Falling on your knees

Since being here in Mexico, I have encountered God in so many different ways and I have learned so much from my Mexican brothers and sisters in Christ! It's been pretty amazing!

One thing that never ceases to amaze me is how ready they are to fall on their knees during prayer. From them, I have learned the importance of prostrating yourself before God, humbling yourself in the knowledge of who God is, and to not being afraid of being face down in the dirt from which you came.

The most powerful moment of prayer has been during VBS week. One day my Mamá was the director of VBS and under her leadership we started off the day of VBS on our knees praying to God. We prayed that God would be ever so present in our ministry, He would plant His word (our theme was the harvest) in every heart present, we would be an example of what we were teaching, and finally that God would speak through us.
It was so powerful to hear the prayers of the other VBS leaders and to all be in the same humbled position, crying out to God for Him to do His will in us.

It has been such an amazing experience to learn from my Mexican family in Christ how to experience God more deeply. This act of prayer is definitely something that I want to put into practice more often when I return to the States.

"Falling on my knees in worship. Giving all I am to seek your face. Lord, all I am is Yours."
-"Came to my Rescue" by Hillsong

*Included is a picture of all our wonderful little crazies that we had the honor to serve during VBS week*

7/4/13 Go Forth and Make... Friends?

My Spanish teacher is truly amazing. She has such a passion for sharing God's word. She is so fearless! She always has eyes to see who needs prayer and it is incredible to see her at work. One of my favorite things that we do in class with her is to go out on prayer walks. The purpose of these prayer walks are to explore the neighborhood, memorize our Spanish Bible verses, and pray for people that we have conversations with.

Just from walking around the neighborhood, we have had the opportunity to meet some pretty amazing people and to talk about Jesus! We've met a man who is trying to return to the United States in order to be back with his family in Long Beach, California, the nicest women who make the best and biggest quesadillas that I have ever seen, and another guy who just wanted prayer for his family.

From our prayer walks, I've learned the importance of just being available and attentive; available for God's use and attentive to the needs of the people around you. It doesn't take much to make a difference in another person's life. You just need to be ready.

7/3/13 Only Jesus

Only Jesus:

-Could have blessed me this much to have such an amazing family

- Could have given me the words to say as I struggled to pray for people of the church in Spanish

-Could love me so much to continue working on me daily

- Could be protecting me everyday from unseen dangers

-Could be revealing Himself more to me in Spanish

-Could be helping me have more confidence in sharing the Gospel in another language

Only Jesus.....

7/1/13 That Moment When

That Moment When You Know Without a Doubt That You Have A Sister For Life

Last night, my sister and I were walking down the hallway to our perspective rooms when I decided to go into her room and pretend to pass out on her bed. As I pretended to sleep in her bed, she only said "Ok," and left. When I had discovered that she had left, I felt kind of embarrassed to be honest. I was thinking that she hadn't found it funny. However, when I returned to my room, I found her passed out in MY bed!
I climbed in the bed next to her and we began to talk and laugh and laugh and laugh. We were imaging the perfect bed for gorditas (big girls) and flojas (lazy girls) like ourselves. This bed was complete with a 3D plasma screen tv that also acted as a computer, a bathroom, mini-fridge, and gadgets that were able to bathe and dress us. We laughed until we cried and couldn't laugh anymore. It was such a beautiful moment that I will never forget.
I have never had a little sister before and she has been such a crazy blessing.

6/30/13 When the brothers go to bed the sisters come out to play....

The other night my sister and I were up to our usual scheming ways and decided that this was the night to do the big prank that we had been planning. With the rope that I had bought earlier on in the week, we decided that we were going to tie our brothers' doors together. Tonight was the night!! Tying our brothers' doors together was no small feat for us though!
The first time that we were tying the doors of their rooms together, everything was just a big mess. The rope was too big for the door knobs as we were tying them together like a figure eight (as the advice of our MOM). As we were struggling to tie the doors together, we heard from the bathroom next to their rooms the sound of the toilet flushing! Everyone else was in the living room or had already went to bed so it could have only been one of our brothers! We paused for a second, had a mini-heart attack, and ran! But then we quickly hurried back because we had to take the rope off their doors so they wouldn't know what we were up to. We took the rope off as quickly as we could and ran like crazy persons back to our rooms. As we sprinted back to our rooms, our dog was barking like crazy, waking up the whole household. It was quite the scene.

After we heard our brother close his door, we waited a few minutes and re-began our mission. However, before beginning our mission, my little sister decided that it was important that we wore "disguises." By disguises, I mean beach hats and beanies. Before trying to retie their doors together, we decided to thin out the rope so that it would fit on their door knobs better and boy did it work! Those doors were tied shut!!
After successfully completing our mission, we of course had to take pictures and reward ourselves with fits of giggles and high fives! We were quite proud of ourselves! We also wrote a note to our brothers, of course, explaining to them that we did it with mucho amor (a lot of love!)and that we loved them. After slipping the notes under the doors, we sat on the couch and reveled at our handiwork. As we were reveling in our glory, we had a scary thought. What if our brothers in the middle of the night had to use the bathroom? After much debate, we decided to take off the rope. But believe me, it's not over yet! One night we will return and the prank will be completed!

6/29/ 13 That Moment When....

That moment when you know you are truly part of a family:

The other day, I had such beautiful moment with my family. We were standing in the "panaderìa" (bakery) choosing the bread that we were going to eat that night when I decided to slowly slip my hand into the hand of my mamà. At that moment, she quickly grabbed my hand and smiled at me. It was so sweet!
Shortly after, my brother comes up and tries to break us apart. However, jokingly, I told him to not be jealous and grabbed his hand as well. Thinking that it was going to be awkward, I attempted to pull my hand away, but he held my hand there. As we stood there holding hands, all the noisiness of the shop faded into the background and it was such a beautiful moment. The three of us. United. After, my host brother pulled me into a quick hug and told me, "You truly are my sister. Even more so now."
It was such a sweet moment! I truly feel like I am apart of this family. I now have 3 more sisters, 2 more brothers, and 1 more set of parents. I seriously cannot believe how fast we all have bonded and in such a short amount of time. Everyday with this family is such a blessing.

6/19/13 "Go forth and make disciples....."

The command that Jesus gives us to make disciples of all nations is something that we can't separate ourselves from if we call ourselves Christians. As Christians it is a never ending cycle of being a disciple, making disciples, and discipling disciples.

Today I had the opportunity of planting the seeds of the gospel in the efforts of making disciples. We had to go out and practice having intentional Spirit-filled conversations. Which in the beginning scared the daylights out of me because we were suppose to go out, talk with people that we didn't know, in a language that we hadn't mastered, and all in the hopes of having an opportunity to share the Gospel. After our "Sharing the Gospel 101" workshop (It wasn't really called that ;) ), we divided ourselves into pairs, boarded the metro to Bellas Artes and went to hopefully have a chance to share the Gospel.
When we were in the metro, I was sweating bullets and this time it wasn't because it was hot and there were a lot of people! The whole ride over to Bellas Artes, I was praying and praying. "Dios, dame las palabras que tu quieres que yo diga." God, give me the words that you want me to say!"
Arriving at Bellas Artes (a very beautiful park area in Mexico City), I felt a sense of peace as my partner and I roamed the park, going as the Spirit led us. I believe that this peace came from the fact that at that point, I had completely emptied myself out. I had completely emptied myself of my fears, expectations, worries, and hopes and was praying that God would fill me up with Himself. I was praying that God would give me His eyes to see who we needed to talk to, His words to speak of the amazing love that He has for us, and a taste of His never ending love that He had for the people that we were going to talk to. I honestly believe that God answered my prayers that day in such a beautiful way.

As my partner and I were walking around the park, we happened to be almost caught up in a political march. "Aha!" we thought, "These people would be perfect to talk to!" So we decided to strike up a conversation with this older man with a plethora of flags and very impressive 5 gallon cowboy hat. However, by the end of that conversation, we discovered that the man didn't know any more than we did about the political march he was supporting. He was really only marching because of his mujer, his woman, and he had no idea why they were "United for a Better Mexico," or what a better Mexico would look like or how to bring about a better Mexico for that matter. He was quite a guy, but at least we got some pretty cool flags to support a cause that we have no idea about!

After that interesting conversation with cowboy hat man, we decided to sit down next to a girl that appeared to be our age and I am so glad that we did! We were able to have such a wonderful conversation with this young woman. We were able to talk about life, Christ, and about the culture of Mexico. We found out that she didn't believe in God, but that also that she didn't have a lot of Christian friends. So we exchanged information of course so that she could have two more Christian friends! I really hope that there will be a moment this summer where we can meet up and hopefully have more conversations about Jesus!

Right after we finished speaking with her, a man who, to be honest had been very, very interested in our previous conversation, asked us in English where we were from. So we began to speak with him as well! In this conversation, we found out that this man had recently been released from prison (4 months ago) and was basically starting his life all over again. However, while he was in prison, he read the Bible and prayed every single day to God. It was awesome to see how God works even in the darkest places. I say this due to the fact that the prisons here in Mexico are like hell itself. However, in prison, this man was able to find God. God is incredible. Nearing the end of this conversation, we prayed for him and then gave him the information of our director so that he could surround himself with more Christians and find a mentor.

After we parted ways with him, we found ourselves caught in another political march! I was really excited because I thought it was the same march as the one before. However, it wasn't. Yep, I was that crazy gringa emphatically waving my flag for the wrong cause.
When my partner and I met up with the larger group again, I found myself having yet another conversation about Jesus with this woman who came asking for money for food. My roommate jokes that she gave her earthly food and that I gave her spiritual food.
From what I could gather from what she was telling me, she use to be a social worker in the US, but due to just the unfortunateness of life she lost everything in an instant. However we were able to have an amazing conversation where we agreed that in Christ we have everything even if in this world we have nothing. I was able to pray with her before we parted ways and it was truly beautiful to see her faith shine through the trials she was going through.

Today God really blessed me to have some amazing conversations and to experience Him in a new way.