2 months into the roller coaster that is SBS

Wow....it's hard to believe it's already been 2 months since I've been in Taiwan. It's been a great 2 months, but it's also been interesting at times and just plain hard at other times, but God is faithful and He's been with me the whole way!

Like I said in my last post, God has been smacking me around a little and teaching and humbling and correcting and directing me over the last couple months. Acts was a really hard book for me, but not so much because of the book, but more because of what was happening in my life and because of what I realized was my pride.

On April 19, I received some really tough news that my good friend Anna Booth, who was on my DTS passed away because of some lesions she had on her brain and the complications from her surgery. This was some hard news to get cause she was such an awesome person to be around and was a good friend that I joked around with all the time during DTS, and also because it was so sudden.

Then during Acts, we had been talking about sharing the gospel again and as I had been praying and spending time with God, He put a friend of mine on my heart, who had deleted me off of facebook and had completely cut off communication from me without any reason. I felt God was telling me to message him, so I did and I found out that the reason that he had deleted me wasn't because of something I did, but because of how I had changed and how I was living for God and he had been hurt by the church before so he decided he didn't want to be my friend anymore. This was really hard on me and was a huge blow because this was a really good friend that had been there for me during some tough times, and although I knew that he had cut off contact with me, I had never really had time to process it and hadn't thought about it.

So these two things together combined really hit me hard and made focusing so difficult and I was feeling overwhelmed and hurting and everything all together, but through this God was speaking to me. He helped me understand that I have to swallow my pride and share with other's when I'm going through difficult times and struggling. He helped me realize that by not sharing I'm actually preventing people from being able to pray for Anna's family and for my friend and I'm not just hurting myself, but others too. This was really big for me because I've always been one to keep things inside and to be "strong" and not want to burden others with my problems, but I never ever thought that could possibly be pride until now. God had been talking to me through others about being vulnerable, but I had never made the connection until all of this happened.

I ended sharing with my class what was happening, and I've started a Monday morning guy's prayer time to give people a chance to share with each other what they're struggling with and be vulnerable with each other and to support each other. So far I've only been there for 1 morning because I was in Hong Kong the next week, but I'm really hoping this will be a blessing to me and all the guys in our SBS.

This lesson also helped with my pride in another way, because I ended up doing horribly on my charts that week and I really felt God telling me to remember that it's not about marks or about how awesome of charts I have, but it's about hearing Him and learning from Him.

These lessons continued this week. We were doing Romans this week, and because of my trip to Hong Kong I was behind from the beginning, and it was a huge struggle to make up any ground. I was having such a hard time concentrating and could just feel a horrible weight and depression on me, and I just felt like I wanted to quit and give up and go home. I had no idea what was causing it, and I tried everything from repentance to making amends with someone from many many years ago to just crying out to God. This gave me an opportunity to put into practice what God taught me during Acts, and I sent out a message to my fellow SBS students and to my friends from DTS and to my church asking them to pray for me, and it was encouraging the response I got from people.

Things got better; it was still a struggle to get through the book, but through it God showed me how I am in a completely different world over here and it is a much different spiritual atmosphere that I'm used to. Here there are only a small percentage of Christians, and the majority of people worship their ancestors, which creates a very heavy and difficult spiritual atmosphere. Because of this, God showed me that I need to be taking care of my body mind and spirit better by making sure I get enough sleep, making sure I'm taking time to just relax and enjoy myself, as well as spending time with Him everyday in prayer. It was kinda surprising to me that I never realized or thought of how different things are here compared to Canada or New Zealand, but now that I do, I know how to prepare, and I know that God will help me and will protect me from anything the devil throws at me.

So now that you've heard all about the struggles I've been having, it's time to tell a little about the awesome things that have been happening. First and foremost, God has put some awesome people around me here at SBS, and we are forging some great relationships that will last forever. It has been awesome getting to know everybody, and although we are all different and come from all edges of the world, we are all so similar in different way and we have an amazing atmosphere in our class.

An exciting thing for me has been that God has been giving me a bit of a vision for the future recently, which is something that He hadn't given me until now. During 1 Timothy, I was really meditating on the passage where Paul tells him not to let anyone disregard him because of his age, and it made me realize that I had disregarded myself because of different things throughout my life, whether it be because of age or inexperience or whatever. While I was thinking and praying about this God gave me an amazing vision of pioneering a rock climbing DTS and using one of my passions to bring people into His kingdom! It was amazing to hear God so clearly again and it was a message that went straight to my heart and lifted me up completely, especially since pioneering was an area that I had been disregarding myself in. Also, I had been seeking God and praying for more a vision lately because it was a little disheartening to be constantly telling people that I didn't know what the big picture was when they were asking what my plan was, so this was an answer to prayer.

This long term vision gives me more of an idea of what I need to do in the short term, which is to learn the language. Unfortunately learning languages is another area that I struggle in and disregard myself in, but I think God is trying to teach me that the bible wasn't lying when it says thatI can do all things through Christ (Phil. 4:13). I have a strong feeling that this vision is to be based in Taiwan, and since I am here for a while, I'm starting to try to learn more of the language and to set aside a couple hours a week to learn it, but what I really believe God is calling me to do is to spend 2 years here after this school is done learning the language. This is exciting and scary for me at the same time, but I am trusting God that He will lead me and provide everything that I need to do this. I'm also starting to talk with some people around the base that have learned the language and ask them about the schooling and what kind of ministry they did during school and things like that. I've heard from one of the guys on our base that he's gonna be studying Chinese and while helping get a surfing ministry started, which is what kinda started my thinking about using passions to spread the gospel, so I'm also gonna meet with him and see if I could possibly get involved in that ministry too.

So it's been an exciting last couple weeks, and I'm still seeking God for confirmation about what is next, but there's still a long way to go in SBS, so God has some time to confirm what He wants me to do. If you could all be praying that God would be leading and guiding me and that I wouldn't let my own desires get in the way of hearing what He wants me to do.

I could go on and on about what's been happening over here, but this has been a long enough post already. A quick note though - I had an amazing trip to Hong Kong and had an awesome time meeting with an old friend of my parents' Gerry Denbok who lives with his wife and son in Hong Kong. It was really uplifting to hear from a fellow Canadian who has been living in Asia for about 15 years or so and to hear stories about what God's been doing in Hong Kong and China.

I'm going to leave you with some prayer requests because I've felt God telling me that I need to keep you all updated on how you can be praying for me, and I know that you probably want to know what to pray for as well. Also, I'm going to try to write an update every week so that it's not such of a novel for you guys and to keep you up to date better.

Hope you're all doing great, love you all.

God bless,

Matt


Prayer requests:

• That God will continue to show me His vision for my life and will confirm the next step He wants me to take
• That God will help me to focus on Him and not forget why I'm doing this school
• That God will continue to provide me with wisdom, revelation, close friendships, as well as financially
• That God will continue to empower me to be the man that He created me to be
• That God will help me be able to learn some Chinese
• That God will help me manage my time effectively
• That I will be diligent with all the resources that God has given me