In all my excitement of writing the last note, I forgot to say what we actually did. Our actual idea for the trip was to do a "Champions for Christ" sports camp for the kids. I got to teach a bunch of 6-9 year old kids how to play baseball and soccer.
They weren't too thrilled with baseball, but they loved soccer. I'm not sure if we actually taught them anything in that arena actually. Most of these kids grow up with a soccer ball (or futbol) around. So Monday thru Thursday we did the sports camp. We started off around 9am and went until about 1pm. It may not sound like much, but remember, this is under the Guatemalan sun. But the temperatures were about like Charlotte actually. I was just amazed at my energy levels. I was only getting about 5-6 hrs asleep a night for some reason. Usually, after 2 nights of that, I would've been really tired and cranky and no fun to be around. But there was a real grace for it. And thankfully, all the fields were provided due to an anonymous donor. One of our translators and friends, Rolando, had the hook up for that. So, whomever it was, thanks a ton. Through sports, we were able to teach the kids some valuable lessons in life.
I had to keep reminding myself that they children I was dealing with were 6-9 and not youth. So I had to be really careful when addressing wrong attitudes. I didn't want to just snap at them, but I wanted to find out what was going on with them and give them something to look forward towards. All in all, i think the camp went off pretty well.
After the camp ended on Thursday, we headed up the coast to a coffee plantation somewhere in the Guatemalan hills. The place was phenomenal! It had a great view of a nearby river and cities. We ended up taking a small bus load up. Now mind you, the road to get up to this plantation was not flat by any stretch of the imagination. The bus driver literally had to get a running start up the hill or the bus may not have made it. It wasn't nicely paved roads the whole way up. This is Guatemala after all. No, the incline up the hill was pretty steep. It was probably at least a 45% incline. So we went up to the plantation and spent the night there. We also had a small worship time and water baptismals. A number of folks on our team got baptized in water and then a number of the children did as well.
After leaving the plantation, we went back to the children's home, changed clothes and repacked for a quick overnight trip to Antiqua. That was our sightseeing time. What's a missions trip without a sightseeing time? We hit various markets there and toured the Casa de Santo Domingo.
This is a brief synopsis of my trip to Guatemala. Further details available upon request.
Showing posts with label missions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label missions. Show all posts
Friday, June 19, 2009
Guatemala 2009, Pt. 1
I want to start this note off by thanking everyone for their support for me on this missions trip. There was a lot of planning and running around that I did for this trip. It's amazing how much type of administration/ behind the scenes type of stuff goes into planning a trip. Luckily, I'm largely wired for that so to have George, who was the leader of the trip, ask me to do a lot of that was fun for me.
We started getting together and uniting as a team the end of March of this year. We started with Friday nights and then did Friday nights and Saturday afternoon. We would have a Friday night meeting for prayer/worship and take care of admin stuff w/ the group and then do sports training Saturday afternoon. we had to go over the guidelines for baseball and soccer. My family did a lot of baseball/softball and I played soccer. I knew the rules for baseball but not much practical application of it myself. I was afraid to play catch b/c i couldn't catch a baseball very easily. But soccer was always my thing.
So in any case, we would be getting together as a team and start from square one. We even did a Biblical Foundations series which was really fun. Going over just the basics and then building on that. Starting off w/ salvation and then getting into healing and baptism of the Spirit.
It's amazing how unified the team still is! Despite the fact that half of us are from different churches in the area here, the common factor is Jesus! (What a great foundation to build on!) I would often tell the team that even after the trip, I won't be able to forget about them. Which is true to date because thanks to modern technology, we still keep in contact!
So after all the training (sports, Biblical), we set off. We flew out Sat. June 6, '09 @ 6:30 am from Charlotte. All the while, i was even getting to meet the folks who lived down in Guatemala via none other than Facebook. So when I got there, I felt like i knew a lot about them already!
I knew going into this trip that I wasn't going to be doing much preaching at all, but more of just letting Father God love on me and giving me His heart for the children I would be ministering to and just loving on them as Jesus would. I did get to give a brief message the one night to a small village, but it was a quick 10 minutes. And most of them were there to receive food that we were giving out. None the less, myself and George preached for a bit and the team did some hands on ministry. Including praying for an elderly woman and seeing her getting up and walking w/o a walker! Jesus is sooo awesome! (Take that satan... in ur eye!)
I can remember the very first night of arriving at the childrens home where we were staying, we get out of the van and in under 5 seconds, we were surrounded by little kids! I loved it! Hugs all around. These kids didn't care how much we knew, they were just there to receive love from Jesus who loved them! And I was there to freely give it away! The uncle/big brother/future father in me came out! I once heard it said that people don't care how much you know until the know how much you care! I can't tell you how refreshing it was to just hold the kids and just love on them! While we were traveling around w/ the kids, they would just come and sit on your lap and sometimes just fall asleep. It totally broke my heart to think of all the broken homes and lives that these children come from. Some of them were orphans and some of them were probably more like foster kids that had to be taken from their homes b/c of bad child hoods. Just simply saying hello to them really ministered to them. My hat goes off to the volunteers who are there much more full time than we were. I was blessed to be able to help a few of them out w/ some technical difficulties they were having w/ their computers. I figured I have the skill, use it. After all they do, its the least I could do.
And the friendships that I made while being there are priceless! All our translators and everyone who helped out... impossible to forget all of them! We started off w/ a core team and that team just kept growing! By the end of the week, our team doubled in size! Let's see, there was Quikay and Carol (the leaders of Fundaninos (sorry about the bad spelling here folks), Janet, Sonja, Sonia, Carla, Carolina, Sigrid, Ana, Diego, Marco, Rolando, Vivian and Holly. (If I forgot anyone, someone will correct me.) And those are just the folks who were there that were on the team. Some of our team weren't able to go due to financial reasons... Mallory and Michael.
We have just a few pictures of the trip. Only a little more than 3,000 I think. And check out Voyager Expeditions website @ www.voyagerexpeditions.org, we're working on getting things all together. We got a lot of video as well, which we'll be putting that on the website someday.
And thanks to all those who supported me financially and w/ prayer here in the States! As always, its my joy and privilege to represent you and Jesus out there. May you be blessed abundantly.
We started getting together and uniting as a team the end of March of this year. We started with Friday nights and then did Friday nights and Saturday afternoon. We would have a Friday night meeting for prayer/worship and take care of admin stuff w/ the group and then do sports training Saturday afternoon. we had to go over the guidelines for baseball and soccer. My family did a lot of baseball/softball and I played soccer. I knew the rules for baseball but not much practical application of it myself. I was afraid to play catch b/c i couldn't catch a baseball very easily. But soccer was always my thing.
So in any case, we would be getting together as a team and start from square one. We even did a Biblical Foundations series which was really fun. Going over just the basics and then building on that. Starting off w/ salvation and then getting into healing and baptism of the Spirit.
It's amazing how unified the team still is! Despite the fact that half of us are from different churches in the area here, the common factor is Jesus! (What a great foundation to build on!) I would often tell the team that even after the trip, I won't be able to forget about them. Which is true to date because thanks to modern technology, we still keep in contact!
So after all the training (sports, Biblical), we set off. We flew out Sat. June 6, '09 @ 6:30 am from Charlotte. All the while, i was even getting to meet the folks who lived down in Guatemala via none other than Facebook. So when I got there, I felt like i knew a lot about them already!
I knew going into this trip that I wasn't going to be doing much preaching at all, but more of just letting Father God love on me and giving me His heart for the children I would be ministering to and just loving on them as Jesus would. I did get to give a brief message the one night to a small village, but it was a quick 10 minutes. And most of them were there to receive food that we were giving out. None the less, myself and George preached for a bit and the team did some hands on ministry. Including praying for an elderly woman and seeing her getting up and walking w/o a walker! Jesus is sooo awesome! (Take that satan... in ur eye!)
I can remember the very first night of arriving at the childrens home where we were staying, we get out of the van and in under 5 seconds, we were surrounded by little kids! I loved it! Hugs all around. These kids didn't care how much we knew, they were just there to receive love from Jesus who loved them! And I was there to freely give it away! The uncle/big brother/future father in me came out! I once heard it said that people don't care how much you know until the know how much you care! I can't tell you how refreshing it was to just hold the kids and just love on them! While we were traveling around w/ the kids, they would just come and sit on your lap and sometimes just fall asleep. It totally broke my heart to think of all the broken homes and lives that these children come from. Some of them were orphans and some of them were probably more like foster kids that had to be taken from their homes b/c of bad child hoods. Just simply saying hello to them really ministered to them. My hat goes off to the volunteers who are there much more full time than we were. I was blessed to be able to help a few of them out w/ some technical difficulties they were having w/ their computers. I figured I have the skill, use it. After all they do, its the least I could do.
And the friendships that I made while being there are priceless! All our translators and everyone who helped out... impossible to forget all of them! We started off w/ a core team and that team just kept growing! By the end of the week, our team doubled in size! Let's see, there was Quikay and Carol (the leaders of Fundaninos (sorry about the bad spelling here folks), Janet, Sonja, Sonia, Carla, Carolina, Sigrid, Ana, Diego, Marco, Rolando, Vivian and Holly. (If I forgot anyone, someone will correct me.) And those are just the folks who were there that were on the team. Some of our team weren't able to go due to financial reasons... Mallory and Michael.
We have just a few pictures of the trip. Only a little more than 3,000 I think. And check out Voyager Expeditions website @ www.voyagerexpeditions.org, we're working on getting things all together. We got a lot of video as well, which we'll be putting that on the website someday.
And thanks to all those who supported me financially and w/ prayer here in the States! As always, its my joy and privilege to represent you and Jesus out there. May you be blessed abundantly.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
My mission will always be missions
There is a part of my heart that cries out for other nations. I've had many cross cultural experiences. Haiti and England and Philippines and New York City... ok, so maybe the last one was a bit of my sarcastic sense of humor... or maybe not... lol. But its because these places are populated with people. And people are on my heart because they're on God's heart. Trust me, its only by the grace of God that i put up w/ some people. But i look at society and my heart just cries out to God for grace and mercy.
My first time in Haiti, my heart was officially destroyed for certain things in life. I have the hardest time forking out like $50 for jeans. so much of the stuff that we deem as 'necessary' isn't really necessary. A lot of stuff that i have, i'll admit, could probably be done w/o. but i've seen poverty to the extreme. I've seen the society that had a curse of death on it for 200 years (Haiti). I've seen what witchcraft and black magic and voodoo has on a nation. (for the record, i steer clear of Harry Potter and Pokemon and stuff like that. folks, i've seen the trading cards and i've prayed for people who have dealt w/ this stuff. it will give you devils. i say that very unapologetically.)
But in all the above, my heart goes out to people in these situations. I want to present something to them that holds weight and meat. I want to present the gospel of the Bible, not the gospel according to our American standards. but i want to present something to people that is life changing. Something that leaves them breathless.
Jesus is the only 'thing' that will satisfy. Nothing else will satisfy. you might be reading this right now, and your struggling in body. I pray that life would enter into you right now by the power of the Holy Spirit and that the Blood of Jesus would cover you and that sickness would leave you body immediately. If your struggling in mind, stop agreeing w/ the lies of the enemy. If you don't know who the world Jesus is, repent of your sins and ask Jesus to come into your heart and be your Lord and Savior.
pray this prayer: Jesus, i believe that You are the Son of God. I believe you died for my sins, that you conquered sin and death and that on the 3rd day You arose. I repent of my sins and ask for you to come into my heart and be my Lord and Savior. I ask for grace to turn from my wicked lifestyle and turn into Your arms and be the son or daughter that You originally intended for me to be. I thank you for your forgiveness of my sins.
My heart will always burn to travel and minister. That's just who i am. it's who God wired me to be. And i love it! it's amazing the places i've been and the people i've talked w/. Trust me, serving Jesus is all that. you want adventure and challenge, turn to Jesus. you want to know TRUE LOVE, turn to Jesus.
My first time in Haiti, my heart was officially destroyed for certain things in life. I have the hardest time forking out like $50 for jeans. so much of the stuff that we deem as 'necessary' isn't really necessary. A lot of stuff that i have, i'll admit, could probably be done w/o. but i've seen poverty to the extreme. I've seen the society that had a curse of death on it for 200 years (Haiti). I've seen what witchcraft and black magic and voodoo has on a nation. (for the record, i steer clear of Harry Potter and Pokemon and stuff like that. folks, i've seen the trading cards and i've prayed for people who have dealt w/ this stuff. it will give you devils. i say that very unapologetically.)
But in all the above, my heart goes out to people in these situations. I want to present something to them that holds weight and meat. I want to present the gospel of the Bible, not the gospel according to our American standards. but i want to present something to people that is life changing. Something that leaves them breathless.
Jesus is the only 'thing' that will satisfy. Nothing else will satisfy. you might be reading this right now, and your struggling in body. I pray that life would enter into you right now by the power of the Holy Spirit and that the Blood of Jesus would cover you and that sickness would leave you body immediately. If your struggling in mind, stop agreeing w/ the lies of the enemy. If you don't know who the world Jesus is, repent of your sins and ask Jesus to come into your heart and be your Lord and Savior.
pray this prayer: Jesus, i believe that You are the Son of God. I believe you died for my sins, that you conquered sin and death and that on the 3rd day You arose. I repent of my sins and ask for you to come into my heart and be my Lord and Savior. I ask for grace to turn from my wicked lifestyle and turn into Your arms and be the son or daughter that You originally intended for me to be. I thank you for your forgiveness of my sins.
My heart will always burn to travel and minister. That's just who i am. it's who God wired me to be. And i love it! it's amazing the places i've been and the people i've talked w/. Trust me, serving Jesus is all that. you want adventure and challenge, turn to Jesus. you want to know TRUE LOVE, turn to Jesus.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Missions/Giving
I love to travel. I love to get in a car and go somewhere and spend time with people. Or jump on a plane and fly for hours and hours and hours.... i just have a high tolerance i guess for that stuff. i'm sure its different for different people, given their circumstances. Probably if and when you get small children, its a different story.
It's kind of funny now that i love to travel because when i was younger, probably around 5 or so, my family was going to Disney World. From where we lived in Pennsylvania, its a good probably 20+ hour drive. From what my parents tell me, we get to Lancaster City, about 20 minutes out and my mom tells me that i started saying "Go home now... go home now.."
Yeah, its one of those cute little kiddie things your parents will lovingly remind you of time and time again... like the time i kissed the flower girl at a wedding where i was the ring bearer...
In other news... This week is our missions festival and alumni gathering. This is an awesome time of year where a good number of the missionaries come back to the base and meet and greet and raise money... Its a dangerous time for bank accounts. I'm the type of person where i hear a need and i'm just like i wanna give...
So of course i'm giving. ever notice how throwing out $10 bucks to go see a movie is no big deal but giving that same money to a missionary is like a stretch to us? It's because one situation is where we are spending that money on ourselves and not someone else. People can tend to be a bit selfish... myself included. Another joy that i have is when i go out to eat with people and they're not able to cover their meal, i take it for them. That's why i love to help out around here because i'm simply spending my energy and time and not necessarily getting anything in return for it. Which sometimes, i have to really check my heart because i'll do something and i'm secretly hoping to get noticed for it.
But sometimes we have to ask ourselves why we are doing something. Is it to get recognised? I have to ask myself that a lot! Are you serving in certain aspects to get something in return? Or are you truly doing it to get noticed? Would you continue to do it if you wouldn't get recognised?
Giving unannounced. Giving in such a way that only God sees you doing it. That's fun to me.
It's kind of funny now that i love to travel because when i was younger, probably around 5 or so, my family was going to Disney World. From where we lived in Pennsylvania, its a good probably 20+ hour drive. From what my parents tell me, we get to Lancaster City, about 20 minutes out and my mom tells me that i started saying "Go home now... go home now.."
Yeah, its one of those cute little kiddie things your parents will lovingly remind you of time and time again... like the time i kissed the flower girl at a wedding where i was the ring bearer...
In other news... This week is our missions festival and alumni gathering. This is an awesome time of year where a good number of the missionaries come back to the base and meet and greet and raise money... Its a dangerous time for bank accounts. I'm the type of person where i hear a need and i'm just like i wanna give...
So of course i'm giving. ever notice how throwing out $10 bucks to go see a movie is no big deal but giving that same money to a missionary is like a stretch to us? It's because one situation is where we are spending that money on ourselves and not someone else. People can tend to be a bit selfish... myself included. Another joy that i have is when i go out to eat with people and they're not able to cover their meal, i take it for them. That's why i love to help out around here because i'm simply spending my energy and time and not necessarily getting anything in return for it. Which sometimes, i have to really check my heart because i'll do something and i'm secretly hoping to get noticed for it.
But sometimes we have to ask ourselves why we are doing something. Is it to get recognised? I have to ask myself that a lot! Are you serving in certain aspects to get something in return? Or are you truly doing it to get noticed? Would you continue to do it if you wouldn't get recognised?
Giving unannounced. Giving in such a way that only God sees you doing it. That's fun to me.
Monday, October 22, 2007
New Beginnings... The Connextion
Well, today i started my new job! It was great! It's Mon.-Fri. 9am-6pm. The next two weeks is just basically classroom training. Probably by the end of next week, we'll be taking calls and dealing with customers. But i look forward to being in a different environment and learning a specific trade more. I'm more geared toward the technological field anyways.
But in any case, i'm really excited about it all AND i'm looking towards getting more people involved w/ it. i can think of a lot of people to refer there for jobs.
Also this week is our missions festival here at FIRE. Missionaries from all over the globe are coming in and i get too see tons of old friends and make new ones! Its great to hear all the stories of all the healings and salvations and deliverances and the other assortment of stories you get from these guys. It makes me wanna just go out and get my own stories... anyone for some traveling w/ me? I only have about 50 nations i can think of right now to travel from, so it won't take that long to wittle down the list...
We're taking Jesus to the nations... come on.. lets go!
But in any case, i'm really excited about it all AND i'm looking towards getting more people involved w/ it. i can think of a lot of people to refer there for jobs.
Also this week is our missions festival here at FIRE. Missionaries from all over the globe are coming in and i get too see tons of old friends and make new ones! Its great to hear all the stories of all the healings and salvations and deliverances and the other assortment of stories you get from these guys. It makes me wanna just go out and get my own stories... anyone for some traveling w/ me? I only have about 50 nations i can think of right now to travel from, so it won't take that long to wittle down the list...
We're taking Jesus to the nations... come on.. lets go!
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