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It all started with a call back in October, to “lead” a mission trip to Vilanova, Spain, a place that I’d already grown to love after having been there last summer on a mission trip. But this one would be different. I was told it would be a “prayer/connections” trip. My first thought was “NO WAY”. Yes, I can connect well with people, but prayer was “not my thing”; in fact, I felt like I always fell short in that area…in my prayer life with God, and I’m just now learning the Bible at this stage in my life, so WHY ME? And why LEAD a trip? I love to GO on these trips, but did I really want the responsibility of LEADING one? And most people think of mission trips as being more "active", like building a church or working in an orphanage, and THAT I can do, but THIS? And how could I ask people for money AGAIN after having just done this 8 months ago, and why this, why that? I had plenty of "doubts", but not the "faith of a mustard seed" at first....
Well, thanks to some encouragement from my friend Heather (who ended up on this trip with me), I quickly realized “why NOT me?” After all, God takes the weak and makes them strong, and He used Moses, who felt that he was not equipped to do God’s work, so why not little ‘ole me? So, I accepted the call, prayed that He would be my lips and tongue, then God brought a team of 7 together, and the rest is history. But not only did God go before us and “pave the way” for our trip…He far exceeded our expectations…..
If you’ve ever gone on a mission trip, there are certain things you “know”. You know your life will be changed, you hope to touch someone else’s life, and you quickly realize that it’s all to glorify God, and HE is “leading” the way, not you. We are simply His "vessels", which He uses to pour out His love to others. You also know that when you return, it will be hard to get back into your regular daily routine and work, and that it will be even harder to put into words, when people ask, how God changed your life on that trip. That’s where I find myself today. I’m sitting in a coffee shop in the middle of busy Atlanta, as I write this, back just 3 days now from Spain, and my heart and mind is with my friends (who I now consider like a 2nd “family”) in Vilanova and Sitges. I’m not sure how to put last week into words, but I have a duty to the many friends/family that supported me (and my team), both prayerfully and financially, to give an overview of the week, so that’s what I’ll attempt to do. Forgive me that this won't be short, but there was nothing brief about this trip....
If I had to choose three words to sum up the week (besides the obvious like “amazing”, “magical”, “spiritual”) they would be “authenticity”, “accountability” and “responsibility”. The obvious part of a “connections” trip is having discussions and getting to know people better. So, not really knowing how God would lead us last week, a lot of our conversation with our Spain friends turned to ways that they could make their small groups (and friendships within their church) stronger. So we explained how we feel that it’s important to start small group journeys with your “testimony” and how being “authentic” with one another can not only form connections within your group, but also bring you closer to God in ways you never imagined. At first we had a lot of resistance from some of them, saying that they’re not used to doing that, it’s offensive to ask deep, personal questions, etc. and that it was probably a “cultural difference” that we just needed to accept. But after a lot of healthy arguing about that, we all realized that it’s never easy to talk about your past or dig deep with people, no matter where you come from, but it’s necessary and can even be therapeutic, because the truth is that, despite our cultural differences, we’re all very much the same on the inside, in the ways that we feel, act, love and the daily stresses we deal with. There were even several breakthroughs with people, where it was obvious they were “getting it”, and God was working in them to become more real/authentic with people.
Next, the conversation on being “authentic” with others, turned to “accountability” and the importance of having friends in your life, like those in your small group, to encourage you and hold you accountable for your actions, which is not always an easy thing to do. It can often mean having one of those “tough love” talks that you don’t want to have, but God calls us to “spur each other on” in our DAILY lives, and I believe it’s one of the most important things we can do for our brothers and sisters in Christ. David (Martinez) got this right away, and he even called Michael on our team to encourage him through a hard meeting he was about to have with his boss (resigning from his job of 8 years), and he told us later that he knew we were “holding him accountable” to have that hard talk with his boss sooner than later, so he prayed about it, did it, and it turned out better than he could have imagined! Now, after reading Sarah Andrew’s blog entry today about how their small group reevaluated things last night and assigned accountability partners to each person, it made me smile to know that they are ALREADY putting into place what we talked about, which I believe God is leading them to do as a group, and I can’t wait to see where he takes them! How proud He must be of them, knowing that they are doing what they can to follow Him and grow closer to Him.
And finally, I use the word “responsibility” for two reasons. One is that we have a responsibility to be in the word as often as we can and have some kind of daily quiet time with our Lord and Savior, as hard as that may be, because the more we know His word, the more equipped we are to be a “light” to others and be examples of His love. Second, I realized last week, more than ever, it IS our responsibility as brothers and sisters in Christ to encourage each other, support one another and be REAL with each other because it’s not always an easy race that we’re running. God doesn’t call us to stay in our comfort zones, he calls us to go and be “peculiar” in the world and be his disciples, which isn’t always easy. We learned this the hard way, on our team last week, when our sweet Anne Glenn went through some major spiritual warfare and wanted to go HOME (back to the U.S.), and we had to really pull together as a team (along with Dani, Tamar and Sarah) and pray for her and explain to her that she had a responsibility to “finish this race” and not quit, and that was NOT easy to do, especially seeing how sad and attacked she was feeling. But God allowed us challenges like that, I’m sure, to see how far Anne (and the rest of us for that matter) would go for Him, and to show us, in the end, that He IS a God of miracles and all the glory goes to Him, and it so does! And sure enough, the next day, Anne woke up feeling, in her words, “100% better” and giving all the credit to God! After all, the enemy has NOTHING on Him!
Many people have asked me, “Why Spain?” There are third world countries and “unreached” areas of the world that seem to need us more. And yes, that’s very true. But what most people do NOT know is that Spain is just as “spiritually dead” in many ways, if not more, as those other countries. Less than 2% of Spaniards are protestant Christians and truly get what it means to have a “relationship with Christ”. There are beautiful, ornate cathedrals that took 200 years to build all over their country, but no one is in them really worshiping. They might go in, take pictures, maybe confess their sins to a Priest behind a wall, or light a candle as their way of “praying” for someone who needs it, and then leave and go out into the world unchanged and the same as they were an hour ago. You may not also know, that Muslims are moving into Spain by the droves and, some say, all of Spain (and Europe for that matter) will be Muslim in a matter of years if we don’t do something about it. So, friends, I say all of this to reiterate that we DO have a responsibility to get out into the world and go where God calls you to go, be it Africa, Thailand, Spain or right here in the United States, because people all over the world need Christ, and many don’t even know it yet.
So I’m not sure if that gives you a clear picture of what our “prayer/connections” trip looked like, and though I didn’t mention prayer much in this blog, I assure you it was on our lips and tongues and in the midst of our conversations all week. Sarah Andrews led us on an amazing “prayer walk” through Barcelona, and the church in Sitges created a “prayer journey” around their church that impacted each of us in so many ways! But the one thing I hope I truly DID get across is that I grew spiritually and learned so much on this trip! I was stretched and challenged in my faith, and I was blessed by the people we were with all week, and I can’t wait to return! My prayer now is that I don’t just go back to my daily routine at home, but that I take the things I learned and apply them to my life and continue to GROW and follow the Lord. So, for all of my friends in Vilanova, know that my body may be back here in Atlanta, but a part of me is forever with you in Spain, and though I hope to return over and over, the greatest day will come when we’re side by side in HEAVEN with the One who brought us all together in the first place.
MUCH love and “Bessos”!
Carolina
Well, thanks to some encouragement from my friend Heather (who ended up on this trip with me), I quickly realized “why NOT me?” After all, God takes the weak and makes them strong, and He used Moses, who felt that he was not equipped to do God’s work, so why not little ‘ole me? So, I accepted the call, prayed that He would be my lips and tongue, then God brought a team of 7 together, and the rest is history. But not only did God go before us and “pave the way” for our trip…He far exceeded our expectations…..
If you’ve ever gone on a mission trip, there are certain things you “know”. You know your life will be changed, you hope to touch someone else’s life, and you quickly realize that it’s all to glorify God, and HE is “leading” the way, not you. We are simply His "vessels", which He uses to pour out His love to others. You also know that when you return, it will be hard to get back into your regular daily routine and work, and that it will be even harder to put into words, when people ask, how God changed your life on that trip. That’s where I find myself today. I’m sitting in a coffee shop in the middle of busy Atlanta, as I write this, back just 3 days now from Spain, and my heart and mind is with my friends (who I now consider like a 2nd “family”) in Vilanova and Sitges. I’m not sure how to put last week into words, but I have a duty to the many friends/family that supported me (and my team), both prayerfully and financially, to give an overview of the week, so that’s what I’ll attempt to do. Forgive me that this won't be short, but there was nothing brief about this trip....
If I had to choose three words to sum up the week (besides the obvious like “amazing”, “magical”, “spiritual”) they would be “authenticity”, “accountability” and “responsibility”. The obvious part of a “connections” trip is having discussions and getting to know people better. So, not really knowing how God would lead us last week, a lot of our conversation with our Spain friends turned to ways that they could make their small groups (and friendships within their church) stronger. So we explained how we feel that it’s important to start small group journeys with your “testimony” and how being “authentic” with one another can not only form connections within your group, but also bring you closer to God in ways you never imagined. At first we had a lot of resistance from some of them, saying that they’re not used to doing that, it’s offensive to ask deep, personal questions, etc. and that it was probably a “cultural difference” that we just needed to accept. But after a lot of healthy arguing about that, we all realized that it’s never easy to talk about your past or dig deep with people, no matter where you come from, but it’s necessary and can even be therapeutic, because the truth is that, despite our cultural differences, we’re all very much the same on the inside, in the ways that we feel, act, love and the daily stresses we deal with. There were even several breakthroughs with people, where it was obvious they were “getting it”, and God was working in them to become more real/authentic with people.
Next, the conversation on being “authentic” with others, turned to “accountability” and the importance of having friends in your life, like those in your small group, to encourage you and hold you accountable for your actions, which is not always an easy thing to do. It can often mean having one of those “tough love” talks that you don’t want to have, but God calls us to “spur each other on” in our DAILY lives, and I believe it’s one of the most important things we can do for our brothers and sisters in Christ. David (Martinez) got this right away, and he even called Michael on our team to encourage him through a hard meeting he was about to have with his boss (resigning from his job of 8 years), and he told us later that he knew we were “holding him accountable” to have that hard talk with his boss sooner than later, so he prayed about it, did it, and it turned out better than he could have imagined! Now, after reading Sarah Andrew’s blog entry today about how their small group reevaluated things last night and assigned accountability partners to each person, it made me smile to know that they are ALREADY putting into place what we talked about, which I believe God is leading them to do as a group, and I can’t wait to see where he takes them! How proud He must be of them, knowing that they are doing what they can to follow Him and grow closer to Him.
And finally, I use the word “responsibility” for two reasons. One is that we have a responsibility to be in the word as often as we can and have some kind of daily quiet time with our Lord and Savior, as hard as that may be, because the more we know His word, the more equipped we are to be a “light” to others and be examples of His love. Second, I realized last week, more than ever, it IS our responsibility as brothers and sisters in Christ to encourage each other, support one another and be REAL with each other because it’s not always an easy race that we’re running. God doesn’t call us to stay in our comfort zones, he calls us to go and be “peculiar” in the world and be his disciples, which isn’t always easy. We learned this the hard way, on our team last week, when our sweet Anne Glenn went through some major spiritual warfare and wanted to go HOME (back to the U.S.), and we had to really pull together as a team (along with Dani, Tamar and Sarah) and pray for her and explain to her that she had a responsibility to “finish this race” and not quit, and that was NOT easy to do, especially seeing how sad and attacked she was feeling. But God allowed us challenges like that, I’m sure, to see how far Anne (and the rest of us for that matter) would go for Him, and to show us, in the end, that He IS a God of miracles and all the glory goes to Him, and it so does! And sure enough, the next day, Anne woke up feeling, in her words, “100% better” and giving all the credit to God! After all, the enemy has NOTHING on Him!Many people have asked me, “Why Spain?” There are third world countries and “unreached” areas of the world that seem to need us more. And yes, that’s very true. But what most people do NOT know is that Spain is just as “spiritually dead” in many ways, if not more, as those other countries. Less than 2% of Spaniards are protestant Christians and truly get what it means to have a “relationship with Christ”. There are beautiful, ornate cathedrals that took 200 years to build all over their country, but no one is in them really worshiping. They might go in, take pictures, maybe confess their sins to a Priest behind a wall, or light a candle as their way of “praying” for someone who needs it, and then leave and go out into the world unchanged and the same as they were an hour ago. You may not also know, that Muslims are moving into Spain by the droves and, some say, all of Spain (and Europe for that matter) will be Muslim in a matter of years if we don’t do something about it. So, friends, I say all of this to reiterate that we DO have a responsibility to get out into the world and go where God calls you to go, be it Africa, Thailand, Spain or right here in the United States, because people all over the world need Christ, and many don’t even know it yet.
So I’m not sure if that gives you a clear picture of what our “prayer/connections” trip looked like, and though I didn’t mention prayer much in this blog, I assure you it was on our lips and tongues and in the midst of our conversations all week. Sarah Andrews led us on an amazing “prayer walk” through Barcelona, and the church in Sitges created a “prayer journey” around their church that impacted each of us in so many ways! But the one thing I hope I truly DID get across is that I grew spiritually and learned so much on this trip! I was stretched and challenged in my faith, and I was blessed by the people we were with all week, and I can’t wait to return! My prayer now is that I don’t just go back to my daily routine at home, but that I take the things I learned and apply them to my life and continue to GROW and follow the Lord. So, for all of my friends in Vilanova, know that my body may be back here in Atlanta, but a part of me is forever with you in Spain, and though I hope to return over and over, the greatest day will come when we’re side by side in HEAVEN with the One who brought us all together in the first place.
MUCH love and “Bessos”!
Carolina
1 comment:
Carolina:
You are dead on...thanks for your thoughts. You brought up many points that I may have overlooked otherwise!
Sitges: We miss y'all!!!!
Miguel
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