Nehemiah had a vision; rebuild the the walls of Jerusalem. He had a genuine concern for his people and the welfare of Jerusalem which prompted him to act. It wasn’t without spending time in prayer petitioning to God his desire to act on such a vision. God heard his prayers and saw his faithfulness and therefore interceded to allow Nehemiah’s vision to be fulfilled.
Although Nehemiah had the Lord’s power and promise he still had to approach the worldly powers at be to get permission to rebuild the walls. It is here that we see how in control our God is. Even though the King in charge at this time was Persian with no regard to Jewish people or their faith God directed this king to allow Nehemiah to pursue his vision.
What a parallelism as we, Agape Valley, move forward with our vision of seeing the pavilion increase in size and our number of children increased to 70 a day (how can you not have a vision and get excited for this expansion when just this last summer camp we saw 17 children come to Christ!). Every square foot of building and the 20 children we asked for was approved at the Niagara Escarpment Commission meeting in August despite the fact that the staff report recommended an increase in children to be 0.
Praise the Lord!!
God is in control and His work will always be accomplished. He is just looking and waiting for faithful men and women like Nehemiah to be willing to carry it out and see it through. Thank you all for the continue prayers for the camp. The expansion has begun but we are still in the very early stages of seeing it completed. We still need to design the final building layout and acquire a development permit from the Niagara Escarpment to proceed. We will then need to have detailed drawings from the architect to transform the existing pavilion to the new layout and get a building permit. In the meantime camp and activities continue in the same manner as usual. The pavilion is in desperate need of a roof to hold us off till the expansion takes place and we will be restricted to 50 children a day until the building expansion and new septic system is in place. So we continue on. There’s lots of work ahead of us still.
Nehemiah may have had the vision to rebuild the walls but he didn’t do it alone. He went to the people and exhorted them and they together did the work of the Lord.
Nehemiah 2:18 “And I told them of the hand of my God which had been good upon me, and also of the kings words that he had spoken to me. So they said, “Let us rise up and build”. Then they set their hands to do this good work.”
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