Nicaragua Missions!- Spring Break 2009

Hey everyone :)
Thanks for praying for me during the trip! Through your prayers, God moved hearts and changed lives over this past spring break. And as J.O. Fraser said, "Solid, lasting missionary work is done on our knees." Here are a couple highlights:

1. God's amazing miracles and healing. The people in Nicaragua, specifically the community we went to in the slums--Cristo Rey, are weak, both spiritually and physically. During the trip, we experienced God's power to heal his people who cry out to Him. These are just few of many stories:

One of our team members, Danielle, who goes to Berkeley school of Optometry set up an eye clinic in Cristo Rey and brought 300 glasses to hand out-- one sick girl waited in line for 3 hours for a pair of glasses, but when her turn came up, she couldn't even open her eyes because of her worsening fever. her head was burning and all Danielle could do was pray for her and give her some Gatorade. Later that day we saw her again and she looked 100% better, her fever had passed. PTL.

When we first arrived in Cristo Rey, a mother brought up her son, who had an infection on his check that had grown and consumed almost half of his face. Our Pastor saw the great pain that her son was in, laid his hands on him, and prayed for him. Later that week, when we were doing house visitations, we visited the house of that woman and her son, and when we saw her son we could not even recognize him because his face had completely healed. You couldn't even tell that there had been an infection there! PTL.

Not only did God heal physically, but spiritually. One of our visitation teams visited a woman named Pastora, ironically female pastor in Spanish. She opened up, sharing about how she had commited adultery in her marriage, and that she was ashamed to turn back to God. One of our teammates prayed with her in these words: "God, I was lost and you found me, and then I was lost again and you found me." She broke down and rededicated her life to Christ, and wanted us to pray for her friend who was struggling with something, but we encouraged her to be the one who goes into her community to pray and reach out to others, just has her name implies. PTL.

2. Amazing Revival Nights. Our Pastors: Pastor James and Pastor Tom gave sermons on three nights in which we had revivals. I remember one specific sermon that Pastor James gave on the Beatitudes: Matthew 5. He emphasized the verse "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." He preached that there is a poverty that goes deeper than the physical-- poverty in the spirit. and that no matter how much we chase the thigns of this world to fill that poverty, that poverty cannot be overcome. We need God to transform our lives. After the sermon, we laid our hands over the people of Cristo Rey, prayed with them, hugged them, cried with them, saw many accept Christ, and many lives changed. God is so craazy :)

3. Team Unity. God totally granted us team unity. We were a team of 20, spending 24 hours of everyday together for 7 days-- and God helped us to love one another, to accept one other as we are, to encourage each other in ministry, to share our "thorns" with one another, and to enjoy each other's fellowship. I feel like we really strove for what Paul describes in Ephesians 4:2-6, a verse that June suggested after we got back to Berkeley:
"Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to one hope when you were called— one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all."

3. My own struggles. I learned a lot about what this trip meant for my life AFTER the trip actually. I realize that during mission trips is when I really realize where I am in my walk with God. Especially during this missions trip, because I'm at a new church where I dont have super close friends going on the missions trip with me, I dont have the choice of doing what I want to during the day, and I dont even have the luxury of thinking about my problems during the day because our mission and focus is on the people THERE, not on ourselves or even our fellow teammates. So during this missions trip, I really realized how much faith and love I lacked, when I couldn't put aside everything else that cluttered my mind, thoughts about our scheduling, my teammates, and about things going on at home. I wanted to devote all my heart to Nicaragua and serve God but I couldn't, and I realized it was because my heart wasn't completely God's.
I went to Nicaragua wanted to serve God selflessly, wanting to pour out to others because of how much God has shown me and poured into me during first semester, only to find that I could only serve God selfishly, and that somewhere between first semester and Nicaragua, I had betrayed my first love in pursuit of the things of this world--friendship, approval of others, academics. God said, "Come back to me, for in me you will find peace and rest, and you will not grow restless chasing after the things of this world".
Coming back to Berkeley, I decided to tear down walls that I have built up around myself starting college, walls that I build to please people, to be accepted, to prevent myself from being hurt or betrayed. I want to be transparent and broken, so that others can see God's work in my life, and that God can receive the glory. And even within this past week, it's been a struggle, but sooo amazing because God has already opened doors for me to share and be transparent with people. God has reminded me of the incredible need for His healing in Berkeley that I had become so numb to during the past few monthes, and has begun to break my heart for the people around me again. siiigh. He is sooo good, and i'm more amazed at how crazy God works everytime I reflect on it :).