This last Friday, I was supposed to leave to go to Recife, Brazil for a YWAM(Youth With A Mission) DTS(Discipleship Training School) this last Friday. However, i wasn't able to because of visa problems. I talked to the consulate on Friday and they said, "you need to wait for three weeks to one month for us to get permission from Brazil to authorize your visa...there are no other options...and you cannot apply for a tourist visa because you are not a tourist "

So for the last few days i had been sitting at home thinking, wondering, praying. I was reflecting on how everything has seemed so right. I felt the pull and call to go to Brazil. I asked the base over 20 questions all of which they answered as i had desired. I even found out, after contacting the base through the Internet, that someone named Nish from the base knew my friends Joy and Liliana Dongardive from Pune who i spent three weeks working with earlier this spring. In addition, all the money i needed to go for the DTS has been given to me--i was even invited to a budget meeting for Missions at the church I attend (Mt. Zion United Methodist in Bel Air, Md). All my planning for fundraising was haphazardly planned last minute; yet all the funds i needed were accounted for. I was given $6,200 plus a free ticket from here to Rio de Janeiro. Devon and Kristin Potler, Mt. Zion, and many friends supported me in my vision and my desire to go. I even overcame hurdles in getting an FBI report that was supposed to take 8-10 weeks in two weeks and to top it off i received it on Christmas Eve. Yet, even through all this my heart was sunken.

And while i was sunken, i found myself caught up in the idea that--well, if i would have done this or if i would have done that then this wouldn't of happened and then i would be alright or better off. In essence, i was actually letting the circumstance entangle me. It reminded me of Peter and his incident with Jesus out on the water. Here he is. Here's this guy and he's out on the boat and things are ok and Jesus is telling him, "Come!" and he is all ready to go and then story reads that "he [Peter] saw the wind and he started to sink." And Jesus catches him and says, "You of little faith... why did you doubt?" Don't we all do this though. Here God is desiring us to have such a faith as to be able to walk on water when the waves get high. We so easily regress to that familiar way of thinking and rationalizing rather than responding, following and communing with God.

This last Wednesday the idea of communing with God hit me in a real tangible way. I was at the burning heart fellowship, my friend Tony shared about how we can meditate on scripture. Often we are trying to learn the scriptures we think about reading, writing, and talking about scriptures. I mean, we go to countless bible studies, churches and we get into this pattern of reading, writing and listening to a pastor speak the scriptures and to be honest--sometimes it gets dull and we get bored--we may even say that its never boring--but we sit in church, bible study and yawn away; it can be so bad sometimes that everyone leaves right after the pastor is done talking and you feel like you have just left the church or place empty handed. Well, Tony mentioned something that we can do to make the scriptures come alive and take on flesh and power in a exhilarating way through Praying and Singing the scriptures. Through singing scriptures together or individually, we can have this sort of Holy communion with God. In fact, the scriptures even encourage us to Sing the scriptures to one another: "Speak one to another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord...(Eph. 5:19)" And why not do it differently with new shapes and sounds and textures--with freedom for God to move? So this weekend, i had been online and checking out the web stream at the IHOP(International House of Prayer) website and they do this and I have just had visions of having more of these throughout the world--in India, Indonesia, Brazil, Africa--where there is freedom to worship the scriptures in song all the time 24-7.