19th November 2023 Infill Service

Good morning everyone. Really good to be here. My name is Debbie.

I guess that's my introduction. I'm from Sri Lanka. Really nice to be

here in the midst of God's presence, and it's amazing to know you can

come many many miles away, I still feel at home in God's presence.

So thank you for the lovely worship. And so I've been asked to preach

and to share about the work I do. And I was mulling this in

my head, wondering which one I should do first, and I thought,

maybe the first two is to actually talk a little bit about the work that

I do in Sri Lanka, and then we'll go on to what I'm hearing

a bit about from God's word. Is that okay? Come. So in

two thousand and eight, two thousand and six, I started an organization by

the name of Child Action Lanca and Child Action Lanka, an organization that was

started for street connected children. And when we say street connected, it my

children who either live on the streets or their parents work on the streets,

so they spent a lot of their time on the street, or if not,

their family situation is such that without any intervention, they'd be the next

group of people on the streets. And this is something that actually if somebody

had told me this, you know, I don't know when I was sixteen,

seventeen twenty, and I would have probably said never in a million years.

I was raised. I was raised by Christian parents, lived in a

very sheltered life. My parents were pastors, and you know, people who'd

drank a lot, or who were into prostitution and things like that scarred me

so much that I would never have seen myself anywhere close to them. And

when I was in Bible School in Canada, I remember lady called me and

she said, you're going to go back to Sri Lanka and you're going to

work with children. You're going to work with prostitutes and drug addicts and that's

going to be a massive part of your life. And through that you're going

in revival to Sri Lanka. And I thought to myself, I think she's

got it all wrong. That's not me right. But many years after that,

when Child Actionlanka was born, today, when I look back, that's

exactly the group that we are working with. And it's been a journey.

I think God has a way of showing us things step by step. It

sometimes good he doesn't show us the whole whole thing together, because had he

shown that this is what Child Action Nanka was going to look like in twenty

three, I probably said no, thanks, not my thing. But he

only started with, you know, just giving us eight children, eight children

off the street. It was Carrie. I mean I remember standing up because

we started out in a little basement. I used to stand on the steps

for about five minutes thinking how am I going to go in there and face

these kids? It's just so rough. I remember my background is I lived

in church. Basically I come out of my bedroom and I was in church,

right, and for me thinking how do you face these people? They're

just going to beat me up now, I'm really scared. Right. That's

where we started out and today Child Action ANCA has grown from the art,

working with over two thousand children across the country and it's I always tell the

team, it's just an amazing privilege to be able to be part of their

lives because I feel like God's given us the opportunity to be front row audience

to seeing their lives being transformed. So in Sri Lanka, because Sri Lanka

is mainly a Buddhist country. We're not allowed to do a lot of you

know what we say the God talks. But basically I've found, you know,

Child Action ANCA has been able to go into places that normally, as

a church we wouldn't be able to take a Bible and go into. We

get beaten up badly, trust me, it's bad, right, But we've

been able to go into temanles, into mosques, into all these places and

reach out to them, actually taking God's love to them very practical way,

going away there to serve the children and then they open their hearts out and

say who are you? Why do you do this? And that's been an

amazing opportunity for us to be able to take Christ's love to them. Now,

after all these years, we've seen children who've actually accepted Christ, been

able to you know, go on with God. And it just reminds me

of was it, brother Lawrence? Is it go out into the world and

you know, speak God's word or evangelize and if you must use words,

And this has been one of those, and it's been taking God's love to

them in very, very practical ways. And that's what we do. A

Child Action anchor can I have the next slight, please. So when we

started out, we started doing many things. Maybe the next run place.

Sorry I'm being a pain. I wanted. When we started out, we

used to do many things. We used to go from building houses to cleaning

up wells to you know, doing so many things because we saw the need

for you know, working with these people. There were it was an unlimited

pool of needs in there that you know, if we felt drawn to when

you wanted to make something happen for them. But I think as time went

on, we realized that there were some things we were good at and sometimes

we needed to rebuild fous on. So we began to work with edition,

child protection, healthcare, and nutrition. So these were the areas we began

to focus. I'm a very firm advocate for education. I feel like education

is a very important thing. Education can break that cycle of poverty. And

so because of that, what we thought is we need to make sure that

these children get educated. And so in terms of education, we started providing

them with all the different aids that they need, where they would then come

into our dropping centers across the country and where they would be able to access

free education with us. But at the same time, we also realized,

you know, we've had many children who've gone into college, you've gone into

you know, amazing trades who done amazing things. But there's also some of

them who have come from so much of hardships and so much a bag,

like with a lot of baggage on them. For them to be able to

focus on things beyond that is really hard, and it's been a process of

having to give them a sense of holistic education. It's sometimes having to you

know, amazing people like Sue have been coming from twenty eleven to Strilanca.

She came the first time she came and actually lived with us for six months,

even called dngy and everything, but I don't know that didn't stop us.

She still kept on coming. But you know, people like have come,

been seen with the children, been spending time listening to their stories,

helping them through. And some of those children that she started out with,

now you know, they've grown up, they've gone into the world, they've

started doing amazing things themselves. But it's also being able to create that sense

of holisticness, that that sense of platform where you can give them other opportunities

beyond the books, to be able to be able to have something where they

can bring value into the world themselves and where they can look at their own

lifestyle and so the next place, yes, so this is so. This

is one such opportunity. In September, Sri Lanka was able to be represented

at the Street Child Cricket Work Cup that happened in Chinna in India where our

children from Child Action Nancay represented Sri Lanka out there and it was it was

an amazing opportunity of being able to create that platform for them to go out

to India, to be able to play withineen other countries from around the world

as street children coming out there and you know, it's it's one thing.

These children are all from different parts of the country, so they're from different

centers, don't speak the same language. It was interesting to bring them together

and they'd start one sentence in one language and end it in another language.

What are you doing? Yeah, it was amazing to watch the confidence it

built into them knowing that you know, they were the chosen ones. I

mean this, yeah. I think the boy from from this side, the

second one, uh, he was one day. I remember he was just

seated in this hall and he was crying and I said, what's what's wrong?

And he said, you know, my school didn't accept me to play

cricket. And if you know a little bit aboustri Lanka, you know,

cricket is almost a religion. It's something that you know, I know,

there's Christianity and all them, but there's cricket, right, And he said,

you know, my school didn't accept me to play cricket. They actually

let me out of the team. They said I wasn't good enough. To

day, he said, I'm captaining this team and my team won and he

said, you know, I can't believe I had this opportunity, and I

think it's one of those. But also, you know, it's not that

easy to get these children from the streets onto a plane. That's a process,

right, So we ended up having to look for birth certificates. To

get a birth certificate, we had to look for parents. We had to

get parents married who didn't really want to be married so that we can get

the birth certificates, so that they can get a passport for them to get

on the plane, right, And it was it was a whole process in

itself. People, you know, we had to look for children were choosing

their own surnames. They had to find their own dates of birth. We

created dates of birth for children because you know when they give you the medical

and they say, you know you were born roughly around this time. Because

they didn't know their age, they didn't know whom they were born, where

they were born. They had a lot of fun picking out their own birthdays.

Right. That's how much it took to get this team out India,

and you know it was it was where they also played cricket, but they

also worked on child rights. It's all really like you know, where they

worked with other countries and identifying these are the things as street children's, street

connected children. These are our problems, these are our issues, this is

what we're going through. We need to do something about this. And this

group they came back and they said, oh, we need to work on

birth set because father children. We need to make sure that others don't have

this problem. So now guess what. The other day they said, you

know, we've got an idea and I said, oh great, can we

meet the president? I'm thinking, right, do we make this happen?

But that's how much a confidence they come back with, thinking, you know,

sky is a limit. I can meet who I want to, I

can talk to who I want to. I can make a difference. And

these are children, you know, who literally lived on the streets, their

parents worked on the streets, they've had a rough life, something like that

could help transform them. And I think, I think, just like on

those times when I watch them on the ground, sometimes it just sometimes it

was very heartbreaking knowing what they were going through and they what their backgrounds were

and what they were going to go back to, but just seeing them being

able to stand through. This has also been proved to say, you know

that bringing that level of education can break that cycle for them, can help

them think differently. Next one, please, Yeah, So this is another

component. But basically health and nutrition wasn't my main focus. My focus was

get them educated they can get off the streets. But one thing we found

was children actually coming hungry to us. I remember going to one community,

a new community that we were trying to start a center at, and I

was asking the children what did you eat? And they looked at me like

I was speaking some other language because I found out that they had met me

two and a half days. And then I realized, oh my god,

Okay, before we give them any form of education, we probably need to

help feed them. So every day at our centers we make sure that children

receive a meal. They receive one hot meal at least little ones who are

with us for morning they get breakfast as well. Some of them get a

packed meal to take back home with them. So today we've done four hundred

and eighty thousand lunchers. This is not breakfast, this is just the lunch.

We do breakfast as well for some of the children. But also making

sure that children out of malnutrition, children out or you know, their growth

is stable, things like that, to make sure that they're in a better

place to receive education and to be able to get out of the life that

they live next. Please, so I at Child Action Lanka. There's many

projects and I don't want to bore you this morning with all the work that

we do because I think you end up falling asleep. Yet you have to

come out sometimes to Sri Lanka to have a look at it and then hopefully

you get your head around it. Yes, Julia the one online as well,

Please feel free to come out to Sri Lanka. But among the many

projects that are currently we're running about sixty eight different projects, and out of

them, I thought I'd pick a few of my favorite projects. I'm not

sure how much of Sri Lanka news reaches you, but last year we were

brought up as a bankrupt economy and because of that, it really affected the

country. It affected the children we work with, and I would say it

affected actually mostly it affected the children who were who were right down there at

the lowest level of children. And for them, one of the things was

that malnutrition levels peaked up in the country, and so we were taking care

of children in our center. But one day, I remember just coming out

of office, one of the moms she just came and she said, you

know, it's been a long time since I was able to afford a cup

of milk for my child. And that got us thinking, and we thought,

okay, maybe we start giving cups of milk. And you know,

it's not such a big thing, a cup of milk, but in Sri

Lanka, I became a luxury item. It became something, you know,

because they were importing milk. Milk became so expensive. It was really really

hard for people to have just a cup of milk. And so as a

result, what happened is we started giving cups of milk to children at our

centers. Now they went to their schools and started talking about this, and

school said, can you please bring a cup of meat to our school as

well? And so we started taking cups of meat to school and then you

know, all the principals said, you know, this has brought children back

to school, children who dropped out during COVID, who've gone on to do

jobs out there. They've started coming because of the cup of milk. This

is brilliant, you know, can you do more of it? And so

then we were thinking, oh, how much are we going to be able

to do, and we set ourselves a target. We thought we'll do maybe

ten thousand cups, right, but as you can see today, it's gone

up to seventy thousand cups. We've gone on doing ten thousand cups per district.

And then we had Sri Lanka's largest insurance provider come around and say,

we really like what you do, but we don't think it's very sustainable.

This idea doesn't work because once you finish ten thousand cups in one place,

you seem to move somewhere else. What happens to these children there and so

they said, what we would really like to do is we would like to

provide children with a long term solution. Can be joined with you and let's

provide meal to all the children in different schools across the country, in different

districts, but every year of one student, we're going to be providing the

meal for the next ten years. It's like, whoa, okay, right,

nice idea, let's see how we work that through. But because of

that, it's become one of my favorite projects. And we've seen, like

you know, so many schools opening up for that and because of that,

children going back to school, so it's been amazing. Yeah, next,

please this don't play the video business alone. But this is also another project

that's one of my favorite projects. It's because it's called the mobile school,

and there's one of it in austri Lanka so far that's with us, but

it's also in many other countries. And the mobile school is an informal education

tool. So basically it looks like a box on four wheels, but once

you open it up, it opens about six meters long and it's got different

educational activities on it, so you can take it out to communities. So

what we do is we take it out to communities where the children can't reach

us, they can't come to our centers, but we can take education to

them. And the good thing about it is that when we take it out

to them, you know, it's not only the children who come around.

Sometimes the dads come around. They're watching. Sometimes, you know, moms

come around. They're talking about their problems, they're talking about what they're going

through. It's a good opportunity for our staff to be able to meet with

them, find out what's going on in their lives, what's going on in

their backgrounds, and how we can work with them and what we can do

for them. So Mobile School is an education tool that we take out into

the communities, whereas the centers that we run are places where children come to

us and the next one please. So this is a project called RAP.

RAP is a project that it stands for Women Rising against Poverty and the funny

top you see me wearing this is one of the one of the products made

of the women of the RAP project. So basically what we do is we

ask people to donate they're old stories to us and then we upcycle them into

other projects. We make table runners, laptop covers, all kinds of things,

cushion covers, key tags, a million different things. But it helps

a woman to be able to have that sense of independency, to be able

to have an income to feed her children. It prevents them from going through

domestic violence, It keeps them safe, it helps them look after themselves.

So how it works is that we have the showing machines that are center.

Most of the women, not all, but most of the women who are

part of these are generally women headed households, so their husbands are either in

prison or they're not alive, or you know, they're going crazy, and

so sorry. Men are good, but sometimes and so what they do with

this is when they create the products, we help them sell it. So

this time from my thirty seven killos of luggage that I brought, thirty one

killos, all the stuff that I brought made by them that we brought and

we were selling at different places, and out of that what happens is one

third fee goes towards their normal day to day income where they can feed their

children take care of their children, and the other one third goes into a

saving school and another one third goes towards sewing paying for the sewing machine.

So once they finished paying for the sewing machine, it also enables us to

then provide another woman with employment because we can buy another machine. But with

the money that they said, once they go to their homes, it also

make sure that they have a little bit of money to start up their own

business out of it. And so it becomes their little you know, savings

key for them. But recently I was talking to a group of women who

merely finished paying for their machines, and then they were saying, you know,

it's great that you know, we'll pay We'll pay up the whole thing

for the machine, not a problem. But can we just keep on staying

here and not take the machine back home? I said, why would you

do that? And they said, oh, we get to talk to each

other and we're hanging out. And I said, yeah, but you all

your own neighbors, you get to you know, still talk to each other.

And no, but we had to be at home. This way we

can get out of home. It's a nice chance for us to come here

and talk. And what I realized is they created this sense of you know,

a little a little group among them where they had this little you know,

counselors. You call it group therapy, you but you know, they're

almost created that sense of belonging there where you know, where they were,

they were talking about each other's problems. They knew the answers when mom one

mom was sick or her son was sick, you know, they would finish

her targets as well, so that because of that they wouldn't need to worry

about payments and all that. So there was a lot going on between that

I didn't realize what was going to be. And these are some of the

products that they create, but so many more, and they're constantly designing new

things and and it's been amazing to watch watch how the project has gone through.

But those are some of the things that we do, right. So

when I put this slide on, somebody asked me, what are you trying

to show a fairy tale here? But this is actually the bridegroom here in

this picture. He was one of our first students and he's one of those

boys who actually studied on the street lights, got through his exams really well.

We put him into a good school to going for his A level exams,

and we couldn't actually disclose his identity to the school because they wouldn't accept

him among all the posh students there. So when we used to go for

our parents teacher meetings at that time, I was young, right, didn't

have so many gray hairs. Now I covered them with blondes, right,

But at that point we were my husband and I we were like among the

youngest parents there and we were pretending to be his parents, and so people

would look at us wondering, you know, did you have him? And

you were like really little of us the story in this boy. But because

we were able to keep his eye yr secret, he was able to go

and take on school leadership. He became captain of the cricket team there.

He ended up becoming a prefector of the school. He got many prizes,

he did really well, and today he's living his life completely off the street.

He's making millions, actually much more than I do anyway, and you

know, he owns a lot of prime property in Colombo. He's doing really

well. And that's just one of them off the street. And it's been

many of those little ones that we've been able to be able to be a

part of their lives and see the transformation. I think Sue was saying how

she remembers the first time when she came and she remembers him there, and

she remembers the process of talking to him, and you know, the things

that he went through. And she reminded me of an interesting story of when

he went into this school where the others said, don't hang out with us,

because if you do, they'll know you're from the street. So you

need to keep quiet, and you know, know that we are there to

support you. And that's the kind of support he had to be who he

is today. Thanks Place. So these are all the centers we have across

the country, working across from north to the south and east to the west,

but we've been able to spread our wings working with children across the center

and next place. Yeah, so very often. You know, one of

the things that we're looking at is to see across these different centers how we

can actually enable the community now to start getting involved in owning the development work

that we've been doing. We've been doing it for a long time, but

we don't want them to create that sense of dependency and feel like without us

there'll be nothing again. So because of that, what we do we work

with them to make sure that they can contribute towards the developments. So things

like this, the little charity shop created by the women themselves, you know,

where they sell things. It also helps them then become part of it,

where they start paying towards, you know, maybe for a trip that

the kids are going to. They won't expect money from us, but they

say we can do it now, and it gives them that sense of empowerment.

So that's a little bit about what we do. And if you have

any questions, I'd be very happy to answer them for you later on.

But please feel free too, and if you want to look us up,

here's a little more information on who we are. But thank you very much.

Right, So, if you do have any questions, I'll answer them

for you later. But I'm also aware that the clock is sticking and so

right, so we're going to go to listening to God's word. Oh I

have to speak, don't it right? Yes, I'm going to speak because

you know, there is a lot in doing, a lot about what we

can be doing. And I was just thinking, you know, I've been

doing this for a while and today when I'm speaking to you, I'm actually

speaking to myself as well. It's for you, it's for me. And

I was thinking, you know, when I said yes to speaking, I

thought I'll pull something out from my orders, and I saying no, I

want you to listen, something that would come fresh for the day. And

listening to God gets sometimes a little hard and icy out there, and you're

sometimes caught up with a lot of things, and there's too many noises,

and sometimes, you know, we're so drawn to all these noises around us

that it comes to a place where you're really straining to listen, and that

brings a sense of tiredness and a sense of weariness. And sometimes you just

sit there and go, I'm tired. And I don't know how many of

you have that feeling of I'm feeling really, really tired. It's not a

physical sense if I'm tired, but it's a sense of inside you. You

start looking and going, I'm really tired. This journey has tired me.

I'm weary. I've got this sense of fatigue inside me. And you know,

I can sleep, I can sleep another ten hours and wake up and

I'm still tired. It's because you start looking at your life and you go,

you know, I've done all these things and Is it actually worth what

I've done? Is this journey worth it? Have I got to a point

in my life I feel it's worth it? And I felt like that was

something good was speaking about. You know, look where I think. We're

coming to the end of a year. It's that time of year when we

start making new lists for next year. I don't know I'd always create these

lists. I don't get through half of them, right, And you start

looking and going, you know, okay, these are the things you kind

of take count of what's been going on in life and you will accomplished next

year and all these things, and you start thinking, as well, you

know, is it worth what I'm doing? Am I making a difference?

Runs out there? Is my life adding any value to anything? And this

is this is where I feel like, you know, God wants to reach

out to us today, and I'm not sure how it works. You like,

you know, God's got to set out to those of us who feel

like I'm really not sure. I'm looking at my life and I'm feeling like

I'm just really really tired. I'm not sure it's even worth it. All

the fights I'm going through, all the you know, things I'm facing,

everything that's been thrown at me. Why why am I putting up with this?

Is it even worth it? Do I need to be going through this?

And I'd like to I'd like to take you through a scripture in the

Bible, my chapter fourteen. I think maybe the next time. No interesting,

yeah, yeah. And here he talks about when Jesus was in Bethany,

reclining at the table in the house of Simon, the leper omen came

with an alasta jar of very expensive venal. She broke the jar and poured

the perfume on his head. And then what happened sub pleasantly to one another?

Why this waste of perfume? And here she was? She brought this

woman. She appeared from somewhere. I was trying to work out exactly who

this woman was, because it says there was a woman. She didn't really

have a name, and she brought this jar perfume. And in those days

people actually invested into bottles of perfume. That was like an expensive thing,

so it was sealed and you couldn't open it until you broke it. And

it meant, you know, she brought this. She heard Jesus in this

place, she decided to bring this air. She broke it, which means

she just laid it all out there and she just poured it on Jesus.

And there were other people there where where Jesus was. He was invited for

dinner to Simon's place, and here they were looking and thinking what waste?

I I don't know, it's not even other people, but sometimes many think

I'm going to be starting might be thinking, you have did my life?

Have I got to this point home? Point? Like it does? It

not make sense anymore? And that begins to bring a thing it's not worth

it? And I speak a few people here who I feel it is very

very specific to you. You're going on a journey where you're feeling it's not

worth it, you know, people like Actually, I'm being very hesitant to

say this because I'm very careful in what I say sometimes, but this morning

I had a very strong sense that there was a word for somebody. I'm

not sure whether you're here in person or whether you're here online, I don't

know, but it might be a name like Ernie or are you or somebody

like that. I'm not quite sure. But what God was saying is you

know that time of shame is over and you need to rise up because you

need to because that time as this and I feel like God wants to encourage

you this morning that it's it's enough because we've been seated down there, seated

at try time to take stock of what's been going on, trying to think

is it actually worth it? What have I been doing. I'm just really

really tired. It's just enough. It's been going on and on, one

after the other, one after thegether. I finished one of th facing starts,

I finish that, something else starts. I'm constantly having to face this

thing. And it's not even other people this time, Like in this story,

we know, you know, she brings his bottle of perfume. She

pours it there on the Jesus and people are saying, people around, it

wasn't right, people around and saying a waste. Sometimes you know, very

good at learning how to block ad out and kind of saying no, I

need to you know, look, I need to God. I need to

trust God. And this is all about my journey with God. But before

times that we stand in our own way and we sometimes end up being the

people who are down at our own lives and what a waste I've given the

tears of my lovedste I've laid everything for God. A waste my you know,

the best of my whatever, what a waste I get. I've sacrificed

so much for God. I've given so much time to what a waste?

It's it's nobody else. And sometimes it's just because you know we've come to

this, it's now fare. There's more scripture that I'd like to read,

Luke chapter ten, and this is, this is intrining things. I was

not going to do the usual other side of the story where we talk about,

you know, the two sisters Mary and Martha. And in terms of

Mary and Martha, we always talk about how Mary chose the better in life,

and here it says as Jesus and his disciples were on their way,

he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him.

And sometimes we do need the Martha's. I know we talk about Mary

being the example, but we do need the Marthas to open the door and

be the practical person around to think through, to strategize, to plan,

to make sure it's going to happen, because we can't just wait for Mary

to sit at the feet of Jesus. We have to make sure there's Martha's

around. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's

feet listening to what he said. This is amazing. But Martha was distracted.

It says she was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made.

She came to him and asked, Lord, don't you know? And

sometimes I think, you know, we're doing so many things and we do

need the Martha's I mean, I'm a complete Martha, right, but sometimes

you get to that point to turn out and say, God, don't you

care. Don't you see I'm doing all this. I'm doing this, this,

this, this for you, And here I am. I'm going through

so much in my life. I'm going through this, I'm facing this,

I'm fighting these people are doing this, and people are saying that, and

you know, I'm struggling. And this was basically Martha. She was coming

to Jesus and saying, the Jesus, it's easy for you. You just

seated there. My sister seated at her feet, at your feet. That's

brilliant. Here I am struggling with this and that and the other going on

in my life. Don't you care. And sometimes when we are stuck in

that in that place of you know, we're facing so much going on around

us. In the Bible, here says Martha was distracted. And sometimes we

get so caught up in the distraction we come to a place of blame and

we begin to blame. We begin to blame everybody around us. We begin

to bed here, I'm so tired. I've been doing this and this and

this from seven in the morning, from six in the morning, I've been

doing this for you. You don't seem to take notice, you know,

whereas their sister Isilah seated Dad the feet of Jesus happily, everything seems great.

And sometimes, you know, we need the month at times to be

able to make things happen. But we also begin to get so distracted and

start looking at ourselves, start blaming ourselves and looking down. It's not fair,

this is not right. There's so much going on. Why is it

just me? And we look around at everyone else and think, oh,

okay, it's all right for some people, what about me? And I

believe, you know, that's the place where God says, you know,

Mary has chosen the better place. But I think the words later when it

goes. Mary has chosen the better part. Because Martha is saying, ask

Mary to come here and help me. Ask Mary to come here and be

with me. She can't stay there at your feet. This is not right.

Why do I have to open the door. I have to prepare everything

for you. I have to make sure everything's happening. I need to keep

all the balls up in the air and make everything balance. Why not Mary

and Jesus said few things are needed, or indeed only one. Mary has

chosen what is better. And you know, at the end of the day,

the takeaway of this is, you know, we need to do the

math of things. Those things need to get done. But it comes from

a place of sitting at Jesus's feet. And the more we begin to sit

at his feet, it begins to bring that oil of refreshing in our lives,

and it makes life a little easier, takes away that sense of fatigue,

It takes away that sense of tiring because you start doing less in your

own strength and more in His strength. And sometimes, you know, we're

so busy, and I know the modern world, I mean, this thing's

called phones. What a pain it makes people be able to reach you all

the time, across all time zones, right, and you get the one

hundred and fifty emails saying it's urgent, So the word urgent has lost its

importance anymore. Right, You get this thing called what'sapp that people can then

call you if you haven't replied, right, complete nuisance. And because of

that, our world has got so crowded with so much that it's a luxury

to have a little bit of time to sit at the feet of Jesus.

It's such a luxury to have a little bit of silence, to close everything

off and say, you know, that's enough. To the point that we

constantly what's it? What's it? The little hamster? Is it? Is

it a hamster that runs on that wheel? And it's forever running, It's

going on and on and on, right, none stop? What thing?

Sometimes we are these little hamsters caught up on that vel. And then you're

going, I'm so tired, this is enough, But no, I can't

stop because of me is turning and if I stop, what's going to happen?

And there are these moments that we have to end up stopping and going

I'm waiting to hear from God. And it's okay, and I feel some

of us just need that that permission to go. It's all right to stop,

It's okay. It's just going to say I'm going to stop till I

hear God next, because this fight is not worth fighting. What I'm going

through isn't worth feeling. I've given it all to God. There's so much

going on, I can't cope with it, and it's okay for me to

just sit at God's feet for a bit. I want to be that Mary

for a little bit. I know Martha is important. We sometimes don't think

Martha is the good guy in this picture. There's so many Martha things that

we do every day. Sometimes we just need to be a little bit of

Mary and so that, you know, God's refreshing comes over us. Sometimes

it gets really, really hard, and sometimes we struggle so much because we're

running dry. There's so much of dryness that it becomes a friction to be

able to run. We can't do it unable because then come into a place

I'm not really, really bit tired. I can't be unable to the presence

of God. And that comes as a relative sitting and the feet of Jesus.

One of the hardest things because when you see the unprot into your mind,

Oh what about this? Who you want that? Do a reminder of

this and don't do them at least for that. And this is just general

how oone works said that things become a lot easy. You begin to respect.

He begins to see that I have fy app on my phonemone and one

day justly, but it checks your bloodsure, And I classed up for a

whole week. Found that the weeks I was able to, the days I

was able to see it, and my pressure on start was actually really low.

It was a good law and it said yes level and there's a leaden

time I was working, I have done a lot of said you're a cheque.

I don't know whether the app pass right or wrong, but I know

something used to see they got and the sense of the sense of looking going

is what I'm doing. It's my life worthy, you know. Should I

continue doing this, it becomes more meaningful and sometimes tragling. Maybe there's a

lot going on. I know, you know for us that must be so

much going on in our life. And yet you take with God. Should

I sit at his feet and go you know, God here, I just

want to listen to you. I just want to hear from you and that

that little bit of every time. Yeah, And I want to encourage you

whatever battles you and little matter, like I told you at the beginning,

to myself much as I'm pretty and it's very different, and I like to

please you as I'm very encouraged with that. Wow, whatever we are facing,

I think at the end of the day, you know, don't let

it bring you down. Don't let that sense of weariness get over you to

then bring a sense of depression. You start feeling low, you start feeling

you're useless. It's not it's it's not worth it anymore. But the more

you decide to Okay, I'm going to just give this a chance. I'm

going to just sit at Jesus' fate. I want to hear what God has

to say about what I'm going through. I want to know what he has

to he has to say on this. I want to know what He's thinking

and his perspective. The moment we turn and switch into that, you begin

to see things in a completely different light. The places you feel like you

had no strength to stand up, you begin to see how He sees it,

and it gives you new strength and I want to encourage you this morning.

You know, take that time and it's hard, it's hard, but

you know, looking for that time, that maytime is really really important to

be able to get over that sense of you know, it brings value into

what you do. It starts making you see yourself in a whole new life.

It gives you a new strength on that journey. And I pray God

will bring it into this season in your life, whatever it is you're going

through. And like I said, you know, I felt like this was

something not just for me, but I felt like God wanted you to hear.

And whatever it is you're going through, I believe God was to bring

a sense of refreshing almost into your wanting to bring that driver of reshing alive.

And if you open your hordap, I believe God to do the fa omens