When God becomes bigger than you thought and you become smaller than you thought you are experiencing and learning humility

¡Hola todos!

¿Cómo están ustedes?

Hello everyone! How are you?

The Bolivia Mission Trip Team had our second meeting this past Sunday, September 13.
We once again met corporately with all of the other mission trip teams that Water's Edge college ministry is sending out in December (Haiti, Guatemala, and Liberia) If you're interested in keeping up with those trips as well check out their blogs. They are set up like this one, but instead of Bolivia in www.webolivia.blogspot.com/ just type their country name- but make sure to keep the "we" before the country name!

As we opened up the meeting on Sunday evening, we had worship songs to help focus our hearts on God. Immediately God began speaking to me through the lyrics of the songs that were chosen. We sang "Shout unto God" which has a line in that claims:
"We're gonna make your praises loud"

And my question after hearing this repeated over and over again was, "How? How will we make His praises loud? How does God show up in our lives and make himself 'loud', so to speak?"

Then we sang "How Great is Our God", and similar questions resounded in my heart as we sang:
"And my heart will sing how great is our God"

And I really questioned, "How will my heart sing so that the world can hear how great my God is?" How is my life amplifying Christ and showing him off? Am I boating in the Lord like I'm commanded to in 1 Corinthians 1:31 "Let him who boasts boast in the Lord" ?

The next song we had during this worship time is one of my favorites. It's called "Came to My Rescue" and it has this incredible section at the end of the song that your heart can't help but cry out to God:

"In my life, BE LIFTED HIGH!
In my world, BE LIFTED HIGH!
In my love, BE LIFTED HIGH!"

And through these words God seemed to be answering all the questions in my heart about "HOW" from the previous songs. If Christ is exalted in my life, then His praises will be heard by the people around me and I will have God-size stories and first hand accounts about His works and miracles. If Christ is exalted in my world, then I don't feel the [prideful] pressure that I must to do 'this and this and that' when I'm on this mission trip in Bolivia. I will realize that God is already doing a work among the people there- in their hearts and in their souls. If Christ is exalted in my love, then He will be the reason I show compassion for people in need. He will be the unexpected kindness and patience that I show a stranger. He will be the spirit of passion and life that exudes out of me!

Sometimes the most simple of truths can create light bulb moments for us as believers : )

Remember:

Jesus + nothing = EVERYTHING

Our college pastor Miles Welch spoke about "7 Opportunities in Short Term Missions"

An Opportunity...

1. To Expand your ministry heart and horizons (global vision.) god will open up your eyes to what He's doing in other parts of the world
*When God becomes bigger than you thought and you become smaller than you thought you are experiencing and learning humility

2. To clarify (or re-clarify) your life calling

*Question to ask: Is this trip and doing these things more significant and more important to me than what I'm doing back home?
Is there something more significant than making money and living comfortably?

3. For your heart to be broken for the things that break God's

4. To experience God as your Provider- He is a present, active, and vocal father

*Fund raising will increase faith

5. To grow in my servant's heart

6. To deepen and sharpen your prayer life

*Praying and receiving answers in a short period of time (during the trip) will change your prayer life! Specific prayers being answered will increase your faith

7. To renegotiate your lifestyle here in the USA
* After the trip, Miles advises us to make small lifestyle changes based on our heart's convictions of what we see in these countries. If we make a couple of vows, not huge drastic changes we'll be able to keep them easier. Avoid extremism. And instead of being entitled, be grateful.

After hearing all these encouraging words from Miles, we split from the big meeting to just our teams. Our team had an amazing bonding time. Jose, our leader started off our time with an icebreaker question. We went around the circle and shared our favorite movie. After sharing Jose told us that he asked us to share our favorite movie because a movie has a story and that is what gets us into a movie. The truth is, we all have a story. And we need to become comfortable with sharing our story in English and at home because our mission trip is going to take us to a foreign land with a foreign language! So we all shared a condensed version of our journey with Christ so far. It was incredible to hear where everyone has come from and to see what amazing work God has done in each persons' life.

Prayers for our team:

• That God would equip us (emotionally, spiritually, mentally, physically) for the task He's asked of us
  
• That we would do the work required for growth and favor and blessing (e.g. God's not going to bless our finances for the trip if we do not do the work involved with raising support. He's not going to spiritually grow up a follower that lives in disobedience and laziness with studying His Word)

• That we will not let fear control us - or any feeling or emotion
  
• That God will be putting us through circumstances now that will prepare us for the trip
  
• That others would be inspired by what we are doing and for it to allow God to awaken things in their hearts

• That God would continue to unify or team
  
• That we would be outwardly focused because we will naturally want to be inwardly focused and gravitate toward each other because it will be the only thing comfortable in an uncomfortable, new place
  

(Fellow team members Alys Davis & Kat Richards)

Thank you for your prayers and support!


Here is my mission-minded song for you this time :)

You've probably heard it on the radio! It's called "Yours" and it's by Steven Curtis Chapman:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Y_lHevMdpc