Uganda Trip - Will You Pray?

I'm doing my laundry today. It means the time is coming closer to my having to put it all in a bag and jump in a 20 hour plane ride, after a 12 hour car ride. Why do I always go so far?

Seriously though, I am very excited about going to Uganda and feel like this is specifically in the plan of the Lord for my life. Not only am I looking forward to invest in the life of the people there, but I am looking forward to having the time to just journal my thoughts, put my life into perspective and renew my passion for the calling of God on my life.

I'll be honest with you, short term mission trips are never about what we can offer to where we go, but they are mostly about what we can get out of it. Sure, we serve and help in some way, but if we really wanted to support missions we should give the long term missionaries the funds they need to do their ministry instead of spending the money on ourselves going to where they are for two weeks. So, I'm not lying about this. I know this trip is about me, mostly.

I think I need to be there to hear what God wants to tell me. Does that sound crazy? Probably to some of you, but to me it sounds just about right. You kind of need to know what is going on inside of my head to understand. But, good look with that one. 

So anyway, the purpose of this post is to ask you to pray for me. I need people who will be supporting me in prayer as I go through these next few weeks. As I seek to know God's will, as I work alongside people who give everything they have to serve the Lord, as I learn from Joy and work with the students.

I need you to pray:

• for safety and protection as I travel to and from the country on August 9th to the 11th and the 25th to the 27th.
• for my health to support the travel, the changes in environment and the stress that's associated with it. 
• for God to renew my passion and vision for his work
• for wisdom and guidance of the people I will be working with as they plan the next few weeks of training for these students (Joy Johnston, and the leaders of the Assemblies Of God of Uganda)
• for the students who will be going through the training and those coming to learn how to be church planter trainers.

It would be great, if you plan on taking some time to pray for me every day that you would either email me (rebeccapaavola@gmail.com) or leave a comment here. Then I can send you specific requests during the trip if ever I can. 

I leave you with a video of a song that's been on my heart lately. This might not be so, but I pray that it might be.

Uganda Mission Trip

Dear friends,

A week ago I was presented with the opportunity to spend two weeks in Uganda with missionary Joy Johnston. If you know me at all, you know that when there is possibility of an adventure, it’s difficult for me to say no; especially when this adventure involves building the church of God in the world.

I wanted to take a moment to inform you about this new adventure and ask you to partner with me as I continue to do the work God has called me to, from Gaspé to Uganda.

During this trip, I will be working alongside missionary Joy Johnston, who focuses on training pastors to build churches in unreached regions of Africa. I just did an interview about what the main focus of our trip will be for our district website. You can listen to it here: http://www.dqpaoc.org/spip.php?article2251.

Pastor Rebecca Paavola direct from Camp Escuminac from dq_paoc on Vimeo.

One of the main problems in Africa is the lack of education offered to people who take on positions of authority. When power is abused it can create terrible situations, and this is even worse when it is done in the name of God. One of my prayers is that we would not only try to change daily situations, but that we would try to change the circumstances behind the difficult situations in order to see long term change. Offering leadership training is one of the ways we can accomplish this.

Joining Joy in her upcoming trip, will be a way for me to learn how I might be involved one day in this long term change and help build pastors who will be transforming the lives of people with the power of the Gospel of Christ everywhere around the world. Not only overseas, but also all around us. Abuse of power, especially within the church, has been one of the main causes of dissention towards the church in places like Quebec today.

In partnering with the Pentecostal Assemblies of God in Uganda, we are equipping Ugandan pastors to be better equipped to reach their continent and see them be raised up as leaders who are reflective of Christ within their own context. This will be done by building churches who are cross-culturally relevant, built on a solid Biblical foundation, and reflective of the servants heart of God through involvement in their communities.

To help me in this endeavour, you can pray for God’s guidance, protection and providence as I travel to Uganda from August 10^th to 25^th. You can also make donations which will be used solely for the expenses of the trip; which amount to about $3,000. Donations can be made to me personally by mailing a cheque to 25 MGR Ross, Gaspé QC, G4X 1L7. Any donations received after the trip will be used to reimburse expenses related to the trip.

To receive a charitable donation receipt for income tax purposes, please make cheques payable to «Pentecostal Christian Assembly» and add a note saying it is for «Pastor’s Mission Trip». A receipt will be sent to you at the end of the year.

I thank you for joining me in this work and I pray God’s blessings will come upon you for it!

Sincerely,

For more information, contact me at rebeccapaavola@gmail.com

What is important in church for you?

Yesterday I saw a blog post by Vicky Beeching where she asked a few questions to her readers. You can read the post here: http://vickybeeching.com/blog/church-what-on-earth-is-it/ She asks,

WHAT IS CHURCH SUPPOSED TO BE? WHAT IS IMPORTANT TO YOU ABOUT HOW CHURCH LOOKS, FEELS, OPERATES?

I really started thinking about this. I have been trying to figure out what is truly important about church for a while. What has meaning to it and what doesn't? Why do we do the things we do? Is it simply because that's the way we've always done it or is it because we truly find it fulfilling the purpose God has for His church?

So, I ask you these questions. Maybe you can help me figure this out and see what is truly important about church for you?

I answered her question this way:

I was thinking about this for a while yesterday and I came up with the idea of communion. I was looking for the one thing in church that does exactly what the church is supposed to do. Bring us closer together as the Body of Christ, keeps Christ in the center of what we do, and helps me grow in maturity. Communion is the one thing which, when observed properly, fills all of these.

I think it doesn't matter what else happens in a service in terms of traditionalism or contemporary worship experiences, communion brings us back to the proper focus. It crosses most denominational boundaries and is always centered upon the Word of God.

I really wish the church would teach more on communion and that instead of it being a ritual in churches it would always keep it's true meaning.

What do you think is truly important in church and why?

Being a Woman Pastor

I haven't blogged in way too long, simply because I have felt like I have nothing very interesting to share compared to everything else written out there. But, I don't write so that people read. I write to clear my head. And right now my head is so full I can hardly focus on anything. So, maybe I need to write.

I have been falling on websites almost every day lately that have really annoyed me. Being very honest, I'm not the kind of woman who usually fells disturbed  or offended by someone telling me that I'm weaker than a man. That man and woman have different roles. Or that a wife should submit to her husband. I have actually found myself fighting for those kind of things. But, this is different.

If you haven't figured it out yet, what I have seen over and over again in the last few weeks is the putting down of woman in ministry. Things like the church needing more "man" pastors. Or that a woman can be involved in a church but she shouldn't be preaching or the main leader of the church. Even telling me that the Bible is clear that a woman shouldn't be speaking in church, never mind the senior pastor. Nothing has happened to me personally in the last little bit to bring this up other than these website. But, I'm just being seriously annoyed by it.

As I said, I usually just ignore those things and move on with my life as if it hadn't happened.  Because it's never going to change. But, I'm tired of it lately. I'm tired of being constantly said that I am not doing the will of God. That a man would do a better job at this than me. That God is against my position in ministry.

It hurts, that I put so much energy into this. That I poor out my heart and soul, literally, for my church. And yet people still believe what I'm doing is against the will of God. It hurts, that I see people coming to the Lord, people being discipled and grow in spiritual maturity, yet I am not doing the will of God.

It confuses me that I see fruit, good fruit, coming out of my life an ministry, but it's not what the Lord has commanded for His church. Does it make any sense to you?

I'm not looking for anyone to approve of what I do. The fruit of my labor and the people being saved and changed is enough for me to know God is for what I am doing. But, why do I have to fight with people supposedly fighting the same cause as me to prove I can do what I am doing? Why would God bless me and my ministry if he didn't approve of it?

I could go into the importance of interpreting those passages they use against the role of woman in the church in proper context both culturally and historically. I could go into debating that from the beginning God created Adam and Eve as equals. And I firmly believe that the Bible says nothing about my role in the church being wrong based on those and other parts of Scripture.

I also believe that God has blessed the ministry of women throughout history so much so that it should be impossible for someone to say that it is against God's will for women to be involved in the leadership of the church.


So, why is it that so many people seem to be undermining the role of woman in the church? Why do I have to fight to determine what I can and cannot do simply because I have boobs.

I know that God always vindicates His Word. And the fruit in my life is enough to show me that He is with me. So, why do you believe otherwise?

Surgery Recuperating

(This is a boring update on my two weeks of recovery from surgery. Nothing very interesting going on here.)

The last two weeks have been not quite what I expected them to be. I thought that after the surgery it would take me about two or three days to recuperate and then I would be able to catch up on life while still resting. Do some reading, writing, organize paper work that hasn't been done in way too long, send out my thank you cards from the wedding. It would a restful, recupperating, productive two weeks.

However, I've been a little frustrated at the fact that it didn't turn out that way. I guess I wasn't expecting the surgery to be so rough on me. I wasn't expecting the anesthetics to have such nasty lasting affects on me. I wasn't expecting the pain from the four little cuts and the discomfort not being able to move would do. I'm glad the surgery is done, but I'd rather not have to go through that again. I kept telling myself that a gallstone attack was worse pain than all of this and it seemed alright!

For the first week I couldn't even get out of bed basically and slept through most of it. Last week if I tried doing anything productive, after a little while of doing work I ended up having to rest and sleep for the rest of the day. I didn't catch up on life, other than the cards that are almost done! My house is a mess, even though Jeremy did wash the floors and do a lot of dishes. I have to start work again on Wednesday/Thursday and I haven't done most of what I wanted to do.

But, I guess that's what sick leave is about. If I could do stuff I should be working. So, at least I haven't felt like I'm taking unnecessary sick days or guilty about telling people they can't come over. I'm surprised how two weeks in church life has felt like a really long time as I tried not to do anything. I'm hopefully ready to get back into it and ready to tackle the challenges ahead of me.

Anyhow, I just thought I would give a little update to those wondering how things are going. I hope you all enjoy the new week ahead of us!

Friday

I'm annoyed that what I really want to write about I can't. But, at the same time.. here's a song I'm enjoying right about now in my nice soothing office as I plan for this coming Sunday. Hope you enjoy too.

Productively Unproductive

Ever feel like you are unproductively productive? It's been one of those weeks here. Because I'm sure you love to read about my week, here's a little of what it looked like.

My office is finally done, which meant that the 6 days of having no office to accumulate paper work, books, music sheets, and furniture needed to be taken care of. And let me tell you it wasn't pretty. I didn't get my day off on Monday because I had Bible Study in Chandler, what I do usually once a month. So, I took Tuesday off instead and ended up not even doing half of what I wanted to do during that day. I spent the day Wednesday cleaning the house up and re-organizing my office because of that. Today, I had to spend a part of my afternoon at the hospital, and I need to go back tomorrow morning.

Enough to say, I haven't gotten much work done this week. But then I did get two Bible studies done. I now have an office I enjoy working in. I have all my pre-op stuff done and most likely an appointment for surgery very soon. I even started paying off my student loan. So, it really hasn't been that unproductive. It just didn't look like what it usually does.

To show this, I thought I would add a few pictures of my office now that it is pretty much done. I have a few things to add here and there. I have some apple boxes that I want to cover with fabric to keep some of my supplies in since I don't have any drawers. I want to finally develop some of our wedding pictures and hopefully frame them for one of the walls. I want to bring in some beach grass in some of my vases, etc... It should look nice by the time it's done. Even if it only gets done in the next few months.

And, by the way, I really wish I was a good photographer... but I never was good with those kind of artsy skills. So you can't really tell how nice the color actually is.

If I was rich I would have nice fancy guest chairs in dark brown leather with green pillows. I would also have a nice antique wood desk. But, I'm a pastor and I never know when the week where I won't be able to cash my pay will come. I'm not worried, I'd just rather not spend frivolous amounts of money for nothing. Which meant I also gave up on the nice light fixture I had chosen and instead decided to fix and clean the one that was there. I also dug up that little dresser thing from the basement of the church to add a touch of that antique feel I wanted. Anyway, here's what it looks like.

Don't forget what it looked like before: