Why we go on these crazy trips to countries people have never heard of. Why we purposefully give up electricity, hot showers and good food. Why we can't find a normal job, and live a normal life. Why?
So, here we go. Our answer from the last 3.5 months.
For Jonathan. Whose father died when he was 10 years old, leaving him with nine younger siblings. He has not known a day off since because his family depends on him for survival.
For the nameless. Who work 10 hour days in the dump gathering plastic bottles from the piles of trash and walk away with 2.50$. One day Samantha found a dead baby amongst the garbage.
For Fabio. Whose mother left him at home when he was an infant. The neighborhood kids would then come over and watch porn movies and imitate whatever they saw on him.
For Diego, Daniel and Eddie. Who inhale glue, paint thinner and other chemicals to alleviate the pain caused by hunger and cold.
For Timmy. He watched his father die and his mother remarry. Only to then find himself [literally] sleeping with the pigs because his stepfather hated him.
For Marco. A man who is bedridden. He cannot walk. He cannot talk. His sheets are stained from urine and a stench of rotting flesh penetrates his room. The only visible movement comes from the trails of gnats and ants that dine on his open sores.
For Hector. Whose father is also his own grandfather. He was thrown away; dropped off on the streets with nothing but the clothes on his back.
For Juan. Who at the age of 5 has already struggled with alcoholism.
For Us. Who are so thankful we get to live our lives loving these very people.
The Spirit of the LORD God is upon me,
because the LORD has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor;
he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom to the captives,
and the opening of the prison to those who are bound.
We just arrived in Albania last night after 5 planes and touching down in 3 continents. I'm six hours ahead of home and trying to adjust to a completely different culture and new way of living life. We had a nice layover in New York and I had a blast hanging out with the dubs, eating Chick fil a, pizza, and drinking sweet tea...mmm...so good! To top it off, I had a package waiting for me filled with yummy goodies and fun surprises. Thanks Mom and Dad!!
This month, life will look a bit different. We have handed over leadership responsibilities and will be training and preparing our new squad leaders for the months ahead. I'm so excited for Nathan Dickens and Kristen Aperfine. These two individuals are full of the Spirit and walk in freedom of living for the Lord and loving people. Our teams are working with Campus Crusade for Christ throughout different areas in Albania. I'll be traveling to the sites with our new leaders over the next few weeks and will give you more updates as the month goes on. For now, here's a video of my time with Katie and Billy at Machu Picchu. Enjoy.
This is an account from my co-leader, Katie Swan. She is an anointed and powerful woman of God and I am thrilled to be serving along side her.
When I first met Daniel I was expecting him to be dead. He was lying, passed out on the dirty cement in front of a small vegetable shop. But when we gently tapped his shoulder, he slowly staggered to his feet. All 70 pounds.
Daniel was absolutely vile. He only had one pair of clothes and it showed. His blue shirt was torn and died black with filth. His green pants were extremely short, eight sizes too large, and held up by a rough looking black rope. Even his yellow flip flops were well worn and too small for his bloated feet.
Daniel honestly looked like the walking dead. His body had been ravaged heavily by HIV, tuberculosis and a hard life on the streets. His arms and legs resembled 2-inch dowel rods, his cheeks sunk deep into his face, and his eyes were tired and skeptical. He was nothing but taught skin and brittle bones.
Although Daniel is only fourteen years old, he carries the life experiences of a 90-year old war vet. His nights are consumed by horror and dread from the numerous rapes he endures at the hands of older street boys. His days are covered in loneliness as he seeks to find a family that does not exist. And, he fills his nostrils with the only form of release he can find-the fumes of Elmer's glue.
This month we're working with organizations that love, serve and reach out to street children. Over half the boys who choose to come off the streets leave the home their placed in and go back. They have known the streets their whole life and struggle with the detox and structure. Our beautiful little Daniel desperately needs this intervention. This is a literal life or death situation and he doesn't have much time left. Our organization has been working with Daniel for three years and yesterday was the first time he agreed to hope--the first time he moved off the streets. And in his wisdom he told us, "At some point I am going to want to go back to the streets, but I don't want to go back. So, when that happens, please lock the doors and tie me down. I want a new life."
Please, be praying for Daniel. He is a boy who has known so much pain, but he's starting to believe there's something more out there. He's starting to believe someone really does care for him. He's starting to BELIEVE and it makes my heart happy.
In 2005, I traveled with my home church to Lima and Iquitos, Peru. We joined with Adam Fowler and his family to minister to the Pastors and children in the communities. I fell in love with Peru and had a great time serving alongside my church family.
A few weeks ago I had an opportunity to visit Adam and his family again on my way to the Peru/Bolivian border. I spent a couple days catching up, hanging out, and just resting. It was nice. Adam and his wife, Liliana, have a great heart for their community and desire to see the Gospel preached. They don't take missions lightly and daily depend on the Lord to provide their needs and take care of them. They walk by faith and not by sight and their walk with the Lord is a testimony to all who encounter them.
I had the opportunity to speak at their church the last night before I headed on to meet with Katie and Billy. I encouraged their young people to seek first the Kingdom and set their affections on things above. It was a ton of fun and I was so blessed by their church family.
This is an account from one of our racers, Evan Kinney, on Team Lamplighters from their time in Laredo, Peru. I've been spending the last few days with them here in Cochabamba, Bolivia and loving life. We're hanging out at a beautiful children's home with 17 children who were abused, neglected, or abandoned. My heart is happy. I'm loving my time with the children and having a blast with seven awesome men and women of God answering the call that there must be more. Team Lamplighters is a powerhouse team promoting the Kingdom and pressing into the heart of the Father. God is so good and doing an awesome work, not only in this team, but in the communities they reach.
Please take a short moment to read this account:
Sitting in the church, in those padded chairs last Sunday morning, with a heavy cloud cover that has only broken maybe a handful of times since we have been here, God showed up in exactly the way I needed to see Him show up. Nathan was preaching on the healing of man who laid on his mat down by the pool waiting to be healed. After he preached, we wanted to pray for the church community, whether they just wanted to be encouraged. Well, we were overwhelmed by amount of people coming down to be prayed for. People stopped on the sidewalk outside the church in curiosity as to what in the world was going on. The first person to walk down the isle to be healed was an elderly woman who walked with a walker, and it took her a long while to work her way down there. I was thinking in my head that we should walk to her so she doesnt have to exhaust herself, but I think she needed that to see God work in her life, because after the pray, while she still needed the walker, she walked briskly back to her seat in tears and amazement of the power of the Holy Spirit she just experienced.
Another elderly woman came up to me with a blind, fully blue with no pupil eye, and asked that she be able to see again. It still amazes me that the Holy Spirit chooses to use me, but I prayed over this woman, and at the end of prayer, she had full color back in her eye and a pupil again! All she could do was hug me as she cried and walked back to her chair. The woman sitting next to her, then came up and asked for prayer. This continued for a good 45 minutes, people being healed, crying and we all worshiped Christ as He is the only way any of this is possible.
God used a goofy team like this to heal a town, not for them, but to show the power and glory of Christ. And the best part: they can do this as well in this town, because they are empowered by the same Spirit we are empowered by! Such encouragement!
On the race, we come to serve, love, and pour our hearts out. Sometimes I struggle with how to receive.
I traveled to El Reten, Ecuador to go visit team Lovesong and have never been so overwhelmed by the Lord's presence through a community. El Reten is made up of a small community of jungle homes made of brick, bamboo and straw rooftops. I traveled about an hour and a half out of the city down a long, dusty, bumpy road full of potholes lined with miles and miles of luscious banana trees.
I arrived at my team's home with children running down the stairs to greet me with "bienvenidos", the biggest hugs, and sweet kisses on the cheek. Ahhh...my heart was happy. The team was upstairs in the little home playing with a sea of children. We played for a while and then shared some laughter and fun stories. Amanda, the team leader went on to tell me that the children had been praying over me for days before my arrival. She said how excited the community was to meet me and that they were anxiously awaiting my arrival. "Really, me?" I thought to myself. As Amanda introduced me to the man of the home, he replied back stating I was young to be the leader and that he was expecting a much older woman. I laughed at his words. He gave me a big hug and welcomed me into his home.
I spent only a couple days in El Reten, but feel I could call it home away from home. The love that the community poured out was nothing short of the love of the Father. Singing over the crippled, visiting families, holding new babies, watching the girls play soccer, and venturing behind the waterfall were a few of my favorite moments. Thank you El Reten for your sweet love and hearts full of compassion. You loved me with the deepest love and I will never forget you.
(The family I stayed with)
(A typical kitchen in El Reten and bananas galore)
(My favorite little one...she was kind of the outcast. isn't she beautiful?)
The World Race is a culture of honor, truth, love and high communication. Feedback is a tool to help facilitate effective communication. It is a time to prophesy over each other and call forth destiny! It's all about speaking the truth in LOVE, even when it hurts or when its hard.
The main goal of feedback is to call greatness out of one another. Speaking life is reminding others who they are in Christ and the greatness He has called us to. The World Race desires that we would become more of who God has made us to be so they give us feedback to help.
Some of the feedback I've received lately that has helped to reveal some deeper issues in my heart is this:
I don't know how to rest. I need to learn to be still. (its hard for me to slow down)
I tend to overanalyze things in my life, try to figure everything out instead of following my heart and trusting God in my life. (my thoughts are always running)
I live my life out of fear- fear of letting God down, disappointing Him or other influential people in my life, or just the fear of what others might think of me. Freedom is found in Christ and the Lord doesn't expect me to do everything right all the time. It's okay if I mess up. (these words released so much freedom in my life-thanks Katie and Billy!)
I love feedback and I'm so grateful for the community God has given me to call out the junk that is holding me back from greatness and the words of life that have been spoken over me. The power of darkness is broken when you bring light into the situation.
Here is some truth that I've been soaking in that God has speaking to my heart in regard to my feedback:
Come to me, all who are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find REST for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. Matthew 11:28-30
I have the mind of Christ and hold the thoughts, feelings, and purposes of His heart.
I Corinthians 2:16
The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. Romans 8:2
For God has not given me a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and of a sound mind.
2 Timothy 1:7
God is on my side. Romans 8:31
I hear the voice of the Good Shepherd. I hear my Father's voice, and the voice of a stranger I will not follow. I roll my works upon the Lord. I commit and trust them wholly to Him. He will cause my thoughts to become agreeable to His will, and so shall my plans be established and succeed. John 10:27, Proverbs 16:3
This race is different.Things are shifting in my spirit.My desires and wants are changing.I don't want to be a quiet anointed person.I want the sick healed.I want the bound set free.I want the lost to know His relentless love. I remember coming on my first race with the intentions and mindset to just love people and be Jesus to the world, but this race is different.Don't get me wrong, I do love people and I love my God, but its beginning to take new shape in my life.Anybody can be nice and do good things, false prophets can even love people and do good, but the fruit that comes from living by the Spirit should look different.I don't want to just help people; I want to show them Jesus through the demonstration of the Holy Spirit and presence of God at work.Not coming with empty words but demonstration and power of the Holy Spirit.All throughout the Gospels we see that Jesus went about teaching, preaching, and healing.It is recorded multiple times.He had compassion on the crowds.Truth was spoken.Freedom and deliverance happened.Healings were a norm.Multitudes were fed.
That evening they brought to him many who were oppressed by demons, and he cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick.Matthew 8:16
And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the Gospel of the Kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction.When he saw the crowds he had compassion for them...Matthew 9:35-36
And great crowds came to him, bringing with them the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute, and many others, and they put them at his feet, and he healed them.
Matthew 15:30
There was a distinct difference. I want to see the fruit of living a spirit-filled life. I want to show the world who my God is by demonstration and power of the Holy Spirit.I want the World of God to be living and active in my life.I recently read Forgotten God by Francis Chan and one of my favorite lines in his book was this, I don't want my life to be explainable without the Holy Spirit.Ahhh...this is my heart. I don't want to move or act in my own ability...I don't want to say the right things and have the right answers because of wisdom, knowledge, or life experiences.I want to be so in touch with the Holy Spirit that I do nothing apart from Him.I knew going into this race that if the spirit of God was not living and active in my life, I would fail.In other words, if I was not sensitive to the Holy Spirit in my life...living and breathing the Holy Spirit, I would fail.
And my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.I Corinthians 2:4-5
For the Kingdom of God does not consist in talk, but in power.I Corinthians 4:20
I am the vine; you are the branches.Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.John 15:5
I want to expand the Kingdom, awaken a generation, and live by the Spirit.I want to go further and deeper with the Lord than ever before.I refuse to walk in fear this year or give Satan any place in my life.I choose boldness and faith.I choose to believe the report of the Lord.I choose life, joy, healing, and the testimony of Christ.There is a blazing fire in my Spirit that I don't want to contain or control.A fire that is raging war against the enemy.I will not be silent.I was born to worship.I will declare freedom to the nations and healing to the broken and wounded.
The kingdom of Heaven is at hand.Heal the sick.Raise the dead.Cleanse lepers.Cast out demons.Matthew 10:7-8
This song has ministered so much to my heart over the past few days. I have a reason to sing. I have a reason to worship! God is my victory and He will provide. I hope this song ministers to your heart like it has mine. The Desert song by Hillsong:
