I
have so much to share about my trip! IT was so good! I was pretty much
gone a whole month from my normal life. Global Expeditions does a great
job of equipping and training you before going out on the field. It was
my second year as a TL. My coleader and I had a team of 20
missionaries, smaller than my team last year of 30 people. I grew very
close to them throughout the weeks. We named our team "4winds" because
Mary (my coleader) and I's vision was Ezekiel 37, the valley of dry
bones. Our goals were to train our team to be God's mouth piece and to
hear the voice of God. There was much transformation over the trip, we
were just like these proud parents as we watched them blossom and grow
and just shine for Jesus. It was indeed challenging and we had our
tough times counseling issues you would not believe. Than again we tend
2 forget that teens actually struggle with these crazy things but most
people don't take the time out to build relationships and deposit into
people's lives. When you do this people are more apt to trust and
reveal more about their lives and struggles. My heart broke for my team
and I really challenged them to not be satisfied with anything ordinary
(our theme song from deluge band). There is so much more, a deeper
level and they shouldn't be satisfied with where they are at now, the
sad thing is some of them were.
Italy of
course is a beautiful place full of culture and history like I have
never experienced. MAN everyone needs 2 visit Italy at some point in
their lives. We ministered in Bologna and all over Rome. Our free day
we got to experience Venice (awesome city with water everywhere), The
Vatican (yes i know im not catholic but that place will blow you away)
and the Sistine Chapel which is there as well as St. Peters Basilica
(the biggest cathedral ever). This, supposedly, is where Peter is
buried. His tomb is so beautiful. Bernini was the artist who carved and
designed a lot of the things there. The Pantheon in rome, the different
piazzas (plazas) like the spanish stairs, novona, popolo, just to name
a few. We worked with Jesus Revolution and awesome ministry and they
taught our missionaries two dances (that were so awesome). We used
those as our ministry tools along with the Freedom Drama. The dances
really are for people to stop and watch us as people usually peg
christians as people who don't dance so this breaks down a lot of
barriers (they dances to christian songs of course, one toby mac song
and another spanish song). The Freedom drama is an awesome tool, "for
those in bondange there is freedom". And lastly we'd give the Net (the
gospel presentation and altar call). We had great ministry
opportunities and divine appointments. My team alone had 14 salvations
praise God and we planted many seeds. One thing i really learned and
realized on this trip was that we are responsible more for preaching
the gospel and letting people know who Jesus is and then THEY are
responsible for making a decision as we fork the road for them. The
Holy Spirit than does the work, he'll take over from there. GE prepared
us really well this year with the good news/bad news way of
evangelizing, it made it so easy and impactful. I've never felt so
confident in evangelizing. This blog has been long. I'll share more
stories the next one

PS- u can see pics on my facebook.
Chatboard (0)