost in lenience though.  

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After Langkawi it was a 1500km hike to Kho Chang, a Thai island close to the Cambodian border.  After only 33 hours, numerous lifts including a 10h one from southern Thailand into Bangkok on the back of a twin cab Hilux... tight squeeze, we were on the island and met up with South Bound (one of the other GCX teams).  So while everyone worked, went on fishing and snorkelling trips and had good food, I was admitted into hospital for Dengue fever.  I started feeling feverish in Langkawi, but thought it was just too much sun.  After 4 days of fever and feeling sick whenever I saw or smelt food, I had it checked out and only left 3 days later!  It seemed that I might have to stay behind while my team left for Bangkok, but God answered my prayers again and I was discharged on the day that the team left.  On our way to Bangkok we were again blessed by a stranger who gave us a lift, offered to let us stay at his place for the night and after we prayed for God’s will to be done, changed his mind and bought us bus tickets to Bangkok.  Our stay in Bangkok was short and we only had time for a 2h cycle ride, a temple or 2 and a Cornetto or 3 before taking a bus to Phuket.
I was amazed to find Phuket a bussling hotspot for tourism.  I thought I would still see the remnants of the tsunami, but none of that.  Places like Phatong beach were as busy as ever.  If I really searched, I would probably find some tsunami signs, but we were kept far too busy with other incidents...
Our faith story of Phuket has to be the one about our team money.  While Anthony went looking for a place to stay for the night, the rest of us headed for the beach for a sunset swim.  Stoffel was the one who noticed someone at our bags and got out the water and chased him away.  After we checked our belongings, Stoffel announced that his short was gone, not such a big problem... until he shared that our team money and credit card were in the pockets... huge problem!  After praying, we started to look for the “beach comber” and found him about a 100m down the beach... wearing Stoffel’s shorts that he scaled 20 minutes before.  As jy dom is...  He quickly gave us back the shorts and followed it by saying he had no money, strange as we didn’t mention any money.  So after a real life chase down the beach Anthony caught him, and phoned the cops.  Then off to the police station to give our statements.  After some hours we could leave, still without any cash.  So back to the beach it was.  We prayed for wisdom and knowledge into the situation and after 20 min we could again go swimming with our money (2100 Baht) and our credit card “safely” in Stoffel’s shorts.  Again, God is faithful!
From Phuket we travelled by ferry to Phi Phi island, the island from the movie The Beach.  It was beautiful and although we couldn’t go to the actual beach that you see in the movie (Maya beach), Phi Phi was pure paradise with white beaches, palm trees and turquoise water.
So after a ferry back to main land (Krabi), we started hiking again to KL.  Back in KL we hung around for some hours doing some last minute site seeing before going to the airport.  Never would we guess how this day would turn out though.  To make a long story short, we missed our flight to Melbourne and subsequently missed our flight the next morning from Melbourne to Sydney.
So with ample anger, confusion and frustration in the air we sat down for a bear fisted, emotional, heart-to-heart team chat.  It was only in retrospect that we could see that although God was still faithful, we weren’t.  We let our relationships with God slip and were so focused on our trip and the places that we were seeing and going to see that we forgot to check in with God.  This, the missed flight, was just God’s way of saying to us “Slow down, talk to Me.”  What was amazing to me was hoe God, in spite of our selfish ways, still blessed us in abundance.  So after some repenting, confessions and forgiveness, God again made a way and we flew to Melbourne the very next day.
This was WYW’s Malay/Thai adventures in a nutshell.  Keep an eye on this space for the next chapter which would be New Zealand.
Much love De Necker

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Hey guys
Sorry for the late update.  A combination of writer’s block, lack of internet access and laziness.
We are currently in Auckland, NZ and having an amazing time on all levels.  You will however have to wait for my next blog to read about that.  This blog is about our Malay and Thai adventures. That is exactly what it was, an adventure from beginning to end.  Our stay in India the previous month was pretty stable concerning food, accommodation and ministry, but April was the total opposite.  Apart from our flights in and out of Kuala Lumpur (well... not even that... clarity later) and an address that Anthony had of a pastor somewhere in the Malaysian jungle, we had no clue.  This was going to be a faith journey and God would have to provide like only He can as our budget was very tight (R60/day for food, accommodation and transport... for 5 full grown men).
As I mentioned in my previous blog, we got to see the Malaysian F1 GP and a bit of KL before leaving for Langkap, the place that we had the address of.
On our way there, hitch-hiking (our primary form of transport), we were walking through the village of Bidor after sunset.  An old man stopped Anthony and myself to ask where we were from and what we were up to.  After telling him our plans, he warned us that it was too dangerous to hike to Langkap after dark.  We assured him that we have done this before and knew what we were doing before we continued walking.  I did however feel that the old man was sent to warn us and informed Anthony of this.  He suggested we pray and asked God for confirmation if He wanted us to stay in Bidor for the night.  Sure enough, not far down the same road another man stopped us and gave us the same warning.  He then offered to take us the rest of the way (40km) and then changed his mind and booked us into a hotel and fed us as well.  What a miracle.
Now this man was not a Christian, he was Punjabi Sikh (those Indian people that wear the cloth wrapped around their heads).  My question was: “If this man, who is not a believer, knows how to help his neighbour, why do us believers not do the same?”  Mr Singh was definitely our “good Samaritan.”
In Langkap we were hosted by Pastor Silvanos Tan, a Chinese man who has been ministering to the Orang Asli tribes in the Malaysian jungle for the past 30 years.  We learnt so much from him about living in faith.  Here we ministered to the people of the church every night of the week.  A truly blessed time and we were sad to leave after 6 days, but were also excited to see what else God had in store for us.
From Langkap it was 2 bus trips (one long and one short), one lift and a ferry and we were on Langkawi Island off the West coast of Malaysia near the Thai border.  Although we had word to go there, we didn’t find any ministry points here, but it was a time of rest in paradise and we as a team could surface for some air before heading into the next part of our journey.

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After reading Joshua 5:14 today, I yet again saw how a powerful man of God would fall down on the ground out of reverence and not even before God, but the commander of His armies.  Would you, would I do this when face to face with what seems to be an ordinary man?  Would we if we saw God?  Would we even recognize Him?

We have so much pride instilled in us by our society and way of living that if put in Joshua’s shoes, we would most likely have told the guy to make himself useful or hit the road.  Scary but true.

This passage, as well as a Louie Giglio teaching (How great is our God); just brought home again the fact that God is huge!  I mean, He made the universe, everything known to man.  Canus Majora (the largest star known to man) has a diameter the size of Mt. Everest (almost 9km) if the earth was as big as a golf ball.  Wow, that is big, really big.  And the Bible tells us that God breathed the stars into existence.  How big, how huge, how awesome is our God!!!

What I’m trying to say is that if you have issues with people at your school, your workplace or at home, put away your pride, repent and make peace.  Life on earth is short and you are of no value to God’s work if you are putting yourself between God and you.  Dying to self means to put God fist in every situation no matter how stupid, hard, painful or embarrassing it might be.  If the creator of the universe tells you to do something, it is normally a good idea to be obedient and not be busy with your own little pow-wow about how nasty X, Y and Z were to you.

Yes, God is love and His mercy and grace is enough to cover our short comings, but your attitude should still be one of “More of You Lord and less of me.”  Good deeds won’t get you into Heaven, but obedience and a relationship with Jesus will.

I’m sorry if this sounds like a turn-or-burn piece, but all too often we go about our lives with God as an afterthought, if that.  We need to realise that He is GOD, and deserves nothing less that front and centre in our lives, in control at all times.  We need to realise that time is running out and if God is not in control of your life, we need to hand him those reigns today!

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Hi everyone

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Hey all the wonderful people at home.  Hope that everything has been well on that side.  This side it has been tough but what an adventure!!

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Hey guys, thought I'd drop you a line before I go watch the Brumbies play!!  

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Hi friends and fam.  What an amazing two weeks!!!  Sorry that I haven't been in contact, but we went to an adventure camp site outside Uitenhage called Die Bos.  No electricity and no cell phone as it fell in the Gamtoos river on our way there.  What was I doing in the Gamtoos... well, let me give you the headlines from the start.

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Hi guys, just testing my blogging skills.  

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