Amigas, Amigos, y Prayer Warriors,

GOD IS FRIKKEN FAITHFUL!

so, here’s the story.

I was suppose to lead GIGs (God’s Investigation Group — kinda like a bible study for people who want to learn more about the Christian faith) this past Thursday. I literally had class from 9:30 am to 5:30 pm, with a one hour break inbetween. I was super duper exhausted, and def was not prepared to lead GIGs. You have to understand, the first two weeks of a new quarter is HELL for me…because it’s when I go to 4-6 classes, trying to figure out what classes to take or not take. So yes, I wasn’t really looking forward to doing GIGS that night because of how physically abnd mentally tired I was.

I came back from my last class and frantically began to prepare for GIGs. one of my brothers came over to help me prepare for it… and man, i was OH so stressed out. 9:30pm rolled around, two of my floormates came in and told me that they would not be able to do GIGs tonight because they’re bz… etc. You see, the Christian girls were able to make it, but not the non-Christian girls. I was oh so sad. ONe of them said, “Thao, I can’t come tonight but I really want to. I just have a lot of homework”. Though she seemed very genuine about it, for some reason i thought it wasn’t genuine so I kinda brushed it off… thought it was just an excuse to not come… but of course, I was like.. “oh that’s fine. Yea, it seems like not many people can make it tonight, I tink ill postponed it to Sunday evening.” And the girls nodded.

So today, I wasn’t really praying about this.. nor was preparing for GIGS. In fact, I was so… blah about it. In my mind I was thinking, “If they give me another reason to why they can’t go, I will cry and be very very sad.” I didn’t even want to “prepare” for it, or like re-read it b4 hand… or pray, or nething. I just wanted to study until 5pm… then I’d “wing” it for God. To make things more complicated and dsiappointing, 5pm comes around, and one of my floormates who went to GIG last week, asked to borrow my car because one of our other floormates was stranded in LA. get this, He was at USC for something.. game ended, he didnt want to wait for 1 hr 45 minutes for the bus to come… instead, he decides to skateboard back to UCLA. what he doesnt know is that it is almost night time and it would take him 14 miles to get back to UCLA. yea, a bit silly but… neways, that was that. So yea, in the end she didnt b orrow my car and went to GIGs.

530pm, ppl flood into my room. here goes 1… then 2. then 3, 4, 5, …. and myself right?. 6 ppl, this is good. We’ll only lose one member (last wee we had 7). but NOOOOOO… God totally blew me aaway! a total of 11 people came into my room + 1 (me). okay, from 6 people (last week) to 11 people. DO YOU UNDERSTAND HOW MUCH MONEY WE JUST MADE IF WE WERE SPEAKING IN TERMS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN REVENUE and NOT PEOPLE? LOOK AT THAT PROFIT MARGIN! It’s an %83.33 increase from last week! DUDE IN MY DISBELIEF, GOD PROVED ME WRONG AND WAS LIKE, “Thao Bang, you need to trust in me and believe that I am the one doing the work… not you. Just be faithful.” Though I was faithful in “doing” the GIGS, I was not faithful in my heart– I didn’t believe that He could get the same people to come back to GiG. If anything, I was sad because I had to change GIGs from THURS to SUN now. Not that it’s a big deal, but in my mind I’m thinking, “I’m changing it so that I can see ____ and ___ come, so they best be there!” Well I didnt say that, b ut I sure was thinking of it.

Pretty much the same people that came last week, came this week (we lost an amiga because she had to do some things)… Plus 4 new people — 3 b oys and 1 girl. DUDE, God is OH SOO good One of the three boys invited his friend from Hedrick and she joined us.

We studied John 1 today. Why did I choose this? I do not know, but… my brother told me why he chose to do that one when he did GiGs with one of this friends… and you know what, John 1 is a really good chapter for Christians and non-Christians. I lea rned a lot just prepping for it and I think its a great chapter to do go over with people that don’t know Jesus. Because in this chapter, John lays out who Jesus is. Jesus is ______. You can probably fill in that blank with like… at least 10 answers… “Son of God”, “Lamb of God”, “Word”, “Son of Joseph”, “King of Israel”, etc. It was a good discussion because a lot of them were very insightful and they asked a lot of good questions. If anything, they’re smarter than me! hehe. I wouuld ask them questions like, “According to what John says here in the text, I want you guys to fill in this blank for me… Jesus is _____. JOhn says a lot of things, so you may want to jot down as many answers as you can.” Yups yups, we did that… I asked them to turn to their neighbors to discuss with one another what they got… and yups yups. THey asked a lot of quetsions and I asked them a lot of quetsions. In the middle of this, my RA or PA decided to have a floor dinner… I was a bit disoriented by that fact… but of course, I wanted my floormates to participate in floor dinner and it was cool. It was the biggest floor dinner EVER! We took over three and half big tables… GOOO SIX SOUTH!

As we were eating dinner, the only thing that came across my mind was… “will all 11 of them come back to finish the rest of the bible study? PLEASE GOD~ I want to see the same people finishing up GIGs with me after dinner!”

Dinner ended… and I gathered as many of the same people as I can together to finish GIG. 5 people came… and u know what? the 5 people that came were the people that I really wanted to see there because most of them do not know much a bout Christianity or Jesus. It was a great 20 minutes! I knew that some of them didn’t want to come but I think because they all know me… and that they didn’t want to like make me sad/upset, they came anyways. Though I think taht was the reason, I hoped that in the end it was rewarding for them… that they would come out of GIGs learning a lot about who Jesus is.

Dude, it was so good. Who would’ve expected attendace would total to %183.33?

I could’ve never imagined 12 people (including myself) sitting comfortably in my room, but the y did indeed! THANK YOU JESUS! You must understand that Sharon and I are girls and we have a lot of stuff in our room! If anything, I have soo many things in my room and for 12 people to fit in our room, that’s crazy. I think God made the room bigger tonight because I He knew that He somehow had to get 12 people to fit in that room. Shar and I recently rearranged our room too…. and maybe that’s why, too. Our new set up! hehe. Either way, this room is really only made to fit 2, not 12. But yea, if it gets any bigger… or stays consistently 11 + 1 (me), we’re gonna have to split!

GOd reminded me this today:

Mark 9:24
Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, ” I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”

In my disbelief, I know i should still look to Him and ask him to renew my heart and faith in Him– not only believing that he is GOd and Saviour, but that He is one power ominipotent Abba that can make any impossible thing, possible! I need to know that He does work the miracles and do great things that sometimes I know I tell Him, “No God, you can’t do that… impossible!” But you know, from tonight’s experience… God’s power and faithfulness never ceases to amaze me.

Mark 8:17-21
“Why are you talking about having no bread? DO you still not see or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear? And don’t you remember? When I broke five loaves for the five thousand, how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up?

They answered, “Seven.”
He said to them, “Do you still not understand?”

Yes, I didn’t believe that He could bless my GIG.. .but He did. If anything, he overwhelmed me with the number of people that came…Anything is possible!!! It’s so easy to sit in our self doubt and say, “I didn’t do this right. I shoudl’ve let them known of the times/day ahead of time. I shoiuldn’t have said that. Oh, I forgot to mention this.. and now they probably hate it and will never come again”. I forget that all I hve to do is plant hte seed and be the vessell… and God doest he rest. He does the growing in them. And you know what, at the end of our GIG, I handed out index cards and asked them to give me any feedback/comments/pictures, etc. And dude, they asked some good questions! God totally stirred it up in their hearts to be curious and ask questions!!

Prayer Requests
1. I still need a partner in crime to help me lead GIGs, or just anyone to come out and support me consistently. Sometimes people ask quetsions that I know the answer to, but can’t convey them in words too well. Also, sometimes i just don’t know the answers to their questions. Today, for the first time… a sister came to help me out. The latter half, another sister was my helper/supporter. I don’t want to ask them to commit because one is leading her own bible study with the Christian girls in Rieber and the other is busy with her Christian sorority.
2. Pray that another GIG will start up on our floor. For those 11 come consistently and to learn a lot… It would only make sense to split the group. It was so hard for me to facilitate and lead a group of 11
3. I am not a good public speaker… infact, I hate public speaking… because I get soo nervous.. and when I am nervous, I cannot speak in complete sentences… I do a lot of run-ons… sometimes I forget the subject… or even the adverbs… haha. So prya that God’ll give me the words to say to people and give me confidence in my speaking skills (lack there of).
4. Again, intimacy with God. this is oh so impportant and simple, yet… so easy to put off!
5. There are two girls that i don’t know that want to do GIGs (according to my two male friends). Pray that I’ll start GIGs with them, too.

Thank you for your words of encouragement, support, faithfulness in prayer. It means a lot. God’s totatlly answering those prayers.

heart,
thao cow