Week 9

Dear Friends and Family,

Time is really flying here. In the time that one day should pass, a whole week does. We leave in three weeks! It seems like we just got here yesterday. But I am excited for outreach! It will be really cool to see how God will grow me even more.

This week we learned about Spiritual Warfare. Jeff Herringshaw taught us again. He is a really good speaker.

When one thinks of spiritual warfare they usually think of driving out demons or like healing the sick. And while that is a part of spiritual warfare, it is not the main battle grounds. This week we learned that there are three major battle grounds. They are: Mind, Heart, and Tongue. A person’s thoughts come from three different places; Themself, God, and the devil. If one knows God, knows who they are in him, than they can know what thoughts to follow. The devil likes to control though fear and he likes to condemn you. Fear is the opposite of faith. God doesn’t condemn you, he will convict you though. Condemning thoughts have no hope. Convicting thoughts gives you a way out and hope. The battles fields of the heart are attitudes and emotions. One has control over their attitude and emotions. Something you can do is to be thankful. The battle ground of the tongue: words have power. The bible says that ‘Reckless words pierce like a sword’ Proverbs 12:18a. The power of words is spirit power plus heart power. Negative words will destroy. We need truth plus love in our words. All three of these things tie together. If you let the enemy come in a little way, it is a lot harder to drive the enemy out. Spiritual warfare doesn’t have a time frame. It happens all the time. Every time you speak, think, or feel.

If Satan can get you to believe that you are worthless, a failure, or without authority; then you will not be the person in God that you could be. Satan loves when that happens. Jesus fought back and has authority over the earth and he gave that to us, his followers. We need to stand in our Christ given authority.

It was a really good week. Jeff taught us lots.

One of the things we did this week that was really cool is that we had a time of music and intercession for our outreaches (Peru and South Africa). We filled a white board up with words of things that we didn’t want on our outreach. For example: Anger, Discouragement, Illness, Oppression….. The list was very big. And when we looked at it, it just felt ugly and awful; it brought the room down. Then we began to erase and replace the words with stuff that was the opposite and that we wanted on our outreaches. Like Peace, Health, Love, Trust… And we put more words on it than were on before. The change was amazing. When one looked at the board now, they were given so much hope and encouragement. It now gave light to the room.

My Grandfather’s funeral was last Monday. It was hard and cool. Hard because I am grieving him, cool because it was a celebration of his life and that he is now in heaven. I miss him, but I am happy for him.

Prayer requests: funds (It is biblical to ask for money), health, travel safety (for outreach and for thanksgiving break), deep friendships, and patience.

I am sending my love to all,
Haleigh