CIA and Church Visit

CIA: Compassion in Action

Saturday, October 3, 2009

The Bolivia Mission trip team had a couple of opportunities last weekend to grow as a unit and allow God to stretch each memeber from their comfort zone.

Saturday morning- 8 am- thousands of 12 Stone Church memebers piled into the Hwy 20 location for a brief word from Pastor Kevin Myers (PK :) ) and for enough worship to set their hearts in a place of service and humility before our Savior.

CIA (Compassion in Action) has been a long awaited event for members of 12 Stone Church. Hundreds of service projects and block parties took place, and only our God knows how many lives were touched- and changed forever because of it.

The Bolivia team set up a block party for the Alexander Mills Apartment complex near downtown Lawrenceville. The 8:45/9ish arrival time left plenty of time to set up for lunch and games and face painting . Jose Quinones, the mission trip team leader said,

"We had some artists painting faces, we played hoola hoop with the kids, we sang and danced, gave out food (hotdogs,drinks, and brownies."

Jose said that he connected with the kids by playing volleyball, and he was also able to invite a guy to Water's Edge (the college ministry at 12 Stone) and to a Sunday mroning service. The guy was looking for a home church, and God knew this-- that is one of the reasons he sent the Bolivia team from 12 Stone to those people that day!!

With a title like "Compassion in Action", it's easy to get certain images and words in our mind that we think "qualify" as compassionate actions. PK started the morning off with telling everyone that we have to get the typical definition out of our heads of what compassion is: helping, meeting physical needs, cleaning, serving. There is always a temptaition to be "relevant" because it makes you feel good or respected by others, but if your motive is not to love Jesus, then it doesn't mean a thing to him. The focus must be on God's heart and how He loves others for it to make any difference at all.

The way Jose put it is, " We just hung out and did life with these people for a day."

When you share where you came from and your personal story- that's loving people well. That is what Christ calls us to- to share life with others, not just stuff or services.


Deuteronomy 6:5

" Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength."

Visit to Spanish Church

Sunday, October 4

Sunday morning our team visited a Spanish church in the area called Iglesia Bautista Resurrecion. We arived for the 11:00 service and because of the laid back nature of the Latino culture, we didn't expect church to start right on time :)

The church meets in a small trailer and the environment was so welcoming and inviting. There were no more than 50 memebers, but we were all packed in there and everyone seemed so enthusiastic and hungry to be there!

Worship was the most liberating experience! The man who led us in prayer before worship prayed for a long time, and even though I could not understand every word out of his mouth, I could hear the passion in his voice as he called on the One who could meet this congreagation where they're at and change lives. I believed that he had experienced the healing hand of God, and confidently approached the throne to ask God to do it one more time.

Worship was so much fun! I LOVED the energy in the room. I also enjoyed having the words to the songs on the SCREEN up in front because I can read Spansih better than I can understand it spoken (because of the rapid speed most native speakers speak.) In almost every song that we sang the word "libre" was in. This is the Spanish word for FREE- and what's so encouraging is that the people in the room were actually experiencing what they were singing about and praising God for- FREEDOM! They were freed up to dance and lift their hands and love on everyone around them.

They had a few minutes for meet and greet- and oh how amazing they were to us!! It was so funny because our two rows of us visiting white people :) were standing still at our seats and almost every single one of them came to us and shook our hand or gave us a big hug or kissed our cheeks! I have never felt SO welcomed somewhere in my entire life! There is definitely something to be learned from this culture- hospitality isn't a special unique
gift that some of them possess- it's a norm and desire for ALL.

Consider what the church looked like in Scripture in Acts 4: 32-35

"All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had. With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all. There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need."