MK040 Sermons
Missions Sunday, Part 2 (Audio)
morning is Caleb Stoltz-Fus and Caleb is one of our young adults. He graduated from high school last year and currently he is running his own business and helping out on the family farm and he's been doing both those things actually for several years but doing that kind of full-time now and recently Caleb had the opportunity to take a trip, a service trip and so I asked him this morning if you would come and just share a little bit of that experience that he was able to have back in January. So Caleb maybe you can just share with us where it was you went and who you went with and kind of partnered with for that trip. Oh yeah back in January I went down to Croatia, Costa Rica. Uh, Croatia is about about an hour from San Jose which is where we flew into and stuff uh, the airport was. I went down, I got connected with the ministry USA men through one of my best friends Brian Martin and his family. They went down the last few years now and uh, they really enjoyed it and they invited me to come along so. So what was it that you guys did while you were there for that week? Uh, mostly it was construction, the guys the construction and the girls did uh, EBS for the kids at the church. The guys we uh, poured concrete in the classroom. They added on to the church down there and uh, some of us cool poured concrete and some of us painted the roof uh, of the church and uh, different things like that so. So really good opportunity just to partner with this church there in in Costa Rica to help them with some physical projects and also with some ministry things as well. So that's cool. Well Caleb um, I know maybe not everybody listening knows this is your second trip you've taken out of the country. When you were uh, just finished your junior year, Caleb went with us to Haiti with the C3 students and uh, kind of got his first taste of cross-cultural ministry. So what made you decide to to go and do another trip similar to that? Uh, it's just something I want to do more of. Uh, get out of the country and to see different different things and see the way different cultures work. It's really cool to especially ministries uh, other than, you know, right here church and stuff. How they do it like when I was down in Haiti and downcoaster here's just really cool to see different things like that. Yeah, one of the things that I really appreciate that Caleb was sharing with me as we were preparing for this is that he really has a heart not to just go and do things his way or do things the American way, but really a heart to go and and learn how they do things in different places and help them uh, do it their way really, which is uh, which is a really great approach to trips like that. So Caleb, as you were there and you were working mostly doing work projects and a little bit working with um, you know, with the kids and interacting with the church there, what was some ways that you kind of saw God at work during your trip? Well, most of the days I just did uh, construction because that's what I figured I'd like doing, but the one day I did VBS one afternoon and it was just something really cool to see I saw us down in Haiti too is when we uh, worshiped with the kids they would sing in Spanish and we'd sing in English and it was just really cool to just to see that working together and worshiping God like that. It was just really cool. So you went down and you were mostly doing the work projects and you spent a day working with the kids um, and something kind of kind of cool came out of that. Can you kind of just share everybody kind of what God did in your heart while you're there? Yeah, cool. It's not the only place that happened, but just working with the kids is something I really never really thought I'd enjoy, but it's something as I do it more. It's really cool. Like I really started enjoying it more as I as I do it and it's a lot of fun. Something different that I never thought I would ever ever enjoy, but yeah, it's just really cool. Yeah, when we if you know Caleb, Caleb is a hard working farm kid and he'll roll his sleeves up and do whatever you need to be done. He's got a great servants heart. He's a little quieter on the quiet side, right? And that's okay. So when we went to Haiti, we never really expected um, how well he connected with the kids. And so we got a little glimpse of it there and I think God started stirring that and he got another taste of that. And so we've had some conversations about, you know, even checking some things out around CCC and maybe some ways he can plug in and work with our kids here. So that's cool just to see how God uses a trip like that to to continue to help you to understand yourself through the experiences that you had there. So, so what's next? Well, I hear you have another trip coming up. Yeah, just ordered the plane ticket to go back down in January again to Costa Rica. Same same thing and hope to do more more trips like this and during the winter time when I'm not very busy with work, it's just something to maybe do another trip to in the spring. It'd be really cool to do. Yeah, it'll be really fun for you because one of the things that we experienced going to Haiti is that when you get to go back a second time and continue to develop the relationships you already started, it's it's just a ton of fun and and and really impactful as well. So, so be praying for Caleb. He's going to be heading out again in January for another trip. So be praying for him as he prepares for that and goes on that trip. Caleb, thanks so much for sharing your trip with us this morning. [Music] Well, this morning I get to let Tim handle most of the responsibilities I get just to fill in a little bit here, but this morning on stage with me is Esther Weston. Esther is one of the members our members here at CCC and for those of you that don't know, Esther's a Christian counselor in our area and one of the things she really loves to do is help people discover what God's purpose is in their relationships, work past barriers and struggles that are there so they can experience what God's design is for them in relationships and so this past year in January, Esther, you were approached by a missions team to do something like that internationally. Can you tell us what how that all came about? Yeah, many of you know my friends, Kurt and Barb Matthews, who have been here that work and serve in Ghana, West Africa and their team, they have a team of missionaries that are working together in that region and they had been just having some struggles on connecting with each other and it's hard out on the field when you're very lonely when you're the only Americans there and you're kind of thrown into this mix with people that you don't know and they're expected to almost in some ways kind of become your best friend you know that you do everything with and a lot of struggles can come up with that and so they had reached out to me and asked if I would be willing to come and work with their team to kind of help them develop some team health and I began to pray about the possibility of that and God brought to my mind a friend of mine a very dear friend my best friend from high school who I had connected with periodically through the years but they lived in Europe and hadn't seen them for years and her husband works with team health in Europe and now is actually a global director for reach global of team health and just reached out to him and asked if it would be a possibility that he would be interested in going with me to Ghana and turns out that God had already really paved this opportunity for me I had no idea what it would become but he and his partner Gary both both came to the field and we were able to work with the team there in Ghana you know sometimes I think we have this almost glorified view of missions that you kind of go and serve God and you make a difference in another part of the world it's just the grand and glorious experience but you're kind of saying there's a dark side of this there's a real life struggle because you walk away from everything that's your safe comfort zone and your thrust into these relationships with people like you said really to become your best friends and that may not happen so and I don't think many people recognize how difficult that struggle I think you said in the first service that the number one reason missionaries who go believing they're committed to serve God end up back here in the States is because of interpersonal and relational conflict that they cannot resolve there so so you connected with Dale and Gary and they've developed an organization called deep connection tell us what that organization's purpose is yeah so the the organization is called deep community experience and the purpose of that is an invitation to live from a whole heart in authentic community as John was saying a part of that is that when we when we step into the realms of ministry and what God has called us to we often tend to lead from we want to lead from strengths and from having it all together and and and part of what this organization does is really allow authenticity it's really hard to be authentic when you're the leader and you're the missionary and you're supposed to have all your stuff together and really teaching them how to lead out of brokenness how to enter their own brokenness before they can enter the brokenness of those in their community and so it's really cool so when you're there with this team they do some instruction because sometimes there's some teaching and learning and then there's interaction with them in groups and personal personally and so you did this in Ghana and then God provided a second opportunity in South Africa for us for you and along with Dale and Gary so as you've had the opportunity to go to these two separate fields and serve missionaries in a very different way than we normally hear about can you tell us a couple stories just of how you saw God at work initially in Ghana and then later in South Africa yeah I think I think first in Ghana one of one of the first experiences that I had I think the day that I got there was recognizing that I had kind of gone without really recruiting a lot of prayer support I hadn't really told I don't think most of you guys my small group knew that I was going and I recognized right away missionaries don't write back home and say please pray for us as kind of a spiritual ease kind of thing it's because they need it it's really really I felt immediately that we were in a spiritual battle and I needed prayer very badly wrote home right to my small group I was like please be praying for me because I felt the need for my own community to be supportive of what we were doing over there but as the week progressed each we were really praying for a prayer was for this team who said they had a couple attempts at this already so this is yeah we were kind of the third kind of like last ditch effort to like can you come in and help this team so they had they were a little jaded they had already been kind of hurt by some people coming in and saying you're doing all these things wrong and kind of piling a list of more things they ought to be getting right and they're not getting them right and and we were really praying for that God would open their hearts towards us because they were already kind of set up to be closed and and we were really praying for each individual which was a long shot it really was to have complete buy-in and what we were asking them to do and to look individually at their own hearts and it was remarkable to see how they opened their hearts to us by the end of that week it was it was like as john said we did sort of a group community teaching time together and then the second week we we really just opened up our schedules for people to sign up for personal individual time with us and and they did and and allowed us to engage their hearts and their stories of where they were at and it was really incredible so in Ghana you're working with a group of white Caucasian missionaries all from the u.s so you go to south africa it's different tell us what that community was like that you went there and what god how god used you there so the reason why i got asked to go to south africa one of the reasons was simply because what i didn't realize at all i felt that god was asking me to help this particular team in Ghana when really god's plan was actually to align me with this other team called deep community that was doing work of very much in in line with my heart and what god's called me to and so they invited me actually to be a part become a part of their team which travels globally to do this and so they invited me to join them in south africa working with the team of about 35 people who were a blend of missionaries and interns some uh they had they had a community there of year-long interns and some six-week interns but they were um a conglomeration of um about five different makeup culturally um some some Caucasian Americans some African Americans some white South Africans some black South Africans some what's called tribal closest South Africans and so a lot of different cultures um so my hesitation at the beginning was just wondering how is this gonna go this is this is really interesting um fascinating to learn about their cultures and fascinating to see how god allowed us to step beyond cultural barriers um into the hearts of people you know it's interesting because sometimes we think about these struggles just being ours here as westerners but these are people struggles regardless of whether you're missionary regardless of you know whether you're part of another country what god wants more than anything is for your heart to be open to him to know Jesus have a right relationship with him and then to live out of the reality of who we are in Christ and so um so as you think about as you think about opportunities for the future and we are able to share with this group here our own church about opportunities you have to serve in another part of the world um what's just one thing they could be praying for you as these other opportunities um god provides for you well I think just uh praying that my own heart will be prepared I we firmly believe part of what we do and I do here in counseling and I work at Lancaster Bible College with the students in counseling is that we cannot take people further than we've gone ourselves and so for my own journey always to be engaging my own brokenness of what God is doing in my life so that I can be present fully and prepared um I said one of the stories that that happened in South Africa that just was surprising there's so many surprising things that God does just to surprise the socks off me but um one of the the guy Dale that we were with a lot of what we do in presenting um is to share our the stories of our own brokenness and he had shared um his own struggle with an addiction to pornography he was a missionary serving globally in Europe and and was struggling with um a pornography addiction and and shared his journey through what it meant to be authentic about that what it meant to share that struggle with just one person to be able to be honest about that and um one of the guys that that was there it just so profoundly impacted him that my friend Dale could share that story without shame at all and to stand in the grace of God and to um be able to share he was just so floored by that and um throughout the week and a half two weeks or whatever that we were there um saw saw something in this one guy that we were just unsure of what God was doing a lot of people were profoundly sharing their stories and entering into them but he seemed pretty hesitant with that but he but he he was markedly moved by my friend Dale's story and um I had to leave before the rest of the team so um my daughter Jenna was with me and she did a great job there but I had to come back because Andrew's graduation was happening so I left Jenna there and I was packed up and ready to go and I was kind of just waiting um to get ready to leave for the airport and this guy came up to me and he said can I talk to you privately for just a minute and um pulled me into her room and shared with me that though he was in this internship program and he supposedly had a walk with Christ that he really did not have a walk with Christ that was based on authenticity that he had never really understood how in the world you could acknowledge that you were that broken and that God could still love you um and shared a little bit of his own struggles uh and in the last minutes before I left I was able to lead him to Christ until an authentic relationship with Christ and it was um just awesome to be a part of that moment you know one of the values that we lift up here at CCC is purposeful serving and when we talk about that we talk about discovering what God's design is for your life and then living that out and you know as Esther continues to explore what God's design is he's opened up another opportunity for that to go beyond just you know the the community that she lives and serves here and so it's our prayer that that will continue to be what God's doing in your hearts and lies that when God gives you a tug and says here's an opportunity and you step forward and follow God's leading in your heart he might open up an opportunity for you to live out who he's designed and created you to be thank you Esther for joining us this morning [Music] He's the lord of my salvation Savior of my soul send me out to the world to make you know Jesus keep up every nation this world's only hope send me out to the world to make you know send me out to the world want to be your hands and feet I want to be your voice every time I speak I want to run to the ones in me in the name of Jesus I want to give my life away all for your kingdom's sake start a light in the darkest place in the name of Jesus in the name of Jesus carries to the broken heart mercy you have shown send me out to the world to make you know to the ones in me I'll rescue believe me I will go send me out to the world to make you know send me out to the world I want to be your hands and feet I want to be your voice every time I speak I want to run to the ones in me in the name of Jesus I want to give my life away all for your kingdom's sake start a light in the darkest place in the name of Jesus in the name of Jesus send me out to make you know there is hope for every soul send me out send me out yeah well as kids and students grow up through our family ministry we are really trying to accomplish the same thing that John talks about all the time here with you to to help them to understand what it looks like to love God fully and what it looks like or what it means to love others deeply and part of that that we as they grow older and move into flip side and especially here in C3 our high school group is to give them opportunities to move out and love people in a way that helps them to see God and one of the ways that we do that is we provide opportunities around here as well as maybe regionally or nationally and also as you're going to hear in a few minutes in a different part of the world and one of the things that we want to really help accomplish is one of the things that we value is is that when we are are doing things for other people that we pursue that not just as a task but as a relationship and the Apostle Paul writes in a couple different beginnings of letters that he wrote to to some of the early first century Christians one he said I long to see you so that I may so that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith and so we want him to go and not just focus on doing tasks somewhere else and in the world or in the country or even around here but we want him to focus on building relationships and Paul said elsewhere he said you know because we loved you we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel which we want to do of God but also our lives as well really a lot of what Esther was talking about and what it looks like to live in community and so as we went to Haiti this was these are some of the things that we talked to them a lot about that it's about building relationships and God will use us to accomplish some things there and he will do some things in our lives but we're going to pursue loving others because of the love God has has shown us and and when you go somewhere like a third world country it takes you out of your comfort zone and often when we get out of our comfort zone that's when God has us primed and ready for some significant growth and so we we put them in these kind of cross-cultural experience and and one of the things that they learn is that there's a lot of things different here and and that's one of the reasons we do that but they also learn there's a whole lot that's the same that's true of a believer in Haiti that's true of us here today and and so that's kind of the goals that we as a leadership team have for them in these opportunities but we also know that they have reasons for participating in these opportunities so this is about half of the team that we took to Haiti and there's some other sprinkled through the crowd that have the green shirts on so you can catch them they shared first service so you have to go listen to that online if you want to hear what they had to say but why don't you guys just introduce yourself and tell us the role you had our main ministry there was a VBS with the church there tell us kind of the role you had in the VBS and really why you went on this trip. My name is Jen Vandalin and I have the opportunity to oversee our group of teachers there was four of them Ani Kendra Evan and then Amanda who spoke in first service. I don't know if I was a hundred percent mentally prepared to go on this trip I was really looking forward just to reconnecting this was Tim and I this was our second time to go so it's really looking forward to reconnecting with a lot of the people that we had met the first time there translators people from the church and things like that. One of the things that I really appreciate about Crystal and her ministry is just how much she values the relationships and so I was very open just to be with the patients and the people there again to build the relationships again. Okay I'm Anika Nomin and I was one of the teachers for the VBS and I just wanted to go on this trip because I thought I'd be really neat to do ministry in a different country. I'm Sophia Charles and I was part of the worship team on the trip to Haiti. The reason I wanted to go on this trip was to get out of my comfort zone and be placed in a working area for God to serve him and to see how that could change me and also just to really develop a stronger relationship with God to trust him fully and to just fall completely in love with him. I'm Kendra Zemezki and I was a teacher also at the VBS. I went on the trip because while I knew from Ashley that it was an amazing experience and I wanted to challenge my own faith in a different culture and taste new food. My name is Andrew Weston. I did the games group and the reason I went is just I love missions. I've been three times out of the country and just really enjoy that. I enjoy working with kids and they want a chance to do that again. My name is Evan Templin. I was a teacher at the VBS we did and the reason I wanted to go is because I've always kind of wanted to go on a mission trip but not really been able to and this is the first one I was really able to go so I enjoyed that. I'm Jenae Ingram and I was part of the craft team in Haiti and I just kind of wanted to go to see the culture of Haiti and kind of experience something new. I knew that we were blessed here but I just kind of wanted to see how they lived and kind of hoping that it would change me. So while we were there we had a lot of experiences. The main thing as I shared we did was a VBS with the church that we were partnering with down there. We typically did that in the mornings and then in the afternoons we would do some other ministry opportunities things like prayer walks that I think they'll share a little bit about here through the community. Just really a chance to go and interact with the people in the community there near where Hearts United with Haiti has their base and they just have a presence in that community and build relationships and just pray really just pray with people. We did some soccer and stuff with some kids and some of the guys and girls got to play soccer with the Haitians and I think we maybe won one game but that was a lot of fun and just got to you know to spend some time with them and then pray with them. We went to an orphanage for an afternoon and just spent time with the kids and just kind of something that changes the pace of life for them and so those are some of the experiences. So out of all the experiences that we have how about why don't you guys share what some of what were some of your favorite ones like what was kind of your favorite experience while you're there. My favorite experience was the afternoon we spent the orphanage because it was fun to just play with the kids on like BBS where we had to like teach them or do crafts and stuff and right away when we got to the orphanage we were all kind of claimed by a kid so I spent most of my time with a little girl named Katie and a little boy named Burlando and they taught us games they played and I'm pretty sure they beat me every time and they took tons of pictures and it was really hard to leave them. Andrew how about you what was a significant experience for you? For me it was the prayer walks we went on two of them and the first day I was kind of nervous not really sure what I was supposed to do but Kylie kind of led that up and kind of showed us what to do and I got to really meet a lot of people and on the end of that first trip this lady just came like running out of her house and really wanted us to pray for her and she had two sick kids and that really struck me in just that they wanted our prayer and somehow our prayer reached higher and then the second second time we went I got to talk a lot more to the people and really made connections with them and talked to them about church and just what it means to believe and that was really cool to me just to kind of share the gospel just on the streets. So Phil how about you what was a significant experience for you? My favorite experience was the first night and the last night when we went up to the place called the outlook it was an old church that had pretty much survived the earthquake it was pretty much just a shell of it all that was left was like a couple pillars stone stairs and then the roof and we would go up there you saw a couple pictures we were all sitting in a circle and we did worship and that was just beautiful to me you could look out and see like the clear blue water and then you could like look up the mountain it was like all these metal shacks of their homes and it was just beautiful seeing the creation of God like just being formed into a way for people to live that was just amazing to me and it was really just jaw dropping of like the first night pretty much and I was like oh my goodness I love Haiti it was awesome so yeah so if I could I would definitely go back to that place right there and do worship again yeah we got to do that twice since we were there a couple extra days so we got to do it on our trip and then we got to do it on the other teams trip so Jen how about you what was some something significant for you um I had a couple actually had a lot but a couple that I was sharing this morning as I just loved being able to be at the church that we did VBS um and just partner with Pastor Robbie's church um him Mel and I were able to and about an hour before VBS started got to meet with their staff and leaders and just kind of talk to them and talk about the week and how they do ministry and how we do ministry and kind of put our ideas all together and just to be able to share some of our creative things that we came up with like that was pretty neat for them with for Haitians they don't always think in that creative box um and so we were able to share some of those things with them um and we got some really good input and so so I really enjoyed just that hour that we got to meet with them um another favorite experience that I had when we went out on the prayer walk um for the second time there was um a group of us that had an opportunity to walk into a woman's house she had a little store in her front of her house that she was selling some drinks and stuff um and she they're very open to just having you come right into their home um she allowed our group to come in and we circled up and we just had an opportunity to talk with her about um just her experiences living in Haiti um we asked her about the time um when the earthquake had happened and she happened to say that she was there in the house um and she kind of showed us where the earthquake had damaged part of her home and how she had started to rebuild some of that reinforced some things um in her home um but just we it was just kind of hit me that you know we hear in the face we had heard about this experience the earthquake and stuff but to have to be able to talk to someone that actually lived it um lived through that was pretty amazing to me um I think it was him that had asked her if Haitian still live in fear of another earthquake happening and right away she said yes um and even the translator that was with us at the time he had said the same thing that that's one of the fears that he has too and that kind of just hit me that you know while we're there the translators are with us and they do the things that we do and stuff but yet they're still Haitian and they still live that way and they still have those fears that the Haitians have um so it just was an opportunity that was really neat to be able to um go in her home um and speak with her and just to be able to get a little bit of a firsthand um glimpse of what it was like during that time for her. One of the things we talk about as we prepare to go is that we're going to be a learner and uh we feel like we believe that God has just as much maybe if not more for us to learn by going them for us to teach the Haitians and so um as you guys think about your time there and the relationships that you built with some of the Haitians and the just the experience of the Haitian culture what are what's something that you learned from them Kendra you want to share that with us? Um I learned that Haitians are very selfless all of them um we are while we were there um even though we were wearing like t-shirts and shorts you could still tell that we were more well-off than they were and we would walk into VVS and kids would like put coins and candy in my hands um when we got stuck there uh a neighbor helped us clean our clothes and he used his own soap and his own time he even told us he hated doing laundry and um he still did that for us um if there was a broken down car on the side of the road uh random people would stop they wouldn't have to know them and they would help them push the car um and Pastor Robbie he gave us money um when we got stuck there for anything we needed it for and it was I think Tim told us this a few weeks ago um it was probably like two weeks worth of offering and so I mean I just think it's amazing because they don't have much at all and we have so much more than they do and they were still willing to share it. Evan how about you what did you learn? Um one of the things I really learned from the culture is that um praise is praise so when you worship God you worship God whether it was a matter like where you are or what you're doing or even what language you're in and when we went to the Haitian church um there was we were you know kind of the second time we went um to the Haitian church we were singing the same songs but they were in different languages and just to realize that you know we're both praising the same God but even though I can't understand anything they're saying they probably can't understand what I'm saying it's just so amazing to see that praise for God. Janae how about you? Um something I noticed while I was in Haiti about the Haitians is that they are so willing to help each other out and like Kendra was saying they helped us out and they were helping each other and it was just a good reminder to me that it's okay to ask for help and even to give help to other people um I like to do a lot of stuff myself but um it reminded me that I should be asking for help and helping other people. So Pete how about you what's something you learned? Um I learned from the Haitians a lot and I also learned that they're just 100% give they give you anything whenever you need it um even if it's like their last dime they're willing to spend it on you um when you first come and see them again it's like oh hi how are you they hug you and give you a kiss and like just tell you that they're praying for you and then they ask you if there's like anything you need like do you need anything they'll sit down to you and with you and talk to you and um they'll give you like seriously anything like Pastor Robbie yeah he gave us um something which was where so much more than it would be to us uh they're even in debt and paying off a lot of things like rebuilding their church um and they used that money to help us when we were um stayed stuck there for a couple more days um and then they'll be like okay well goodbye I have to go off and do other things because they're busy people and they'll tell you that they're praying for you ask them to pray for you ask you to pray for them and then they're off so yeah um they're just loving people and they find joy in the little things so they taught me how to be joyful well let's share a little bit uh we got to see God do a lot of things while we were there so what's one way that you kind of saw God at work while you were uh in Haiti Jen you want to get started um during the week I really had an opportunity just to see our team grow um we were definitely put out of our comfort zone um and I could just sense at the beginning of the week it was kind of like yeah this is out of our comfort zone but we got it we understand we know how it's gonna work um and then then the extra couple days hit us and um that's what we really could see um God really working in our lives we were an emotional wreck um just because we had mentally prepared to come back home um we had sat down at the base and talked about being able to come back home and what it's gonna look like and stuff and so then when we were got second traffic and and missed our flight that's when we could really see um God really working in our lives um we went from kind of being independent in a way to being very needy um very needy and relying on God and just very needy um we needed each other kind of so those next couple of days um I mean it was a situation that was beyond our control and if you know me at all I like to have everything lined up everything in order everything um needs to be planned out and this was not planned out um so we just knew that God was not finished with us yet in Haiti um and one of the things that we had said in our debrief time on Saturday morning um is that oh we would love to go back to Pastor Robbie's Church we'd love to see people again like that one more time little did we know the very next day that we were gonna have that opportunity to do that um that Sunday morning we were still feeling kind of woe is me there was a few of us that did not want to go to church that morning um but we ended up going to church and as we were walking in in Creole they were seeing how great is our God and it was just like God was saying we want we want you there I wanted you here um and so we walked in and the people were so excited from church um one of the guys he was in a picture with Tim Jonas he ran right up to us and was like I prayed that we would see you again soon um and that soon was just a few hours later so we it was just a really surreal moment to be able to be back um and that was that service um the pastor had a there was a guest speaker that morning too and he spoke in English and in Creole both um once he realized that we didn't have our translators with us and so um we were able to hear that message in English um and sing familiar songs that morning and just be encouraged by the people at Pastor Robbie's church. Anika how about you how do you see God working? Um during the prayer walk to the community I could just see God at work in the Haitians because they were so open to pray and talk about Jesus um I got to go on to a prayer walk during the week and both times I would think about how different it was from around here where you don't just walk up to people and be like hey like genius pray for you and they don't invite you into their house because they think you're weird so it was just really neat to see that. Tanae how about you how did you see God working? um I saw God work in each of the members of the teams um we when we got sorry um so when we were in Haiti we had every night we would have like this debrief time and we would all um get together and we would talk about what we kind of did um throughout the day and we would tell stories of kind of what God was doing through us and I just thought it was really neat to hear um how God was changing everyone on the team. So obviously when we share about a trip like this we can't ever share all that we experienced and all that we saw and all that we did and um so if you guys had just like one thing that you could share with everybody here this morning about your trip to Haiti or about Haiti what would that be? Andrew do you want to share that? Um I would just tell them that guys are in great things in Haiti and the field is ready to be harvested and there's a lot of people out there that are just ready to be except Christ um like like a lot of people did and um yeah I would just say um just go and go. Evan how about you what would you say? Um one thing I would say is that um if you have a call for ministry or if you like you should go to ministry I feel well then you should go uh like Andrew said just go but um I do know that missionary work is not for everyone or well you know most people or some people don't feel comfortable going on the state level in the country so but to know that um one thing I want to tell is that you can do missionary work here you know you can mission to your um neighbors to your co-workers to kids at school if you're a student um you your missionary field is wherever you go so hmm. Kendra how about you? Um if I did tell someone one thing I would describe the church service in Haiti because there's a lot that we can get from that um you can see the passion when they sing it's almost as if they're like they're closing their eyes and they're imagining themselves not in a room with a hundred other people but just like they're singing straight to God um they're the first day that we went to the church there was a prayer um that it was just in the middle of the worship this guy was um walking back and forth um praying into the microphone and everyone stood up and put their hands um and it was a way um for them to humble themselves before the Lord and um they were like confessing to him that they've done wrong and that was powerful for me to see an experience. Well as we wrap up this morning why don't each of you just share we'll just start here with Jen and go down the line why don't you share you know how did God work in you in your heart what did you see him do in your life or what was your takeaway from this trip? I just I had mentioned a little bit about this but um God really showed me that my plans um the way I want things to go or not the way he has for me um I said I am someone that plans things out and when stuff like that doesn't happen I tend to fear and I fear that unknown like what's gonna happen next um so just God showed me especially over those extra two days that um that I don't need to fear that unknown that I um but he's gonna take care of me and he brings people at the right time in the right place into our lives um to help us grow and work through those um experiences um some of the things had we not been there for a couple extra days um would not have happened we would not have had that opportunity to go back to the church again um Kendra had mentioned about the laundry we were almost out of clean clothes and so we had to wash some clothes um so we had an opportunity um to go behind the house to a neighbor with a neighbor um his name was Mano and he was out doing his laundry so we thought we'll just do ours and after we got it and hung it up he said nope take it all down and we were we were like what and he said take everything down and we had to rewash everything um the Haitian way and so that was just uh it was a neat experience we laughed so much then and we really needed that and had we not been there that extra day we wouldn't have had that opportunity um to be able to do that with him um and just being able to see the translators and some people again that we just didn't think we would see that soon it was pretty neat um like Jen missing the flight was a tough lesson for me that I could see God working in me because I had planned for the next day and that week and it was really hard to realize I didn't know what that week would look like so um but the two days were really fun actually and it was just a good reminder that God's plans are greater than mine so um I really learned to be dependent on God through all of this um just to know that he's always there he's always by our side uh I just remember in one blog comment um Kyle Zameski he was like sir guys you seem to be doing great God's got it and we just like really took a moment to like meditate on those few words God's got it because it was so just equipped for what we were dealing with and I always think about that like it's okay Sophia God's got it God's got it I just remind myself of that all the time and no matter what you're doing like God there has a plan and there's a reason you're doing what you're doing we didn't know why we missed our flight but God had a reason for that and that was really cool for me uh God worked in me that week by using my own lesson of faith um that I taught to the kids to remind me that I need to have faith in him at all times things don't always go our way and we often find ourselves complaining like it's hot we missed our flight we have to go all the way back to the base and um we have to share with another group um and we did a lot of complaining um and we didn't have faith in God we could we see it now but at the time we didn't um we weren't opening our eyes to what God wanted um us to experience um what he wanted to do in us while we were stuck in Haiti for another awesome two days uh yeah mine is kind of similar to them um when we got stuck there I was just kind of like just kind of took my eyes off God and just kind of focused on complaining and how bad it was and I quickly realized that um I shouldn't be discouraged just got I should just trust in God's plan and that's something that has really stuck with me um since I got back just sticking with God's plan like that Kyle said God's got it. Um my big takeaway was at the end of the PBS at the very last one um at the end of the lesson the kids were asked to um if they wanted to dedicate their life to God they could come up front and they would go with uh madam pastor and they would um dedicate their lives to God and to see every time I at the end of the v-slash I would sit back and just see all those kids who were dedicating their lives to God and to know that um somehow I helped influence that or I was part of this team that influenced their lives that dedicate their lives to God was it's just awesome. Something that I took away from the trip personally was just that I can talk to God and pray um more than I do um a lot of times I just forget to ask what he has planned for me and when I was in Haiti it was just like I needed to talk to him and I had to ask for strength to do some stuff because a lot of things were just really out of my comfort zone. Yeah it was really interesting as we were on our trip I think if we would have come home on Saturday like we had planned I think we would have all been very satisfied with our trip there but it's as we kind of debriefed and we talked more it's pretty interesting what God using those last two days to really cement some things in our hearts and our minds and and it was easy almost all we there are some I mean there are some tough things but um when it got hard is when we really had to figure out are we going to trust God or are we not and uh you know the um crystal who runs Hearts United with Haiti and and the team there and Pastor Robbie's church I mean they were really good example to us of what it looks like to trust God in tough situations and ours really wasn't that tough it felt tough though it's the that I don't want to I don't want to minimize that it felt very tough but it was a really really good time really cemented I think a lot of what God had been doing all throughout the week so thank you guys so much for sharing about your trip and grab some of them after the service and and in the green shirts and ask them some more questions and things maybe they didn't answer that you'd like to know and uh appreciate you guys sharing. [BLANK_AUDIO]