Mills' notes from his sermon August 12th......

I love you Momma, more than you know. Really it's more than words. It's a love that is only a shadow of the Love of our God, but it is still so immense.

Here is the Sermon notes I give Aubi to help translate. It is nice because it gives you time to think about what you are going to say next as he is translating.

Mills

Teaching for 8-12-2007 "The Burden of Sin"-Mills Snell
-Giving Thanks for opportunity to teach and reference to responsibility of teaching. Gabe's preaching on James 3.
-Prayer before diving into God's Word. (Aubi, next time I preach, if you let me again, I want to follow up with this verse.) "See what this Godly sorrow has produced in you: What earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done. At every point you have proved yourselves to be innocent in this matter. -Gabriel taught last week on two kinds of Wisdom. Heavenly and Earthly Wisdom. We are going to look at
two kinds of sorrow. Sorrow is -- "A feeling of deep distress caused by loss, disappointment or other misfortune."

--2 Corinthians 7:11 "Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. "

-This sorrow we are talking about is in relation to the sin in our lives. What is the difference between Godly and worldly sorrow? (I may repeat this a few times). The Answer.... Are we sad because we were caught in sin or are we sad because our sins have hurt our God? Worldly sorrow is when we are sad because we were caught in the act of living a sinful life. Godly sorrow is when you are so broken by the fact that your sins hurt God that you turn to Him. Our sins hurt God because it forces Him
to turn His face from us. (I'll do a demonstration with 2 chairs) Habakkuk 1:13 says " The eyes of the Lord are too pure to look on evil" We must understand the evilness and weight of our sin; if we do not, we cannot understand how it hurts God.

- "Godly sorrow brings repentance" When we are broken by the fact that our sins hurt God, and are filled with Godly sorrow, we repent. Repentance is a complete turn in the opposite direction. We were walking in our sin..... And then turn completely around! Completely!

- "That leads to salvation" Here God tells us that repentance leads to salvation. Salvation does not come before repentance. We must repent, and only then can we be saved. Salvation can only be attained when we realize that there is nothing that we can do to win God's favor. We must be covered by Jesus' blood in order to gain salvation. No amount of good deeds can win over salvation. (I'll give some examples)
- "and leaves no regret" The focus of this teaching is this. So many people have achieved salvation, not by their own strength, but because of Christ, and they still regret. The problem is that we think some of our sins are in a way "too big for God". This is not in the bible. Jesus' death covers all sins. As Christians we don't fully live out this verse, because we still live with the guilt of our sins. This should not be! If we lay our sins at the foot of the cross, which is repentance (turning
away from our sin), then we must lay them all down. Don't be so prideful as to think that one thing you may have done can be kept from the Lord. No sin is big enough to outweigh the sacrifice of our Jesus.

- "Worldly sorrow brings death" . In Paul's letter to the church in Rome he says, "The wages of sin is death". Worldly sorrow will not end in salvation. If you are simply sorry that you got caught in your sin, and not that your sin hurts God, then your fate will be death. Paul talks about it twice here, Worldly sorrow is a sin, and the wages of sin is death. Worldly sorrow will leave you regretting every sin you ever made. Satan will use this as a foot hold in moving you away from God. Don't
let the guilt of past sins keep you from repentance and salvation. We have freedom in the cross. We are literally free from the burden of sin.

These two types of sorrow were fresh in Paul's mind. Look at what just happened. Peter sinned, he denied Christ 3 times, and lied about being one of Jesus' followers. Judas betrayed Jesus with a kiss, for 30 pieces of silver. Peter felt sorry that his sins hurt God. He repented, was accepted back in the body of believers and moved on. Judas though, was "seized by remorse" Matthew 27 tells us. He was sorry that Jesus was condemned, and then he gave back the money and hung himself. What is the difference
in Judas and Peter? Judas was not sorry that his sins hurt God, he was sad that he got caught, that Jesus got hurt. He didn't think about the consequences of his sin. Think about the consequences of your sins.

(I'll summarize the verse a little bit).

What is your attitude towards the sin in your life? Are you sorry that your sins hurt God, or are you sorry you got caught in them?

I'll close in prayer.

Mills writes on August 11th........

Gabe and I returned from our journeys today (Saturday) around 1:30. Much earlier than we had kinda expected. Everything went well as Theo took the truck to Pemba. Gabe and I are planning going there and then starting our way down Mozam. It is a funny place, people poop on the beach and the tide takes it away. They say it really startles you, I will be able to say in a couple months. But since we got back in enough time, I am going to preach tomorrow, which God really used to humble me. At first I was kinda hoping that I would have to wait till another week, and then I got to thinking on the long drive and realized.... What the heck, this is a privilege. With responsibilities of course. But I am really getting more and more passionate about it. I will tac my notes on.

Gosh I was thinking about the winding down summer today. As I get more and more emails from friends I have started to realize that I sacrificed the summer after my SR. year. Gladly of course, but my friends are telling me about all these awesome things that are happening! Ha Praise the Lord.

Mills writes on August 13th...........

Hey ya'll,

It pleases me so much to say "ya'll" and for you not to think anything funny about it. I get many strange looks here. I just wanted to see if you could be praying for me on this upcoming week. Gabe and I will be going to Malawi. I have renewed my visa to the limit and if I don't leave the country they will kick me out. So I will leave on Monday for about a 6 hour drive to cross the border and then my visa renewal process can start over again. I just wanted to ask if you could be praying for our trip? There are a lot of things that could potentially go wrong. If God is for us, who can be against us! Also our safety, Gabe and I won't have a ride back, so we will take local transport. The best way to describe local transport is like a 1975 15 passenger van with 20+ people crammed in, and all their belongings on the top. It's like a tractor pulling a trailer. I trust that the Lord is and has been preparing divine appointments for us. I'll be sure to let you know how it goes. Thanks so much for blessing me with your prayers.
Mills

Mills writes on Sunday August 12......

On our recent trip into town I bought a box of frosted flakes for 135 meticas! I found frosted flakes!!! That is like 5 or 6 dollars for the box, and it wasn't very big. Ah did I enjoy it though. I will only be able to get 3 bowls out of it, and I have already had 2..... Haha. Man I went and picked some strawberries though and cut them up on the cereal. Ha I know I will appreciate cereal that much more now.

I gotta run, Love you and I will look forward to hearing from you.

Soaking it in,
Mills

Mills writes on August 7th...................

Oh sweet Chick-fa-la! They don't have it in SA and they asked if it was like KFC?? I nearly died. And I didn't have it much before I left because of that one being closed by us. How does it look?
When I went to check emails this morning there were only 2, but I noticed the guy in SA we run through hadn't connected to the server in 15 hours. So we ended up getting 19 emails around 12. It's funny how much our email is in the Lord's hands. More so than back at home guess.

Our water pump from the river hasn't been working and Aubi doesn't have water by his house. So this morning we went down to the river to fix the pump. We ended up having to build up the dam by swimming around behind it and finding more rocks and sandbags that had fallen. The water was so cold, really really cold. Then we had carried this 30 ft or so pipe down to dredge out the sand that kinda gets in the way of the pipe opening. We got the pump sucking up water and then I stood there and vacuumed
up the sand, lots of it, while chest deep in freezing water. Thankfully the pump is working now, and Aubi should have water soon. I'll take a picture of the dam and everything next time we go down.

Also Mignonne baked us bread, and I asked her to help me learn to do the same after they leave in a few weeks. The Lord is taking care of us for sure!

It's really interesting, this time of year the locals burn the tall grass fields. But these fields are everywhere! They light them at night and it is really incredible. There isn't a really good reason for why they do it, but it helps to kinda kill bugs. The thing is everything gets covered in the ash. I will have to try and take a picture that will do it justice. It really is incredible. We got some of the guys that live in the village to clear out the grass around the house and gardens so they
don't burn us down. We payed 3 guys 50 meticas total for about a days work. Since they were around MR and Parker's age they were so happy to receive it!

I gotta run, love you

Mills writes to everyone on August 3rd..........

Hey Ya'll,

You'll have to forgive me for not sending out a mass email in a while. I'm blessed to have my parents updating a Blog for me, so I hope you have been checking that out. I have been trying to figure out what exactly to say, more actually, what not to say. God really works in the simplicity of life, and here things are pretty simple. If you’re following me, God is working big time in my life. I'm going to try and explain something I can't even wrap my mind around, so please bear with me.

God has been humbling me on this so called journey. It doesn't seem so much like a journey, but I looked up journey and it is: an act of traveling from one place to another. Trying to avoid being cliché, I really find myself moving from one mindset to a completely different one. I told a story to my parents that got put on the blog about a group of boys who were so eager to get our trash, they were willing to work (in a non-American sense of the word) for it. I can't explain the joy these young
boys had for tin cans! It is something I will never forget. It really caused me to question the luxury you and I live in. Most missionaries or others who come onto the mission field might make a challenge like this, so I feel a little too much "by the books" in doing it. Please though think outside of our normal mindset; God has gifted you with the utmost comfort, how are you using it to bring Him honor? Philemon 1:6 comes to mind, (I'm going to assume that not all of you have Bibles beside you, and for the sake of understanding this, I will quote it), " I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith, so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ". God says, via Paul, that when you share your faith (out loud), that you actually may begin to understand the joy, contentment, eagerness, hope, earnestness, patience, love and freedom (just some of the good things) that we have in Christ! Share your Faith, and try with me to wrap our minds around something as big and awesome as God's plan for our lives. I trust that God isn't lying when he tells us that when we share our faith we begin to understand His goodness. I really could tell you a thousand stories about what is going on here, but they are all going to point to God's goodness, His greatness. Plus you can read the stories on my blog and there will be plenty of time when I get home. Ha-ha.

I'll throw in one story so you might actually read the next newsletter I send out.... Ha-ha only kidding..... I hope.

While in Lichinga (the nearest town) we ran into some car trouble with a borrowed 8 ton retired army truck, this truck had been retired for a reason. We had just picked up my passport which had to be left at the Immigration office for a week where I renewed my visa. The truck wouldn't start, which wasn't really a surprise seeing as how we had stopped at least 12 times in the 300k's to pick up the truck. By the Grace of God, we were parked across the street from a mechanic shop! We took off the
starter (you can stand under this truck while working on it, that is how big it really is) and carried it over. While sitting and talking with the Muslim mechanic Adao (or Adam) for a few hours we tried to share the Gospel with him. We asked if he had heard of Adam in the Bible, and he knew the story! That was really as far as we could get with him and we ended up paying the mechanic shop 900 meticas, which is a lot of money here, so that he could tell us we needed to start it manually(which we had
been doing). You could see though how Adao looked at us, we were laughing and joking and sharing food with him. I trust that he noticed we didn't see ourselves in a trial, or at least not as an inconvenience. That story wraps up our labors here. We plant some seeds and don't usually see much fruit, but God is working! People simply need to see the Gospel in action. We are just trying to love on people, the same way we would love on our family members or children. God is teaching me so well to be content in every situation.

My prayer for ya'll as you read this is that you would be, "Joyful in Hope, Patient in Affliction, and Faithful in Prayer. Share with God's people who are in need. Practice hospitality". I really can't shout it as loud as I want to. Remember we aren't called to be hospitable only to the desirables.

Please be praying for:
-Gabriel and my friendship, that is would continue to grow and we would have patience with each other and seek to serve each other.
-I'll be preaching on the 12th of August, so for a clear leading on what to teach on, and that these people's hearts would already begin to be softened.
-The group of guys we play soccer with, just as we try and pour into their lives.
-My slow, but steady learning of Portuguese.
- That the baker in the village would start making bread again (he stopped after going to prison about 2 weeks ago).

Ya'll are in my prayers, feel free to email me if there is anyway I can be praying for you.

Until next time.......

for freedom,
Mills

Mills writes on August 2nd.........

Hey Momma,

We are getting nice and caught up after that long weekend, I wouldn't call it a break so much. Haha.Oh the clutch was for Louis and his 1983 Mercedes. Maupula is in Mozambique, I'm sure if you Google it, it would show you. I'm not sure if that is spelled correctly.

HA Sheep. There are these sheep here, fat tailed sheep. They are gross looking and the meat isn't so good. When we were at Jan and Bonnies (where we took the cows in Lichinga), they are working on raising a herd of sheep and cattle. Jan is from SA and Bonnie is from Illinois. It is really neat to see how the milk from the cows is a blessing to them and the people around them. They are selling the milk at half price, which allows poorer people to buy, but they still cover their costs. It's really
interesting. Ok sorry back to the point, sheep. We always talk about how they are followers, and they really are! These sheep will just run after one another in a little pack. It was funny to watch them try and get around the cows. That is really interesting about trying to get on the other side of the fence.

Theo is going to take all of their big things to Pemba in a week or so, and then come back. Later in August they will go to SA as a family, till October. Then when they come back they will take the rest of their things to Pemba and stay.

At Maupula we ate a good bit of chicken, pork chops, sausage, some ribs of I'm not sure what. Oh we had these pieces of liver rapped in intestines, it was so good, It made me think of how much you love liver. Mmm meat.

It really is such an encouragement to hear how people are being touched, the Lord really is so humbling in that. Just the ways he works, subtlety even.

About ya'lls coming in November. It doesn't matter what we do. A safari might be a little lame, to be honest. I think if ya'll want to see some wild life then we can rent a car and drive to Kruger National Park. That would be better. A "safari package" is a tourist trap. We can go up on Table Mt, in Cape Town, spend some time at the beach. I really don't know what else. I think everything is going to seem "touristy" to me now. Ya'll juse decide and I will go along with it.

I gotta run, Gabe and I starting doing a devotional every morning. I'll talk to you soon mom, I love you.

Oh I am emailing Sydney this morning, feel free to give out my email to anyone, it really was a blessing to get her email.

Love,
Mills