A couple weeks ago I was given the opportunity to talk to Grace Fellowship Church about my trip and different ways God showed up. I shared a short story or two from each of the countries we got to visit and places we got to serve. I am glad to get to share some of these stories with those of you who were not able to listen to my brief presentation. I hope that these stories will be a reminder that God is forever seeing, forever hearing, and forever present.
Unprepared is how I stared my gap year adventure. I was living with strangers in a myriad of different circumstances and opportunities. I didn’t know what it would look like to live with this new community or what it would look like to live in different places all over the world. I wasn’t prepared for the hard conversations, different cultures, or living every moment for the glory of the Lord. And despite all of this it began…
My trip started with a month of training in Gainesville Georgia where we spent hours in sessions learning about God, how to live a life for Him, how to love each other well and, how to become the Body. My time at training camp made it obvious that this was going to be a hard year but it also showed me that God was a part of each and every joy and struggle. Such as when my tent snapped in half, when all of my belongings got covered in mold, or when I felt out of place and forgotten but God was always faithful to give me peace and remind me of His love. In the challenges I knew that this was going to be an incredible year of growth and joy. It was evident every time our squad would sit down to laugh or share about God’s faithfulness.
After training ended, we started our trip by joining Samaritans Purse in Louisiana. We provided physical, emotional, and spiritual relief for the victims of hurricane Ida. This short trip was filled with long hours and hard manual labor but was very rewarding. One thing that really stuck out to me was how many people came to know the Lord. We saw more people come to know the Lord in the two weeks we were in Louisiana than anywhere else we went. God showed me how ready America is for the gospel and brought the verse from Matthew 9:37-38 to life “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore, pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”
Once we finished at Samaritans Purse, we headed to our first country, Guatemala. I couldn’t think of a better place to start our trip. In Guatemala we did a variety of ministries but mostly evangelism. Every Thursday we would spend the day doing (ATL) which stands for “Ask the Lord.” We would ask God where He wanted us to go or who He wanted us to talk to. On this particular day my team felt the Lord ask us to go to a small town called Paramos. While we walked the streets a women came up to us asking for money because she was trying to travel back home to Venezuela. Although we didn’t have money to give her, she was happy to have someone to talk to and share some of her troubles with. As she told us her story, she talked about how someone had robbed her during her travels and stabbed her and she no longer had mobility in her right hand. We asked if she would let us pray over it and expectantly said yes. After we prayed three time for her, she lifted her hand and was able to clench her fist and move her fingers. It was a complete healing other than the remanence of a nasty scar that will forever serve as a reminder. Although we’ll never know if she made it to Venezuela, we know that she now believes in a God who sees her and heals her.
Another story from Guatemala happened while we were in the villages up in the mountains. We decided to go with some kids to their evening church service where we learned that the pastor was sick and had been unable to speak at this small church for weeks. We were asked to go to his house to pray over him and his family. After we had finished praying the pastor asked if we would be willing to speak at the church in his absence. This was an unheard-of invitation for white women who had no affiliation with this church to be allowed to speak. Most gringos and specifically women had no role in the church and it was a huge shock for the congregation to see us speaking. However, it was evident that by our presences God was softening the hearts of men, women, and children to hear His voice in all circumstances. While I was in Guatemala the Lord taught me to be bold in my faith and to live ever expectant of Him to show up. Which He did over and over again.
Next, we went to Jeffrey’s Bay South Africa. This was one of my favorite countries to live in, primarily because they spoke much more English. Here my team worked with an organization called Timion that creates equipment for kids with cerebral palsy. We worked in their work shop helping created the equipment and in their garden harvesting and planting foods for local orphanages and families. God was also very faithful to show up in Africa too especially in my own life. One day we went to the beach where a large smack of blue bottle jelly fish had come to shore. I had gotten one tangled around my foot and it really stung me. My foot began to swell and large blisters began to appear all along the sting. Our house mom at our base told me I wouldn’t be able to fit my foot in a shoe for at least one week let alone go back to ministry. That evening I asked a girl on our squad to pray over it and the next morning when I got up the swelling and blisters had completely left and I put my boot on and went to ministry. While I was in Africa God taught me that He is ever present in my life if I am faithful to lean on Him.
After we left South Africa, we flew to our last country Ecuador. In Ecuador I worked at a camp for kids with extreme disabilities. It was a joy and a struggle to work with these kids and I had a huge respect for the women who do it every single day. While in Ecuador God really stretched me when He asked me to share my testimony with our house squad and base staff. It was terrifying but it was very rewarding to watch Him work through the story He gave me. The Lord kept teaching me that He moves when we move you only need to take the first step. These are just a couple stories from my time of missions the last nine months but the Lord has taught me that He is always faithful and constant. My relationship with Him is forever changed and I am excited to see how He will work in and through me in the coming years.
