I wanted to do something a little more lighthearted this week, so I’m giving you all a tour of my where I’ve been living the past couple of weeks!
Welcome to my house
I am not a photographer and my camera is not that great, so ignore the quality of the photos. 😂
Exterior
Most of my time is spent outside my tent doing trainings and eating meals and spending time with my team. When we have free time and when the events of the day are done, I come home to my tent! It’s very welcoming because it’s my own space.
Front porch
My shoes live in my front porch where they are protected from the rain.
Garage
My back porch serves as my garage, where my big pack is waiting for our next travel day!
Pantry, Closet, and Laundry Room
My backpack holds all the random stuff I’m not using right now, so it’s basically my storage closet. I have apples, mini peppers, and nuts in my pantry right now. I ate all the cookies… In the center is my laundry bag, which I got from Ava, my team leader. Somehow it fits pretty much all my clothes, which is crazy!
Library/Home Office, Dresser, Toiletries, and Work Bag
The pocket in my tent houses my books and my kindle. My work bag has my Bible, notebook, pencil and pens, and my toothbrush and toothpaste so I have them when I’m near the sinks for meals and teaching. The packing cubes have all my clothes, except most of them are in the laundry bag right now. The blue bag has all my toiletries and shower stuff for the days we’re fortunate enough to get showers.
Bedroom
I spend a lot of time here trying to sleep during free time. Usually I only get like 20 minutes of sleep, but every little bit counts! Honestly, it’s not that uncomfortable. Half the time I wake up not on my mat, but as long as I sleep until my alarm, I must be comfortable enough, right?
Laundry Line
There is a communal laundry line, but for things like my towel and the things that haven’t dried by the end of my squad’s laundry day, my hammock straps work great!
Bathroom
No comment…
Spiritual Warfare 101
This week the emphasis of the teaching was on spiritual warfare. It makes sense that we would need some instruction on that because Satan hates what we’re doing. I’ll share a few key points.
- God designed the spiritual world to follow basic principles like love, faith, prayer, and sin, similarly to how He designed the physical world to follow basic principles like gravity and inertia.
- The kingdom of God is near, but it is in constant conflict with Satan’s kingdom in this world.
- A lot of demons appeal to our fleshly nature in order to tempt us to sin. This means that one way we fight the enemy is by putting off habitual sins.
- Demonic influence, oppression, and possession are manmade terms. The only word used in the Bible to describe people who are having issues with demons is “demonized.” Christians cannot be possessed because they already have the Holy Spirit, so there isn’t room for any demonic spirits to take full control. They can be oppressed by demons, which can look similar. We have the power to resist anything that comes from Satan because we have authority from Jesus that came through His victory on the cross. We also need to be careful not to leave open doors for the enemy through living in bitterness or pursuing other forms of worldliness.
- They ended the teaching on spiritual warfare with a teaching about prayer as a means of relationship, a means of worship, and a means of warfare and gave some ideas for ways we can pray for the lost, which is effectively spiritual warfare.
- We also had a session looking into where demons show up in the Bible and how Jesus and His disciples dealt with them. That was helpful to see that nobody is just making this stuff up. It was also neat to see how Jesus spoke with authority over darkness.
That’s kind of what they taught us this week, but I’m still developing my perspective. Right now I’m okay with not knowing everything.
Hiking Failure…
We tried to hike Mount Yonah, but unfortunately, we got halfway up, and then it started raining harder, and then we hiked right back down. It was kind of sad, actually. We did see a beautiful rainbow the next day, so I guess that makes up for not seeing the view from the peak.
Laundromat Day!
Today, we got to go to the laundromat and Walmart, and Chick-Fil-A! It’s basically a holiday. Actually, I didn’t get to go to the laundromat because there weren’t enough seats in the van, but I sent my clothes with someone else, and now they’re clean! Unfortunately, the dryers at the laundromat weren’t super effective, so the clothes are only somewhat dry. I need to hang them up on the clothesline I got at Walmart.
Going forth
Fortunately, we are not staying at training camp forever! In just two days, we’re going to Mississippi to do one week of domestic missions! I don’t know much other than that we’re going to be staying at a house owned by Mennonites and sleeping in real beds! We also have to figure out our own meals as a squad, so we will be having a lot of sandwiches for lunch. I’m just content with the fact that we get a change of scenery and a bed. After domestic missions, we’re coming back for about a week of debrief and then we fly out for Malaysia on October 7! It’ll coming up so fast!
Prayer Requests
As always, there are a few things I and my squad could use prayer for.
- Sophia could still use some help getting a new phone to replace her broken phone so that she can fulfill her logistics role effectively. Reach out to me if you would like to help with that.
- Ella, who is on Team Radiant with me, has the flu, so pray for a quick recovery, as well as overall health for everyone here at training camp.
- Continue to pray for unity in the squad and in the individual teams. There are a lot of very different people coming from very different backgrounds, and we’re already hitting some bumps in the road when it comes to empathy and compassion.
- Pray for effective ministry in Mississippi and that we will have gospel opportunities and represent God’s kingdom well. Also pray that we will grow in our ability to serve humbly and exhibit the love of Christ.
- If I’m being totally honest, I’ve been missing Pennsylvania. I don’t have my typical support system or my Berks county farm fields, and I miss them. I also really miss church because there’s so much that’s unfamiliar here. So… please pray for comfort and the ability to connect with the people here so I can feel more at home.
Thank you all for your continued support!
Love the tour idea. Thanks for sharing. Praying for you every day, often many times a day.
Love,
Mom
Thanks, Mom! I love you, too! ❤️
Thank you for bringing us into your experience, it’s a beautiful thing to share ❤️ Will be praying for you and your team to be well and united! I imagine that the more time you spend together, the friendships and oneness will grow quickly. May God’s peace surround you all.
I’m glad I have some way to share my life with you guys since I don’t get to see you all in person. Thank you so much for the encouragement and the prayers! It means a lot to me.
Thanks for the tour! My tent was never that organized for more than a few hours!
Thanks for the prayer requests.
We’ll keep praying.
Love you,
Grampa and Gramma
Did I say it’s always that organized? Oops. Haha. Thanks for praying! I love you and miss you both!
Karis, you are so creative & helpful to provide a glimpse into mission life. Proof that we do not need so much stuff.
Jesus did tell his pairs of disciples to travel light.
You have a date set for Malaysia! Excited! Thank you for sharing that so I can add that very special date to my calendar.
You can have confidence that I (& many others) will lift you & your team up to our Father. Thank you for the specifics needs you shared.
Also, today I had a great discussion at church with a reborn believer, a woman who attends NL & is from Malaysia. I immediately thought of you.
Hi Krista!
I love reading all your comments! They’re so encouraging!
Honestly, it’s been a pretty smooth transition to having less stuff. My wardrobe isn’t super complicated, so that helps. 😅
That’s so cool that there’s someone at New Life from Malaysia! I haven’t done my research (I probably should…), but from what I’ve heard, the Malay people aren’t allowed to be Christians and you can’t evangelize to them legally, but there are churches there for people who are of different ethnicities. I guess I’ll find out how that plays out in a few weeks!
Karis
Hi Karis,
thanks for sharing. I don’t know the full context of the teaching on demonic possession & “demonized” that you received. A very helpful tool is Biblehub.com (also an app) A neat feature of this site is translation comparisons. You can read almost any translation (version) of the Bible on this site. There are many other features (Commentary, Greek, etc and a concordance.) I searched in the concordance both possessed & demonized. The word possessed shows up many times in reference to demons influence on people (all of the Gospels & Acts use the word Possessed when referring to demons control of people.) https://biblehub.com/topical/p/possessed.htm The word demonized is only used 1 time in the Bible (Matt 15:22) https://biblehub.com/topical/d/demonized.htm
You are in our prayers.
Hi Tim,
Thanks so much for taking the time to look into that and provide those resources! I definitely see what you’re saying there. I’m guessing they got their information from Strong’s Concordance, which seems to define the same word (daimonizomai) as “to be exercised by a daemon: – have a (be vexed with be possessed with) devil (-s).” So I can see how they would see that as “demonized” as opposed to being possessed or owned by a demon. Honestly, I don’t know how important the specific language is. I think it’s important to be accurate, but I’m pretty sure demons are supposed to be avoided in any form, so I’m going to go with that interpretation.
Thanks again for all your prayers!
Karis
Karis, I loved seeing your new home (and I loved the underlying humor). It’s funny how we always have a way to adjust to a new space in terms of what we are familiar with. I remember living outdoors (I did the car thing instead of tenting) and felt uncomfortable going back in a house. Luckily that didn’t last long.! You are doing a fantastic job explaining all you are experiencing and learning. We will pray for those requests and especially for safety for all and for opportunities to shine your faith.
Joyce (and Ed)
Thank you so much, Joyce! I definitely miss the people more than the house and the life of excess, although I do miss my Berks County farm fields! I have been so blessed by having so many people praying for me! It’s definitely a learning curve being with almost exclusively people my age. Have a great week!
Karis
Karis!! I love reading your updates. I will continue to pray for this upcoming week that God will give you the strength and wisdom needed to minister to others:)
Hi Abby! Thank you so much! I hope college is going well! I think of youth group and church and all you guys often. Miss you!
Miss youuu❤️❤️❤️
Miss you, too! ❤️❤️❤️ Youth group is irreplaceable. ☹️
Thanks for the grand tour, Karis!
I appreciated your bullets about the spiritual warfare teaching. It was good to see their approach. From the way you described it, I think I’m on the same page. : ) Glad to see they don’t believe believers can be possessed, and I do agree believers can be influenced. If God is real (and He IS!!!), then the spiritual world is real, and it DOES interact with our visible world. Most of us don’t take it seriously enough, in my opinion. But God is STRONGER than any enemy, so we look to Him as our defense and protection, and by Him, the enemy is overcome and strongholds are broken. I look forward to hearing how you get to see God break through darkness and watch the light flood in!
I wonder if “Nefarious” would be a good movie night idea for your team (or afternoon…). It’s definitely a call to wake up to the reality of spiritual warfare and it has a unique way to explaining how the enemy works. Line it up with scripture of course, but I thought the movie did a pretty good job.
Praying for your travels today & ministry this week! And for unity among your teammates (John 17).
We love & miss you, but are thankful to be able to stay connected.
Dad
Karis, I love the tour of your little tabernacle, garage, porches, and facilities! What about your meals? Who’s doing the cooking?
I feel excited about the opportunities you’re experiencing, but also the adjustments that missions will make in your life. Trust me, we identify with you! I just love what you’re doing.
We have been praying for you, but now that we’re able to get onto your blog, we will pray as you’ve asked, specifically regarding your mentioned needs..
Love to you,
Grandma and Grandpa
The meals are primarily cooked by serve team, so we just get to show up and eat them! They did have each team cook one meal in the last week, but my team needed to be elsewhere during our slot, so we kind of got out of it. This week we have to provide most of our own meals at domestic missions, so we will be having basic meals like bagels, oatmeal, and sandwiches for breakfast and lunch. Each team has to plan and cook one dinner for the squad. I’m not sure what my team is going to make yet.
Good to hear from you! Thanks for the prayers!
Wish I could be there with you. I want the spiritual necessities that you guys are getting. Keep marching on Karis.