Sitting on the train ride home I sat and asked God to help me pull together an understanding of the past two weeks of my life. As I was in Bogota, Colombia leading a team of 4 other people, my family back in the states and Mexico was going through things that made me ache for home. I missed my husband as he underwent the removal of his tonsils, and also my grandfather nearly died and my parents flew out to be with him. I write with gratefulness in my heart; they are both fine, and are recovering. On the train God spoke, and I wrote down some thoughts of the last two weeks. I realized that God was showing me the value of family. As I went from ministry to ministry and saw the affects of the lack of family, it made me want to be there for mine. Below is the journal entry I wrote on the train, and hopefully it shows the heart behind what I feel like God was revealing.
“God the fact is that we need you to do anything. You are the one who heals. It is by your hand that children are healed and that the cycles of their generational crap are undone. It is in you that they can have life to the full. The cross changed everything for everyone. It broke the sin of your disobedient nation, Israel, and for those who walk in its freedom today it breaks the lies and sins of the generations. Our works are effortless if they are not in complete reliance upon your arrival and finishing.
Family. It has a power and a bond that gives us the freedom of safety, the freedom to dream, the ability to say yes and to say no. The strongest and wholest unit created by the creator and yet we have allowed Satan to show his strength in stealing what was made to be safe. The family was made to feel love and was made to understand the creator himself. I believe even more after this trip that God’s call on me is to fight against the robber and stand with the giver to fight for the family, and make sure that the kids who lack that can find a feeling of home when they encounter the king in me.
Words- A lost generation with no guidance, commitment, or love.
Challenge- Do we really walk in the authority that has been released to us as believers? Am I walking in the fullness?”
With all that being said, we got to learn from so many models of ministries. We got to see the harsh realities of what many programs believe is better for kids. We also got to see a ministry like Formado Vidas that has sought to give children a home in families and have founded the way they do things by the simple question- would I want this for my own child? As I and the group sat with that question we came across homes that had 50 girls in one room with the same bedding, the same uniforms, health masks, stale prison like homes, and changing staff. Was this home? For some this could have been better, but was it the best? No.
The picture above is from one of my favorite ministry days. We went to a drop in center for girls aged 14-18, who were either street kids, or pre street kids. They has misinterpreted the email our contact had sent to have some things prepared for us to do our drama. Instead they thought we were asking them to prepare something for us. So as we arrived to do dramas, worship songs, and a craft, they too had prepared a drama and a couple songs. To give you an idea, their drama was about dealing drugs and being caught by social services and taken in. Pretty funny, as we all laughed, sad at the same time, but also incredible as we realized that they were letting us into their world. As we shared about the Lord some showed a lot of interest and even asked what the worship songs were called so they could download them. At the end we split up into groups and talked about Psalm 139 which talks about how God formed us. We asked them to make posters that were a creative expression of what God thought of them. We did do the craft, however they really just wanted to talk. I got the normal questions in my group, like “Why are you here?, What is the United States like? What type of music do you listen to?” What I was not expecting to hear, was their persistency in asking how do you say marijuana in the United States? Is it legal? How much does it cost? In the midst of that, I trust that we showed God to these girls and I will pray that the ways of their parents and generations will be broken as they realize that life can be so much more fulfilling through walking with Jesus.
In the picture directly above this one, you will see a lady in a red sweater. Her name is Mary. She is from Australia and is a single women who left her family (10 grandkids) to come and serve in a community (pictured above). She has been robbed twice, both of which took place in her home, once, being threatened with a knife to her neck and once with guns in hand. She is 70 years old and the most youthful women I have ever met. She has kids waiting at her door to come and hang out with her, and meet Jesus. In a community where they do social cleansing, to get rid of the people they don’t like, Mary has found authority in the name of Jesus through claiming this community for the King of Kings. We got to be a part of a program she runs on Saturday mornings and witnessed and aided her and her team as almost 100 kids heard about Jesus in a small span of 4 hours. I hope to be like Mary for life…
How do you sum up 2 weeks of intensity in one post? I am not sure but I tried to give some highlights.
