The Night is Darkest Just Before the Dawn

Well first of all, I just wanted to thank you for checking out my blog! I’m going to do my best to post on here on a semi-regular basis, not so much about what I’ve been doing, but about what I’ve been learning and what God has been doing. Thanks again and enjoy!

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The trip did not start of well for me at all. Not even joking, 30 seconds after I walked into the airport in Dallas I started to feel attacked. This past semester was the first time I had ever really felt Satan attack me since I came to Christ at the end of my sophomore year of high school (four years ago), but it had gone away over the past month or so. My entire time in Haiti and the weeks proceeding I did not feel attacked at all, but it came back strongly that morning. I’ve been so busy preparing for Honduras since I got back from Haiti that I have not had really any quality time with the Lord, and though I don’t think that was the reason Satan got through to me, it definitely didn’t help.

My friend told me the day before I left that I should watch the movie “Furious Love”, so I rented it on iTunes and watched it during my layover in Miami. The whole movie is about spiritual warfare, and how our greatest weapon against it is LOVE! When God wanted to save the world, he performed the greatest act of love in the history of mankind. In the movie, these people would go around and cast out demons and pray over people for physical healings, and they had success because they used love as their weapon. It is a weapon that is foreign to the enemy, and that is why it’s so effective.

I slept again on the plane from Miami to Honduras, but sure enough when I woke up the thoughts that Satan had been using to attack me were still there. So what did I use to attack back? God’s love. I started reciting Psalms in my head, proclaiming God’s love to the enemy and letting him know that he has no power over God. I kept speaking about the fact of God’s love to myself, saying “if my God is for me, who can stand against me?” I know he was only getting into my head because God was allowing him to. I was able to stay strong the same way Job was, as he depicts in Job 23. Verse 12 says, “I have not departed from the commandment of his lips; I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my portion of food.” Satan hates the word of God, so we must love it.

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The first thing we did in Honduras was go to the mall to get us some cell phones for local use. The mall was beautiful – nicer than some malls I’ve seen in America. Mark, the long-term missionary that I’m working with, said that the malls were a front for drug dealers. The government would come to them asking how they were getting all this money, and they’d point it back to the malls and say that their income was coming from there. The malls looked beautiful, but they were made out of money from drugs and their presence hindered the authorities from being able to slow down the drug trafficking scene here. After reflecting on this for a bit, I realized how allegorical it was! That’s the essence of what sin is. It looks beautiful at first glance, but when you look deeper you see that all it does is glorify Satan and his work. Perhaps that’s a stretch, but I just love looking for metaphors in everyday life!

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When I was looking into this internship a few months ago, I was drawn to the potential of being able to lead a sports camp or help with construction projects, but because I’m injured (stress fracture in my hip) I will be unable to do these things. While I am bummed about this, I know God is definitely using this for his good. I have considered long term missions before, and during these next six weeks I’m going to be spending a lot of time working with a church that has recently been planted, helping it to grow. If I did do long term missions, church planting is exactly what I’d be doing, so I’m excited to learn more about how it works!

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I’m staying at a seminary that Camino Global (the organization I came here with) started awhile back until Monday, then I’ll be staying with the a guy named Allan who just started a church for a week or so, then I’ll be back at the seminary for the rest of my time in Honduras! I’m excited to stay with Allan because I’ll get more plugged into the culture, but I’m really enjoying the seminary too. I’ve had some great conversations with some of the students here and am really enjoying learning from them more about the culture.

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Prayer requests: It’s a huge bummer that I’m still injured. I was praying for healing today because the locals play soccer all the time and I really want to play with them, but then I remembered James 4:3 which says, “you ask but you do not receive because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.” My desire to be healed solely comes from my desire to play sports. I came to the realization that maybe God really just doesn’t want me to be healed because he wants my focus elsewhere. I don’t want prayers for healing necessarily, but prayers that my injury will not take away from my joy. It’s a blessing that I’m able to come here for six weeks, and the enemy wants me to be upset for as much of it as possible. I would much rather have opportunity to serve God however he desires than to have my health. Sports are awesome, but God is better (understatement of the year). Thanks!

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Best surprise of the trip thus far: the other missionaries here play Settlers of Catan. I played with Mark’s family today and wrecked shop! #SameStuffDifferentDay

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To all my friends and family, I miss you all like crazy already! I love you guys.

Jezi Se La Vi

Jezi Se La Vi = Jesus is Life in Haitain Creole

I knew I was going to do a blog during my time in Honduras, but I got back from Haiti on Saturday after spending a week doing the Lord’s work in a town called Lascahobas and knew I needed to tell everyone about it. This is my summary of our week there (does not come close to doing justice to how incredible the trip was).

Just a little background info…

For those that don’t know, Soles for the Savior (a student-run organization at Texas A&M), spent all of April collecting shoes to bring to Haiti. Each of us checking three bags, the six of us were able to bring a little over 700 shoes. What did we do with these? Keep reading!

Sunday:

We went to two church services (morning and evening), and it was painfully evident how much passion we lacked in America. They would come to a room without AC for 2 hours in the heat of the day on a Sunday and sing praises, hear a message, sing more praises, hear another message… and love it. In American, our time is too precious. I don’t think I’ve ever been to a church service in a foreign country that was shorter than any church service I’ve been to in America. It’s very concerning.

At one point during the first service, the pastor stopped to talk about a woman in their congregation who was sick, and said that everyone needed to go to her house to visit with her and pray for her. I have been to many churches in America, and have NEVER seen anything like that. That is what true community in a church should be like. We’ve missed it.

Monday-Thursday:

We spent the next 4 days traveling to 4 different churches. At each church, we started out explaining why we were there. Most people there had a preconceived notion that our purpose for being there was to do a shoe handout. No. We were there because of Jesus, and we needed to make that clear! The shoes were merely a means that God was using to show his faithfulness and his love to them. We were able to wash the feet, pray over, and provide shoes for an average of about 175 people each day from all ages.

To break our daily routine down even further…

We had four people washing feet, and two “runners” – the ones going to get the shoes while the others were washing feet. While we were washing their feet, we’d have a short conversation with them (with the help of some awesome translators!) seeing where they were spiritually, asking if they knew Jesus and had a relationship with him, and asking how we could pray for them. Then we’d pray for them right then and there, and the shoes provided by the runners were normally sitting there next to us by the time we finished!

The conversations we had were definitely the most interesting part of this trip. We had a reoccurring prayer request that stood in strong contradiction to scripture. Many would say they believed in Jesus and had a personal relationship with him, but then their prayer request was for “eternal life”. For those reading this who aren’t very familiar with biblical doctrine, if you believe in Jesus and have a personal relationship with him, you are granted eternal life. This presented us a great opportunity to share with these people the truth of the gospel that they had missed.

We also had one lady who wanted to get baptized, but was currently in an affair out of wedlock. She was under the impression that she couldn’t get baptized while living in this sin – that God wouldn’t want her to. We were able to share with her that a) baptism was simply and outward expression of your inner faith (not required for salvation) and b) the beauty of the CROSS – that Jesus has already died for every sin she’s committed and would commit and the future. To quote Lecrae, “He’ll take you as you are, and change you from the inside out”. GOD IS GOOD!

On top of all this, we also had a few people who didn’t know about Jesus at all. We were blessed that God used us to tell them about Jesus – such joyful moments.

On Wednesday night, I had an opportunity to give a mini sermon at one of the churches. One thing our team had talked about was that a common issue in Christianity, especially in third world countries, was the idea of a “prosperity gospel” (that if we follow Jesus, he will bless us with money, food, and other stuff on this Earth). This idea stands in direct contradiction to scripture, which says that following Jesus guarantees two things – eternal life (John 6:47) and persecution (2 Timothy 3:12), so I felt God calling me to speak on this! I don’t know how well they received the message especially cause it was going through a semi-fluent translator, but I know God will use it as he desires.

Friday:

This day was very different than the other days. Instead of going to a church, we went to the orphanage that RTS Missions (the organization we went with) works very closely with. We got to wash the feet, pray over, and give shoes to 28 orphans. A question that I asked a lot during the week was, “what’s one thing that God has taught you?” I got various responses that were all great, but when I asked this at the orphanage I heard something that I had not heard all week, and it does not come as a surprise that this was the first place I heard it. I got to wash the feet of 5 of the orphans, and asked this question to two of them, and they both responded, “I have learned that God is my Father”. That is something that pops up so many times in scripture, but I feel that by not having a Father, they are able to appreciate the Fatherly characteristics of God more than I am able to. I love God, but often fail to recognize how awesome it is that he calls me his son.

The most emotional part of the trip for me happened Friday with a boy named Olivier (see picture below). Josh started out the day sharing with the kids the story of Jesus, and why we were there, and during this time I met eyes with Oliveye and he gave me the biggest smile I’ve ever seen. He was also the last pair of feet that I got to wash. After we washed feet, we stayed at the orphanage for about an hour just to hang out with the kids. I walked over to Olivier and he reached his arms up like he wanted me to pick him up. I sat down and put him on my lap, and the first thing he did was grab my hands and put them on his stomach, then put his hands over mine as a way to say, “don’t let go”. It completely broke my heart. I had never seriously considered adoption until this moment – now it’s definitely a possibility.

I’m so thankful that God gave me the opportunity to go on this trip. I grew a lot from this experience, and I know much glory was brought to God during this week. Also, thank you to all who supported me financially, and more importantly with prayer. There were quite a few times during this week when I was exhausted physically or spiritually, but I felt the spirit come inside me and rejuvenate me. The power of prayer is great.

“Find where your passions and the needs of the world meet, and go there.”

Olivier and Me!