El Paso de Paso

 

So I met these awesome young people in Kyr last year in the south.  And then they came up to the capital and came over for a night of sharing stories, I helped show them around Osh Bazaar and translated for them a couple times. 

And then I was like "hey guys, so you guys are young people, and I'm going around the world talking to young people...want me to stop by El Paso on my way to Mexico?"  And they were like "Sure, but not until after Mexico."  And I was like "sweet." 

 

Such a cool three days!   God likes to bless and encourage us in the little things sometimes...so I was really NOT looking forward to the US after almost two months in Latin America, but the person who picked me up was this super-sassy Mexican-American mom who was just going in Spanish a mile a minute, talking about her Jesus and how she shares with people through her beauty salon.  So I was really thankful for that cultural bridge that made me like the US more and took away most of the sting of the culture shock.  

Sharing at King's Kids

I felt like my message of "God has called you as healers, pastors, disciplemakers, and preachers" was something that most of the youth I talked to in El Paso already understood.  How cool is that?  These young people were amazing:  they organized my stay, speaking, sharing, transportation and even made sure I got food and stuff.   I shared at the youth group, but I had to wait until after the young people finished the lessons they had prepared themselves, because everyone in the group had to do a teaching before they went on a missions trip.  Hearing them speak, it was clear that this was not their first time teaching to a group.  The church's gym had flags of all these different countries they'd been to on missions, and they kept track of how many missionaries they sent out every year.  Although these short-term trips (and the idea of going to as many countries as possible) are not the most effective means of mission, the more people I talked to from the church, the more I saw that for them, missions was a lifestyle.  Many of the young people would be going to San Francisco on a mission trip over Spring Break, but a lot of them were also doing a mission right there in El Paso. 

All of the sharings went really well, as did the one-on-ones, I mostly just asked "how has Kyr changed your life , how're things now, and what's next?"  It was quite the culture shock to realize "oh yeah, many 16-year-olds are dependent on their parents for transportation, permission, and not independent."  That's one thing that makes me sad about America, low expectations on young people (and lack of public transit) instead of the attitude I saw in the King's Kids leadership in El Paso, who regularly take 12 year-olds as missionaries on trips close and far.

Maybe one of the most exciting things was that many of the young people were already teaching themselves Russian!   :)   So hopefully we'll see some of them again someday on the other side of the world.  :)