Broken Bodies

 The world is filled with Gods glory, but nothing makes you more painfully aware of the brokenness than going to the truly more broken places of the world.
This is a catch up of our time in Cambodia and a quick recap of the things God is speaking to me as of right now in Thailand.


As our team traveled miles and miles down red dirt roads, breathing in its dust, we were not prepared for all God was going to do. In the small province of Ratanakiri, nestled snugly between Vietnam and Laos, broken bodies gathered around strange foreigners who had stories of a God they had never heard of and had never known before. They sang and danced as an excited child would even though they were full grown adults, some even taller than full grown men, and they smiled as they sat in the sun. This God who created everything was talked about and this son he had who died to free all man kind from shame and from wrong doing. Then it happened. The invitation.
To receive this God and cast all others away. Only some stepped forward, as others still sat in fascination.
Then it happened again, the invitation, but not for the people of this village but for the foreigners, to step out in faith and ask God for something they had yet to see. Healing.

Now I know that was not my usual style of writing up there but that is the only way I feel I can explain the feeling of that day. what happened next I will tell you in brief.
Bent backs, sore knees, blind eyes, and hands that could not form fists without pain stepped forward. The ladies of the team prayed for the women of the village while our guys prayed for the men.
The first women we prayed for had a bent back. physically she bent over when she walked and it caused her great pain. We prayed for her 3 times, each time I asked the lord how to pray and He whispered to me "pray in the authority of Jesus because it is promised to you" so each time I did. by the end the women stood up straight and walked away, confusion on her face as to why she had no more pain and could walk straight.
5 more women with similar stories. Back aches, Hand arthritis, sore knees, they all got prayed for and walked away with no more pain and seriously confused grins on their faces. 
But the women who stuck out the most was the first of the 2 blind women we prayed for. the first time praying for her she opened her eyes and shot back in confusion, she could see the white faces surrounding her clearly. We asked her if she wanted more sight (she still had a hard time seeing far away) She said yes. We prayed again "more lord, use this for your glory, open her eyes to not only the physical but also the spiritual" she opened them again, seeing the leaf on the ground a couple feet away and rubbing her eyes to see if it was true or not. GOD RESTORES BROKEN BODIES.
She then turned around and prayed with us for another women who's sight is not so good and she received full sight back!

Having the honor to see healing is great and all but the most impressive thing about that day was not the old women getting her sight back but her receiving Christ into her life. You see in Cambodia everyone is primarily Buddhist, you work your whole life towards becoming nothing and then you die and you are finally at peace. But this women, who had spent her whole life trying to achieve nothingness, is now living her final days towards Jesus!
HE HEALS BROKEN BODIES
Bodies that have been living towards death Jesus restores to life.

So now on to our time here in Thailand.
We have had the wonderful opportunity to work with a pioneering ministry here in Phetchabun where we have been playing LOTS of music and hanging out with college aged students. getting to do life with people our age has been the test of all God has done in these students lives and they are absolutely killin it.  These Thai students have not stopped asking question about Christ and have been asking for prayer as we just simply and beautifully do life together.
The heart of God has been shown as we have played concerts for schools of 50 to schools of 1,000!
Not because we are Yelling that they need Jesus or they will burn and go to hell but because we are simply showing up, dancing, and learning their names.
But as all outreaches go, the end starts to draw near. People get cranky, they stop saying nice things, and the promise of home grows greater than the motivation to die to self.
Yet this team powers through. They pick them selves up by their boot straps and they carry on. They right the wrongs of words muttered in frustration and they push forward.
Yet I am painfully aware of how broken that Body is still........ why?
this morning in my quiet time the lord spoke these words over me. It all came out after reading
1 cor 12:12


"the body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts;
and though all its parts are many,
they form one body.
So it is with Christ"
Crimson blood trickling to pools on the ground
 from open wounds that fingernails had clawed away at. 
can the left hand accuse the right of gouging out an eye ball
while all the while breaking the fingers off the right hand?
the lines of white teeth now stained red from biting off the tongue
and spitting it onto the floor
toes, black and blue from being stomped on left to right and right to left.
The right ear hates what the left ear is hearing,
so it rips it off with the help of the hands.
Broken, bruised and scarred we cry out
"fix us oh God! make us new"
and again and again Christ restores the bones and closes the open wounds.
He restores His bride time and time again.
and yet we still walk around like a broken body.
was the cross not big enough?
was 3 dying in the grave not sufficient?
was raising from the grave not a powerful enough?
"IT IS FINISHED"
the finality of those words echo throughout eternity.
"It is finished"
stands firm, stronger than the attempts of a broken body.
For here is the reality, the church has needed no help from the world to face persecution, we have done a fine job providing that from within.
But Jesus, the most powerful word, is big enough, strong enough, and loving enough, to make all wrongs redeemed to right.
"The body is a unit,
though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts and many,
they form one body.
So It Is With Christ"


I guess the main thing of what I got out of that was God saying "My church is imperfect yes, but my love is perfect enough to cover even that."
That is what I have been walking through this season most. That even within the body of Christ (which is where I have been feeling the most hurt as of lately) there is perfect brokenness, however, there is perfect Love. And that is worth pushing forward in.