HI Friends I am thankful that I can pop you guys a quick mail and share a bit about how God has been dealing with me in these days. In this past year we had so many opportunities to share what God has been doing among the Mengen and often I was ashamed about the praise we would receive because I actually know very well who I really am. And as we are coming towards to end of our time in South Africa, I had the privilege to have a bit of an awakening experience that has really caught my attention. I thank the Lord that He has brought me to standstill and I would thus share a few thoughts and prayer requests and though this you can also get a peak into the real Lourens .

1. I realize that even though I have been serving the Lord for many years and even though He has blessed us and our work, there still exists a heart issue where I have never really submitted totally to Jesus Christ as Lord and was never really discipled into such a relationship. Thankfully through our relationship with fellow believers we have grown in this area. But especially now God has shown me how far I fall short.

Pray that I will learn more of what it means to be submitted to Christ as Lord over my life not for my salvation but for my sanctification

2. About in 2005 after struggling many years as a young Christian caught in a legalistic trap I was so thankful to understand the freedom that is in Christ. Yet I continued to live as though I am still in bondage in certain aspects of my life. At times I would rebel against our Master, refusing to obey Him and clinging to my old live. I have never really learned to “put off” the old self with its deceit and corruption and “put on”

the new self with its righteousness as Paul teaches us in Ephesians. I have never learned the secret about a crucified life with Christ (Galatians 2:20)

and that I have been reborn as completely a new creature (2 Corinthians 5:17). Pray that I will learn what it means to put off the old self, and put on the new self. That I will embrace what ever God sends across my path to be crucified to the cross and live fully as a new creature.

3. The Bible makes it clear that “pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18). James 4:6 reminds us that “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” About 16 years ago I began my ministry as youth worker in a spirit of humility and reliance upon God, but as the ministry developed eventually amongst the Mengen, I have grown proud. Pray that I will allow what ever God sends across my path to be broken before Him

4. I have learned that I am not working in Christ’s

strength but in my own and this is often the result of a person not understanding how to crucify the old man. It thus happened that I at times payed lip-service to God, but actually attempted to manage and build the ministry in my own strength and wisdom. Let us not forget that this type of pride leads to a fall.

Pray that I will learn what it means to not work in my own strength but allow Christ to work in and through me.

5. Let us never forget that Satan does not sleep or rest and will always target any evangelical Christian leader. As you know through the ages many leaders has fallen and many Christians have had their faith weakened as a result of seeing a leader fall. We have been given disciplines and “weapons” to use to develop and defend ourselves, but I have not been diligent in using them. The Bible warns us all, “Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the

devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8).

Pray that I will use the disciplines and weapons that God has given us to develop and protect myself.

Let us not forget that the church as well as our story of Gods grace among the Mengen is not a story about perfect men and woman but it is the story of a perfect Savior who loves sinful men and meets them in their frailties with His redeeming power. Thanks for carrying us in your prayers Lourens