Hey! I know it's been a long time since I've updated, but in all honesty, I haven't been very sure of what to say. I thought and prayed today about what God would have me to share, and two stories came to mind.
When I was sick a few weeks ago I wasn't allowed to do anything during performances but face paint. I was sort of bummed out because I loved it, but the good news was that it was fourth of July weekend, so the songs I had were able to be replaced by a patriotic song. God worked that detail out for us! He always has a plan. The next week, after that when I was allowed to perform again, we were headed to McDonald's and tempers were awful. Half our team was missing while we were setting up because of a miscommunication and we weren't able to do a full set list, yet God provided! HE wanted us to do the show right then and there even though we were stressing out. We looked at our set list s and figured out one complete set list out of the three and performed it with out a hitch! It was by far our best performance. This shocked me, mainly because of how the whole day had been and various other things that were going on. Yet, God was still faithful to His purpose in calling us there, which is to reach the lost and touch their lives.
Another little story happened I was face painting a few weeks before. We do FREE face painting and absolutely REFUSE to take donations. I face painted a little girl's face into a beautiful, glittery butterfly! Her mom asked a teammate of mine if donations were accepted, and of course they said no. About ten minutes later, the precious little girl came back with a silly band and said, "Here! Thank you for painting my face!" This may not mean that much to you guys, but it means so much to me. I was so shocked that she would come back just to say "thank you" to me for painting her face. I wear it everywhere now! I never take it off. It's a good reminder that while I'm here I need to have smile on my face, with out complaining on my lips, because I'm here to sacrifice everything for these people.
In a previous note, I told you all about the block party we did at the apartment complex. Well, we are also involved in another church's ministry: Roots Community Church. The pastor there is a very cool guy who reminds us constantly to focus on Christ being the center of our joy. We came to him a couple weeks into the trip and he said that we would be doing something for families around his church, like a VBS every thursday night and we would be performing and stuff like that. Then, the next week or so, we meet up again and he says that God had changed the plans a little. He told us about an article he'd just read in the news paper about the rate of homeless people in Orlando, or people who are struggeling so much that they have to live in hotels. A few weeks go by and we are sort of just waiting to figure out what were going to do, while in the mean time, on Thursday nights our team would go prayer walking with Pastor Jessie. Four weeks ago he said that we were going to throw a block party for this one hotel and we were going to have a bounce house and it was going to be alot of fun. So we travel an hour to get the bounce house and travel to the hotel in our hot van that had no air conditioning. When we get there, it's a bust because there's no electricity! So the next week we tried the same thing, but again... it was a bust. The next week, we decided to spend our whole Thursday prayer walking. It was a very cool day! We prayed about what to do for the hotel and we just bathed alot of things in prayer. Finally, in God's perfect timing we had the block party for the hotel! Everything went so smooth! We even had rain, but it didn't matter! I have never seen kids so happy. You could tell that these beautiful families had hardly anything, and the joy in there eyes by us playing with them and telling them how much Jesus loved them was amazing. God had a plan and worked everything in His timing.
One thing I've learned by being here is that my mission field are people. I know that sounds silly, but I guess before I'd just thought of them as things who were ignorant and rebellious. The truth is that my "mission field" is more than just a war zone. These people I come into contact with each and every day have a story, they have hurt, but most importantly-- they are like me: human-- also known as sinners. They are like me and they need just as much of a Savior as I do. They are more than numbers to report to other "Christians"... they are precious souls that God, my Father, loves. Don't get me wrong, before I had always known that people are important to God and that my purpose was to share the gospel with them. What I didn't realize before though was that they need more than to be faced with the saying "turn or burn!" Even though.. it is true... our motivation in sharing the gospel shouldn't be out of guilt because we haven't "lead any one to Christ in a while". Our motivation should be sharing the gospel out of love... true love for these people and for our Savior. We shouldn't be ashamed of saying the name of Jesus, because that name has POWER, but when we use His name to scare people into saying a prayer, we've done exactly the opposite of what is needed. Remember, your mission field as a Christian are PEOPLE... just like you.
I think alot of times why we get so nervous about sharing our faith is that as soon as we are faced with the reality of people being our mission field, we get intimidated and want to back out. Yet, when we sit back and feel guilty about not mentioning Christ we think "Ok! I will share my faith next time!" We try to forget that our mission field are real people who have stories. I guess, with all this being said, the whole point is that these people need more than to just be told the gospel and not be listened to. Our most important in witnessing is listening. God will open the doors to talk about Christ in our conversations one on one if you listen. It's a fact, the more you practice listening to people, TRUELY listening, the better you get at listening to God. Listening is more than soaking up facts about the person, it is truly keeping your mouth shut and being that love in the conversation. When given the oppurtunity to speak after listening to the person, make sure that your ears are still open to God and what He is telling you to say.
I hope all of that made sense, that just sort of hit me as I was typing. Well, not much longer now, and I'll be home. I don't want to leave, but I know my job here is almost done.
Agape,
Erica
Friday, July 16, 2010
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