So many verses come to mind when I think back over this last two weeks.

“Which is Christ in you, the hope of Glory.” Col. 1:27

“Be still and know that I am God and I will be exalted among the nations.” Ps. 46:10

“A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dried up the bones.” –proverbs 17:22

“I will praise you, O Lord, among the nations – I will sing of you among the peoples. For great is your love, reaching to the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies. Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; let your glory be over all the earth.” - Ps. 57:9-11

This verse especially rang true to me when I got home because I did see God exalted among the nations. I saw people’s of the earth praising him! It was a beautiful trip. Many times I go on trips and I feel like it just has become a job and I feel like it’s just something else I have to do. I usually do leave encouraged and blessed but also at the same time a little dried up and used up. I left this trip, truly blown away by who God is.

When I remove myself from the picture and allow God to be all of me, it works out so much better. Before the trip began, I asked God how he wanted me to respond to this trip and he said, he wanted me to “Rest, trust, and be a blessing.” Rest?? How do I rest when I’m leading a group of 40 students on a mission trip to a 3^rd world country! I guess you rest by trusting…So I decided to sit back and trust God and watch him work. Boy did we have that opportunity. God really worked on this trip. The groups were so open and ready for God to work. It was truly something I haven’t seen in a long time on a trip. I was honored and humbled to be a part of all that God did!

We had a team of 40 students and adults and there were four of us staffing the project. Our team was amazing! They were so prepared and were ready to jump into any kind of ministry.

Here are some stories from the different ministry sites:

Construction – Usually this is one of everyone’s favorite’s spots. Not on this trip. It was hard and dirty. Literally we were moving dirt to level out some property for a church. The guys did great work. When I first saw this site, I couldn’t believe what all we were being asked to do. The team jumped in and this wasn’t a favorite location this week, but they worked hard without any complaints! They moved amazing amounts of dirt!

VBS – Wow! We ran all over the city doing VBS in different sites. Every team had prepared ahead of time for VBS and everything was amazing. They were so flexible and ready for anything. We never knew how many kids were going to show up, usually at a minimum about 80 kids up to about 150. The teams

quickly changed plans if necessary based on the number of kids that they had – not enough craft supplies; okay play a game. All week, I saw teams that were ready for anything! I just want to brag on how well they handled crazy VBS situations.

Evangelism – Every day our teams were met with about 20 members of the church. They were so eager to join us for evangelism. They didn’t let us back down. They set up the door for us, telling the people that we had come all the way from America to share about Jesus. We know we had 39 salvations but I believe there were actually closer to 100. The kids were so nervous…many of them had never done this before. Several students led someone to the Lord for the very first time. They celebrated! They also loved on their translators and this was such a blessing for

me to watch. The translators really have a heart for their country as well and they would encourage the students. One of the students even said, “I love that the translators speak English, they can help me out when I get stumped…it’s like we can have a little huddle standing right there.”

Prayer Walks – These often led to more evangelism time but one day, we had the opportunity to really walk through and pray for a community. I posted that story from Peru. It’s an amazing story on my blog (7/21).

Sports – This team played SPORTS all the time. There were several that even during our free time would go out and play soccer with the kids. It was a great way to build relationships. We had several teams that led people to the Lord

during their soccer games. The last day we were there we also had a soccer game with the church. We played Americans versus the Peruvians…I bet you can’t guess who won…NOT US! But it was a sweet time of a fellowship with our fellow brothers and sisters who had ministered beside us all week and encouraged us to be brave!

Evening Outreaches – Yeah, in case our days weren’t full enough we pulled off three evening outreaches. Each night we had a different team lead worship, do some dramas, testimonies, and then one of the Pastors preached. It was awesome. Often times, I find that these can get so chaotic but each team was so ready and they ran their program with excellence. Each night we probably had about 50-100 people from the community and we saw several each night accept Christ.

Finally one of my other favorite stories from the week.  On Saturday morning, we had what AIM calls, an Ask the Lord time.  We have nothing on the schedule we just take a few minutes in the morning to ask God where he wants us to go.  At the very end of the morning as we were almost getting ready to disperse and go the seperate ways that God was sending us, one of the students said, is anyone going to Santo Domingo.  I told him no...but if he wanted to we would go.  He said he felt that God wanted him to.  So, we ended up with a team of 5 of so going there.  At the last minute I jumped in their van.  When we stopped I ask him what we were going to do.  He said that there was someone here that had accepted Christ.  He wanted to go find him and give him a Bible.  Turns out this guy doesn't even live in Santo Domingo...we just walked toward where they had seen him earlier in the week.  As we were walking - a group of like 7 Americans...kind of an overwhelming bunch, someone came up and

greeted us all.  We said Good morning and chatted for a second.  Finally our translator asked him if he knew the guy we were coming to see.  He told us that he did know him and that he was supposed to meet him at his house right then.  We were kind of freaked out by this.  I mean God took us right to him.  As were walking with this guy back to his house, we met Segundo, the guy that God had sent us to find.  We were able to give him a Bible and the story continued to amaze me.  He told us that he doesn't live in Santo Domingo, his kids go to school here and he comes to bring them to school.  I asked why they were at school on Saturday morning...they go when they have exams...or when God wants us to meet him!  :)  Wow!  That kind of got us stoked up and we were amazed at God!  Every other teams story was just as amazing that morning. 

So, I went to lead the project to Peru...but I didn't.  God led the trip!  He was in charge!  I just stepped out of the way and let him work through me and through the whole team.  There were miracles and salvations and just as the disciples did in Luke 10 our team came back rejoicing in who God is and how big he is!  As we left, I did give them a subtle reminder that Jesus also told them in that passage that no matter what, whether we're rejoicing or not, God actually wants us to know and rejoice in the simple fact that we're his!  That too is an amazing truth!  I am his!  I am humbled to be his servant! 

Here's the whole team that God used!