Two Hearts Won

9:30am Friday morning I woke up, knowing I  had a lot to get done before I went out on ministry after lunch. I took a walk first thing, and spent some time in prayer for our performance of Born Again and enjoyed my time with the Lord.  I had a great time in God's Word and felt renewed...until I closed by Bible.

All of a sudden, my heart was heavy with discouragement. I couldn't fully understand it. I had a great time of prayer and study and now I was discouraged? I knew it was Satan's attempt to weaken my ministry later in the day, and I felt it getting to me.

12:30pm  I shared with my roommates what I was feeling and I knew that they had my back in prayer throughout the day, but I still felt so unnerved. 
I put my feelings aside and spent most of the car ride to the orphanage in prayer. Once at the orphanage, I snapped into "get it done" mode. Doing all the was required of my, but with a daunted heart.

3:00pm  Satan wasn't done messing with us. When we arrived, there was massive confusion. Some didn't know we were coming and the people who knew we were coming weren't there. Long story short...things were complicated. We were missing a couple people and so we had a quick practice to adjust that which needed to be adjusted.
Come 4:45pm we were back stage getting dressed and ready to start at 5.

5:18 only about 6-8 loud, uncontrollable boys were in the room. screaming, running around, touching everything they could.

5:30pm Police arrived to one of the four buildings because someone had broken in and was caught in the act of stealing and therefore the children in that building were on lock down..and we were still back stage..waiting to start.

eventually, some teachers and students showed up (about 15 in all). Most the teachers didn't even know we were coming.

5:50pm We started.
of course, Satan got his nasty fingers all over our performace, and at least from my down cast perspective..it wasn't the best we had performed. Little things here and there went wrong..and my heart was despondent even more.

7:35pm  We finished and some of the cast went out to talk with the kids and teachers about the show in general and about the Gospel. I started to help pack up.

the times of all that happened may not be exact, but you get the time line. and you see I was disheartened.

BUT, here is the marvelous part. GOD IS BIGGER THAN ALL THAT.
Two people made dicisions to follow Christ with their heart. And a teacher commented saying that she could tell we weren't professionals, but there was something incredible in the performance that came through to her.

God worked through what I saw as a mess and a discouragement...He worked in spite of me to teach me and TWO HEARTS WERE WON!

Our God never ceases to surprise me...straight from my heart to yours...