Prayer!

A long time passed since the last time I wrote here.
And many things happened in this between, many good experiences: Christmas celebration with Mulen family, New Year camp with KRIK in Lillehammer, Infield Course at Hald, first ski lessons; probably I will come back to this events later, and write about them.
But what I have in my mind right now it’s something I’ve been reflecting since the very day I arrived in Bergen and started to work in NMS U office.
Every day, after the lunch at the office and before everyone go back to their work again, we read a verse from the bible and, from a small green ‘prayerbook’, we read some motives/topics we should pray on that day of the week. Every day, we pray for a NMS project abroad and for the missionaries that work there, for a country where the christians are persecuted, for the leaders of NMS, for the camp places... Different topics each day of the week.

Prayerbook

This commitment in prayers have inspired me a lot since I’m here in Bergen. NMS is an organization that works hard and do their best to raise money to support financially their workers abroad, and in prayers seek the Lord to support them spiritually. They are doing their work and seeking God, trusting he will do his part. And I believe this commitment in prayers, this dependence on God is the key of the success during this long story of missionary work, of NMS.
In fact, I’ve been learning a lot with this moments of prayer at the office; it have changed also my daily personal prayers. I’ve been no long more praying just for me, my family and my friends. Please don’t misunderstand me: pray for those who we love is not wrong, and I don’t let to do that. But the kingdom of God is much bigger than me and those around me, whom I love. I must confess this have been a new perspective, to be praying daily for countries where christians have been persecuted and arrested because of their faith, for countries where is forbidden to preach the gospel, or for missionaries I never have seen before. I’m changing my self centred prayers (just for my family, my church and my friends), and learning to pray for others aswell.
Trying to start from somewhere, God have put in my heart to be praying again for Juazeiro/BA and the church there, for which I've been praying just occasionally in the last months; and for Hald Students, especially those I've 'adopted' to pray in the 'Walk and Prayer'.
Learning everyday! Amen!

Reminder of prayer for Hald students

Everything new but everything the same...

Today it is December 22nd, and in a few days we will be celebrating Christmas. A very unusual Christmas this year, it’s true: it’s my first Christmas in the winter. So, the temperatures below zero degrees and the white landscape in all the surrounding area create an entirely new atmosphere of Christmas for me, since I’m used to a Christmas season with hot weather, sun and sea bathing. To be far from my family and church it’s also something different for me, since I spent the last 22 Christmas with them.
Despite many differences, in one aspect the Christmas time is similar in Brazil and in Norway: it’s a time where people are very busy. Before the Christmas celebrations, people have to clean their houses, have to bake ‘pepperkaker’ or Christmas cakes, have to decorate the Christmas tree, have to buy gifts, have to go to Christmas concerts, have to, have to, have to… And in between many things to do, people usually end up forgetting exactly what they are celebrating.
“This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!” (Mark 9:7b). Listen to him.
The voice of Jesus is a softly and sweet voice. And even in a time where there are many voices shouting for discounts, concerts, programs and many other activities, Jesus don’t compete with them; he don’t want to be heard at any cost. Instead, he continues to call everyone with a sweet voice. And all those who are willing to listen to him, can hear his voice and can experience a Christmas full of meaning: The celebration of God who became man to save the humanity.
‘He who has ears to hear, let him hear’!

Give us ears to hear you, Lord, and help us to celebrate a meaningful Christmas. Because you are the meaning!
A blessed Christmas for everyone!

I just forgot to attach some pictures, in the last post.
So, here they are:


Coming back from the church


First snow this winter!


=)

Here comes the... snow!

“In a cold night, iluminated by the glow of the stars, I was anxious in the dark waiting for the sunrise. The sands of the desert shone shone like silver sugar. The wind whispered me His name again and again: ‘Abba, Abba’. The vigil was ending and my life would never be the same. In a lonely cave in the desert of Zaragoza, I knew God as my Father. I was once again a child lost in wonder, love and praise.
Become a child again (as Jesus commanded that it should happen) is to recover a sense of surprise, wonder, and vast delight in all reality. Look at the face of a child on Christmas morning when she enters the room transformed by the passage of Santa Claus at midnight. Or when she discovers the coin under the pillow, see the first rainbow or smells of the first rose. Few of us hold the breath at times like these, as one day we did. The passage through the corridor of time made us feel superior while all the rest is smaller, less impressive.
We know our dedication and our disposal. We acquired certain domain of the nature and of the diseases. Through the miracle of the modern technology, we are able to experience sights, sound and events previously available just to Colombo, Vasco da Gama and others adventurers. There was a time in not too distant past when a storm made grown men tremble and feel small.
But God is being pushed out of His own world by science. The more man knows about weather, is less inclined to pray in a storm. Airplanes now fly up, down and around all types of storm. Satellites reduces the storms, once terrifying, in photographic events. What infamy (if a storm could be made infamy) be reduced from teophany to a nuisance!
Even the universe and the ‘outer space’ has gradually ceased to impress us. We talk about spacecrafts on Mars with the same excitement as if we were sending cameras to the East Village in New York. We are saturated, unable to feel awe and fear. This decrease in the ability to impress may be a sign of maturity, a necessary consequence and healthy progress. But I am inclined to think that this shows a loss of balance.”

Quoted from the book of Brennan Manning, ‘Convite à loucura’ (The importance of being foolish).


Forgive me this poor translation. I’ve tried to find this text in the internet on the original version, but I couldn’t.
Today is 19th of December, 2009: we had the first day with snow of this winter, here in Bergen… and the really first snow of my life. Since I woke up in this morning and looked outside, for the white roofs all around the neighborhood, a big smile came on my face; and it lasts until now, while I write this lines. The excitement to go outside and touch the snow, and the experience of the snowflakes touching my face, gave me a feeling of deep joy. It was that kind of moments when you just want to thank God and praise him, for such simple but beatiful scene. I could feel the presence of God in that moment, and I had just one thought in my mind: ‘God really exists, and He is wonderfull, and creative!’. I felt like a child again.
But later on, following my way, I noticed that no one else, except a child playing with the snow in the park, shares of this same joy and exitement as I was feeling. Immediately a question comes to my mind: ‘How they can’t be marvel with such beautiful thing?’. But in the same instant, a clear answer came to me: They lost their ability to marvel at this, as I lost mine to be excited with a colorful sunrise in the summer, or with the magnitude of the crack of a lightning through the sky on a stormy night.
It makes me remember this text of Brennan Manning. We are losing the ability to dazzle, to percept God through his creation and give him glory.
If it continues snowing for the next weeks, my natural tendency is to don’t feel more excitement. All the beauty I saw in the snow will give space for the complain: 'Oh, snow and more snow! When it will stops? I don't want to go out and get my feet wet, again...' And the excitement gone…

Thanks, God, for this precious moment I had! And help me to don’t get used with the things around me, but give me sensibility and open my eyes to percept your action even in the simple things!