Ensenada Pt. II

Tuesday, Tuesday...I shared the gospel with my VBS class. It was pretty cool, definitely got a couple people thinking. We did a drama on the passage where Moses has them make a bronze snake. PS: Everyone was calling me Moises all week because of my beard, and making jokes about whether or not I should put on a fake one. Ok, it was kinda funny. Green site (our church splits up to go to three sites) had something like thirty kids come to Christ during an altar call...I don't know if our site did an actual altar call, but we definitely planted seeds and the gospel was preached. I think we had about forty or fifty kids on our peak days, and a lot of kids came once or twice during the week. *shrug* The results are in God's hands.

Tuesday was also shower day, we go to the public shower place to get two showers during the week. Us veterans remember when used to just not shower and give the extra $50 to our church...but I think John just decided to bring more money after a couple years of smelly.

Tuesday night I skipped chapel to counsel a friend and follow up on our talks from last year. And then afterwards another friend broke down and we tried to help him figure out what was going on...a car wreck had taken four relatives, and we were trying to figure out whether he would be leaving the team for a funeral or what. It was also hard because his sisters were with us throughout the week, and the parents decided not to tell them about it.

Wednesday, after two practices before a flop of a drama the day prior, we put it in God's hands, did a run-through, and the drama went amazingly. I was Balaam, and my trusty steed was played by one of our youngest team members, Andy. We improvised on the spot and I played a very comically greedy and calculated Balaam, meanwhile Andy decided that as my donkey, he would mimic my movements. It was hillarious, except for when I nearly crushed him during practice. And then just after that, I spilled lemonade all over him during lunch...the poor guy had wet jeans...and then he went out there and made the drama hillarious, he was my hero for that day.

During VBS we discussed priorities and how you can't serve God and money. The camp Pastor talked about how we limit how God can use us by saying "I'm just _______" when God isn't limited by our limitations. In the evening I got to talk to another youth group friend about our disappointments and attempts to follow God. It was really refreshing, and kinda hard. Last year we had a super-cool team and we were praying in the car and prayed for God to give us signs and He did. And we walked in faith. And this year both of us tried to do the same thing with our teams and felt rebuffed and so we just prayed by ourselves. And at this point, none of the signs had come true. She also mentioned the song "Mighty to Save" and how it was her favorite. And then during chapel, they played it, and I listened to it with new ears:

"Everyone needs compassion, a love that's never failing." I know that, but I find myself not accepting God's love so often. "Savior, he can move the mountains, my God is mighty to save." I realized that while I trust God for salvation in the abstract, there were some very specific areas of pain and regret that I hadn't trusted him for salvation in...and it was so good to realize that and invite God into those places and begin to be healed.

Thursday was the last day of VBS, and it just felt like a whirlwind. People were in the church talking during my class, people wanted prizes and gifts and to play soccer and to get piggy back rides and I was just overwhelmed and didn't feel the Spirit of God at all. I shared about who we are called to be in Christ, and barely scratched the surface of the subject. Bummer.

For me, this was a hard year in Mexico. The Jet and emotional lag from crossing the world and leaving Lithuania was intense. I had difficulty connecting to my site team, had some hard conversations with friends, and didn't have a lot of the conversations I wanted to have. We only played soccer one day, only gave lots of spins and flips one day, and were usually the first team to leave our site. Winging a youth group in place of the VBS was crazy, but it went well; our local pastor actually asked me if I wanted to come down and do youth work with them for a while. And it was cool, we connected to our church really well, and sort of broke down that wall a bit between missionaries and local church. Did I mention one of our Mexican pastor's daughters recently went on mission to Israel? She shared that while we shared our testimonies. Yes, Mexico is (and will become more and more in the future) a country that sends missionaries.

For me though, the trip is kinda summed up in the following. A kid named Carlos came up to me the first day and told me in Spanish "I KNEW you were coming." I had spent half of the last year's Mexico trip feeling guilty that I didn't see this guy. But he was happy just to see me and hang out and get spun around for the little time we got this time around. God is good. And whatever the lessons and prayers and conversations come to, God does not let his word go out in vain, and we trust him for the results...even when it's not as crazy or glamorous or exciting or emotional as past years, He uses us and calls us to himself all the same. And He's trying to get us to hear Him as He calls us every day.

The evening service on the last day was very cold, but lots of fun, a big group from our church decided to come and I got to translate for a few of them...it was exhausting, but a lot of fun. The speaker (Carlos Devitis, camp pastor for the week) talked about brokenness and abuse, and how many people are abused and how we don't like to talk about it but God is about redeeming those broken places in our lives.

"So may you jump into the arms of Jesus. And may He push you out into the world. And may you be healed as you participate in the healing of others, not because you must, but because you may. This is why you were born." --Carlos' Mexico Benediction