Evangelism in the village!

This last weekend, our YWAM group went out to a village called Apoderado. One of the staff members who works in the kitchen lives in this small village and welcomed us into her home.
Shortly after we arrived, Laura, a staff member, proposed that we go take a walk. I joined a group of about 5-6 YWAMers and we headed out for an adventure. We came across some typical Mexican houses, a few cows, and a really cute little black puppy. Finally, we stopped to introduce ourselves to a mother and her daughter of about 12 years old. What happened was extremely exciting!
As some of you know, I have been working on learning Spanish and have especially been pressing into understanding and speaking this language within the last week. Laura started speaking to them and I was able to understand the underlying conversation. She started telling them about Jesus, how he died for them, and how we can have eternal life with Him after we leave this world if we confess and believe in our hearts that He is the son of God and that he rose from the dead. Then she started to share some of the ways God has shown how real he is in her own life...but they were not receptive. They responded with skepticism. I was right there, praying for the situation, as I can understand but not really speak coherently quite yet (I probably sound like a two year old to most people, haha!)
This last week, I learned a lot about evangelism. One thing I took to heart was that each person has something about them that will open them up to receiving Jesus and that God will often give that to us as we speak out the gospel. So as I sat there listening intently, I began to pray that we would get the key to their hearts. Guess what? We did!
Both of them are Catholic, but hadn't actually received Jesus's gift on the cross. One of our YWAMers from Mexico City was actually raised Catholic as well, so he started speaking to them and they immediately opened up. He could actually relate to what they thought and explained how receiving Jesus is different from simply believing in Him. By the time it was over, they both received Jesus Christ as their savior from their sins.
As I write this, I reflect on what I have learned about evangelism this week and get super excited!! Jesus has a furious, jealous love for each one of us and desires a personal relationship with everyone!!! Just thinking about how many don't have this but could if I step out boldly, getting out of my comfort zone and being willing to tell people what God has done in my life is extremely powerful. It all goes back to having an intimate relationship with God. As I come to know Him and his character, I will begin to see all of His personal treasures (the human beings that God created) the way he does and won't be able to help but grab them for God's kingdom. There is no higher calling in this life than to win souls for Jesus! It is the only form of worship I won't be able to do for God after I die....so the time is now.

And that's not all that happened this weekend! We were working with a group of evangelists from another church called lighthouse. Today, we split off into three groups to do some skits for the villagers, inviting them to take a short break from what they were doing so we could share Jesus with them. One of the groups (not the one I was in) saw a crippled man who was also mute. They stopped to pray for him while they were going on their way to see what God would do. Apparently, this man had pain in his legs and hadn't walked since he was very young. After they prayed for him, they asked the man if he had pain...and he was able to say no! So there was the first thing-a mute man spoke and said he had been healed from the pain. Once this happened, they got excited and decided to pray for him again. This time, the man was able to stand up! With intense joy, he danced over to people, showing them the miracle God had just performed through these evangelists! The story ends with him accepting Jesus as his personal savior-the greatest miracle of it all!!!!

So that was my weekend. There is much more to come-a huge fiesta called Carnival is coming up for the next two weeks and will be very busy for me. Please pray for endurance, for a huge harvest of souls, and for me to really press into God and hear his voice clearly. I long to share Jesus with as many as possible and see a great   harvest of souls for God's kingdom.

Dying to my rights....

dying to my rights

I am finally almost over a very strange and unfriendly disease I had for the last week...and can actually update the world again!

After I got over the initial "fever and chills" stage of my ailment, I gained the motivation to pick up a book by the founder of YWAM, Loren Cunningham. It's called, "Making Jesus Lord" and it spoke a lot about giving up your rights. As an American, this seems very unnatural. My culture has taught me that I have inherent rights and they must be protected at all costs. In fact, I would go as far as saying most Americans are obsessed with their individual rights. While it is true that I do have basic, God-given rights, clinging to these rights can actually really limit God from working. There were several really good points:

1) When I surrender my personal rights to the Lord, for His sake and the sake of the gospel, I discover the secret of inheriting the whole world for Him. 

2) We have to be willing to give up the money God blesses us with if we want to spread the gospel. God has actually equipped Christians with the resources necessary to fully evangelize every single person in the world who has never heard about Jesus. Just reflect for a moment on the following facts: 

·                     It would take each Christian only one dollar to place a Bible in every home on earth.

·                     There are 2,000 unreached ethno-linguistic groups in the world. If only 40 million Christians gave one dollar a year, we could support two missionaries for each of these groups. 

·                     There are 16 million refugees in the world, according to most sources. To feed every one of those refugees, it would only cost the 1.6 billion who call themselves Christians one penny a day. 

3) We have to be willing to give up our right to marriage and a family. Jesus said, "He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me" (Matthew 10:37) 

4) We have to give up our right to being comfortable. I may not always have the best clothes, the most comfortable place to sleep, or the foods I enjoy the most, but God will provide my basic needs. I need to continue to praise him for whatever He chooses to bless me with. 

Jesus said, "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it" Mark 18: 34,35. 

If there is anyone in history who knew how to lay down his rights, it was Jesus....he gave it all, even his own life!

When I look at my own life, I can see how God is asking me to give up all the above. I remember right before I left for YWAM, God seemed to be speaking a very strong message to me. He kept bringing up John chapter 15, which speaks about abiding in God in order to bear good fruit. Within a window of a few days, this message spoke so loudly to me! It was the topic of a bible study that week, I kept reading it in my bible (not deliberately either!), and then it came in a chocolate wrapper…..you know those dove chocolates that have a message on the inside of the wrapper? Well, I just so happened to open up one that said the following: “let your light shine-the world is watching”. The even crazier part is that this was quoted from someone named Darla from Antioch, TN. Think that is pretty crazy? Yeah, I thought so too. God even can speak through something like chocolate, go figure!

At the time, I really didn’t know what all this meant. Was I not bearing good fruit? Was God saying I was a branch that would be cut off and thrown into the fire? I really didn’t think so. I felt that this was a message I would be able to fully understand later on. God has a way of telling me something ahead of time that doesn’t really have clarity until later. This was one of those messages.

After the first few weeks here in YWAM Mazatlan, I understood. I am going through an intense pruning process…..Jesus has been asking me to give up my rights! In John chapter 15: 1-2 it says, “I am the true grapevine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more”. God has been asking me to give it all up to Him so that I can bear fruit for his kingdom. Until I fully surrender my rights, there will be things in my life that are getting in the way of God. I have to be willing to give, surrender, sacrifice, and bow before his throne over and over and over….I desire for His glory to shine brightly through my life and for nothing to get in the way of that. The pruning process is not easy. In fact, it is very very painful. Yet, I know God is a good God! He will bless me back tremendously.

I recently had a staff member pray for me. She really encouraged me because she said Jesus sees how I keep trading in all my silver….and he gets super excited because He can now give me the gold he has yearning to hand over to me! It all comes down to this: making Jesus Lord is about serving Him first, casting down my idols, and giving up my rights in order to put all the glory back on Him. It is then when I will witness how much fruit comes out of that and how God’s kingdom can shake nations through my life!!! I don’t know about you, but that is super exciting to me. Praise God!!!!!!!!

Playing with the little ones.....

Wow, I can't believe it has already been about two weeks since my last post...I have been learning some amazing things in my classes about the character of God, as well as what he calls me to live up to as his disciple. It is both challenging and convicting at the same time...I am also learning about the dynamics of spiritual warfare. I have been feeling personally attacked, but God is good! He is carrying me through it and teaching me about how to be a true warrior of His.

So our team has been going out to this village called the Colonia on Wednesdays. We play Mexican "football", with the children there and then give them a brief message about God. Our team desires to establish relationships with them by going there on a weekly basis and showing them who God is through our actions. I have a lot of fun playing with those kids! It gets pretty competitive kicking the soccer around. I usually play defense and try my best to not accidentally kick the ball towards my own team's gulley....they usually don't appreciate that too much.

Last Saturday, our team went out to the Colonia to help make a birthday meal for this older woman's husband. I had the opportunity to make home-made tortillas. To my surprise, the woman we were helping had us pinch the top layer of the tortilla right after it was taken off the stove...which gave the tortilla a more "decorated" look. It was quite amusing! My classmates would pinch a few times, then shake their hands and maybe scream a little from the burn, only to continue shortly after the sensation subsided. I believe it took about three to four sessions of pinching, shaking, and screaming to complete just one tortilla! It was awesome.....
My favorite part of the day was playing with four little girls and one little boy. Although I didn't understand very much Spanish, I was still able to connect with them through physical play. They would peep around the corner, smiling sheepishly at me....and I would pretend to not notice at first, only to dash at them suddenly with full force. The reaction of squeals and laughter was addicting to me. Some of them would allow me to catch them because they knew what was coming next....lots of swinging, twirling, and tickling. It was awesome!!! I was even able to communicate with them in very simple Spanish terms. I have found that practicing with children is a great way to learn the language, since they tend to speak in simpler phrases.

Our team will be going back on Wednesday to help build a room for the family...I know our desire is to bless the family, but honestly, I feel like I am the one being blessed most of the time. To know I did something to make a difference in someone's life in a personal way, such as building a room for them, blesses me back tremendously. It's pretty cool how God designed us to be in relationships with others in ways that bless both parties as a gift is being given. I really love that....