Sunday, July 7, 2013

Peru 2013

           Going to Peru, for me, has always been exciting and thrilling. I love being on mission with God and seeing how He draws the hearts of men, women, and children to Himself; it never ceases to amaze me. This year was my 10th time going to Lima, Peru on a mission trip. Being that I am 24 now, this means that I have been going to Peru since I was 14. Wow!! Think about this. Before I was 14, I never imagined that one day I would spend 10 straight consecutive summers in Peru sharing the message of God, salvation, forgiveness and hope to literally thousands and thousands of people. Because I have been going there for all those years, many Peruvian pastors, ministers, cooks, translators, bus drivers, hotel workers, friends, and kids have seen me grow-up physically and spiritually. How cool is that?
            This year, I spent nearly a month in Lima, Peru; June 7th-July 2nd. A friend and I went down to Peru a few days early to prepare for the team coming and go shopping. Three days later, June 10th, the team arrive and I am more than excited to see them. June 11th, we hit the ground running and begin our two weeks of ministry. We spent one week in San Juan de Lurigancho and one week in Pomacoches.
           I want to share four stories; two about the week in SJL and two about the week in Pomacoches. First, the former. One night our team was out doing the drama. We had just done the drama and I noticed that 2 men on our team had gone over to a Peruvian man to talk with him and pray for him. A few minutes later, one of the men from our team motioned to me to come over to where he was. I soon found out that the Peruvian man has been sick for 7 years with intestinal problems and he could not hear very well. It was interesting- when I went over there and learned this about this man, suddenly I felt like I had a prayer for him. Then one of the men standing with the Peruvian man, asked me if I wanted to pray- to which I readily responded by saying YES! Keep in mind that I had no idea what I was going to pray, what I was going to say or what would come out of my mouth. Obviously, I would pray for healing on this man's life- but other than that- I did not know what to pray. From that point on, my prayer for that Peruvian man was just God talking through me and using me to speak out the prayer He had given me. After I prayed, one of the men standing with me- said- "That was a beautiful prayer, Rebecca!" Wow!! Amazing- I was just saying what God told me to say, but thank you!
        Story 2: Our team was in another area- kinda late afternoon and we had just done the drama. Then we were to go into the crowd and pray for people and talk with them. Caroline Blinson and I went to talk with a man. We noticed that on his right hand- he had no fingers. I repeat- this man had no fingers on his right hand. As we were talking with him, we found out that his shoulders, back, arms, and other parts of his body- all hurt! We knew we had to pray for this man at that moment. After both of us prayed for him, I introduced this man to another Peruvian man who was with our team helping us talk with people.
         Both of these stories remind me about the story in the Bible about the blind man. This blind man was sitting on the side of the road and I think he had heard that Jesus was coming. This man shouted to Jesus. Jesus came to this man and asked him- what do you want me to do? The blind man said-Lord, I want to see. Then Jesus spat on the ground and made some mud and put it on the man's eyes. Jesus told the man, Go and wash in the pool of Siloam and you will be healed! The man did so and was healed! Both of these stories also remind me of the power of God to heal people.

Stories from Pomacoches
Story #1: Our team had just done the drama in one of the schools there. Each team member put 20 salvation bracelets on their wrists (10 on each wrist). We then told the kids at the school to get in groups of 18 or 19 and our team members would give them out to each kid in each group. I went to a group of about that many kids- these are older kids mind you. I gave each kid a bracelet and asked them if they understood the bracelet- to which they said yes- but then I proceeded to ask them what each color meant and what did it signify. I told them about this and what the colors meant as the story of salvation. All this I did in Spanish- it was pretty cool to use more of my Spanish with these kids and become more confident in another language. After I gave the bracelets out, I noticed I had one left over on my right wrist. I saw that another lady on our team was talking with 3 boys- I walked over to those 3 boys and noticed that one of the boys did not have a bracelet. So I said- all in Spanish- this is for you, but first I want to tell you about it.- Then I explained all the colors, what they mean and the message of salvation. All in Spanish yall! Then I talked with that guy afterwards. Yall- this day I was able to use a lot of Spanish to talk with people. I was soooo excited about it too! Plus- what's more- When we step out in Faith- God always meets us and goes with us as we do what He calls us to do!

Story #2: I guess this isn't really a story- but just something I was thinking a lot about while I was in Peru. So in the main drama that we do- this year, yet again, I was the Spanish Dancer- who portrays Mary the mother of Jesus in the drama. (This is my favorite part cuz i get to dance haha) But anyway, while I was being this character- I began to think about what it must have been like for Mary to raise Jesus and be his earthly mother and see him be crucified on the cross. I imagine Mary enjoying having a baby and caring for him all those years and being excited when he "learned" something new or when he did this or that and I would imagine her being the happiest mother on earth because her baby is the Son of God! Also, I thought about how Mary must have felt when she saw her Son on the cross....why did it have to be her son that had to die? Why my son? I also imagine as a mother, she would not want anything terrible to happen to her son- then later seeing her on on the cross. I imagine at that moment she must have had a flood of emotions in her heart and mind.

I could easily go on about all the stories.
-Like the time when we were doing the drama at a school in Poma and in the beginning, our stage was rather large- but as more and more kids came- it became the case of the disappearing stage because literally our stage became smaller and smaller with all the kids that kept coming and taking our stage space. It was quite the drama experience for all of our team.
-Like the time we were at one park and literally there was 1 couple there- then i think they left. So essentially there was no one there. We went out and invited people to come. We came back and after we did the drama- there must have been 50-100 people in that park area that we were. The cool thing about this was that God was drawing the people to come. No one had it on their calendar to come to that park at that time. When it came time to cast the net- aka- share the gospel- nearly the whole crowd responded and came forward. WHAT!??! WOW GOD!!!
-Like the time we got stuck in traffic on the way back from Pomacoches and on our way to Chachapoyas. Literally, we got stuck in traffic from 1-5pm because they were paving the road in front of us...how can that road dry in 4 hours!?!? But what we thought was hard or something we did not want or like- God turned it around and many other people who were also stuck in traffic (in the cars behind us) gave their hearts to God- literally yall, people were giving their hearts to Christ left and right. Maybe around 30 or 40 people gave their hearts to God that day.
-Like the Pastoral couple that traveled with us to Pomacoches. The church in SJL had been praying for a long time that God would raise up a pastoral couple that could be pastors at the church in Pomacoches. A couple was raised up, they traveled with us to Poma and they are planning on moving to Pomacoches. Is this not God's plans at work or what!?!?!??!
-Like the time we climbed/hiked another mountain in Poma and when we got to the top of it- we could not see anything and it was really cloudy. We prayed and God parted the clouds and we could see the lake in Pomacoches and we also saw a rainbow!!

I am sure there are countless other stories to share and from many other people as well!!

If you have not already, you can check out my pictures on FB.