My mission trip to El Salvador recap!!!

This is a letter that I will be sending out to all the people that I asked support from.  I thought I would post it on my blog so that everyone could get a chance to see what God did while I was serving on the mission trip.
Enjoy!
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July 2009

Buenas!

My trip to El Salvador was absolutely amazing!  God has shown His faithfulness and done so much for me as well as every person on the trip and everyone we came in contact with.  We serve a faithful God!

I loved the culture of El Salvador!  It was so friendly and welcoming.  A lot of the food we had was chicken and rice.  We ate lots of good food!  Breakfasts were usually composed of the same things- beans, fried bananas, eggs, and toast.  I have a suspicion that the beans were recycled from the previous day.  Each day they kept getting to a smoother and smoother consistency.  One day they had even stuffed the fried bananas with beans!  We had lots of bean jokes on the trip…  For lunches the VCH (Victorious Christian Harvesters) intern team would make about 100 PBJs for the entire group.  Dinners were usually at a chicken place called Pollo Campero, similar to a KFC.  For the last three dinners most of the team was chickened out so the VCH group took us to a different style of chicken place, a burger king, and for the final night they ordered pizzas.  All week we ate well.  The water in the hotel and restaurants was non-drinkable for most Americans.  We were always supplied with tons of water and often a soda for liquids.  Everyone on the trip stayed healthy the entire time!  It was a great group to travel with.

A lot of other things were just like most third world countries.  In the colonias (they are like neighborhoods out there) people burn their trash and just let it smolder away.  The colonias were a lot cleaner than the villages that I have been to in Africa.  Most of the time in Africa there would be sewage just flowing down the streets.  In El Salvador, there were restrooms similar to a porta-potty.  The thing that made them different from a porta-potty was that they were typically raised about 4 feet in the air sitting on top of a cinderblock wall holding it up.  The modes of transportation were very similar to most countries.  Cars, trucks, busses and motorcycles without pollution control were practically the only things on the streets.   In the cities there were lots of people that just traveled by foot.

During the trip I was stretched and grown.  Doing the dramas gave me more focus on God and what He has to offer for others.  One time Pastor Ben, my youth pastor, came up to me during a crusade that we were doing and said to me that in ten minuets I needed to get up and share a ten minuet message on what God was sharing with me in my heart.  So frantically I got into the bus to prepare a message.  The Lord spoke to me to preach on my favorite verse in the Bible: Philippians 3:12-4:1.  I basically shared that as Christians we should be striving towards the goal, which is to be like Christ, and that no matter what we need to keep running the race for which Christ has called us!

Before the trip my youth pastor wanted each of us going to write down on a sheet of paper all the things that we wanted God to do in El Salvador while we were there and what we wanted God to do in our personal lives during the trip.  Once I was back home, I opened my paper that I had written all my desires in.  As I was reading through them, every single thing that I wanted God to do in the lives of others He did!  And everything in my life that I wanted to see, God did too!  In the list of things I wanted to see God do, I had a desire to see the passion that I have for God get passed into those that I meet.

During one of the crusades (A crusade is the El Salvadorian word for an outreach type service.) that we were a part of, there was an altar call for those that wanted a refreshing of passion and zeal for God in their lives to come forward.  Once those that needed to receive more passion were all up front, the mission team and I went up to pray for people.  I have faith that the passion God has in me was put also into those young men that I prayed for.

One of the other things I wanted to see God do while in El Salvador was the healing of a person.  While we were on the island Monte Cristo (population 80), we did an altar call after one of our dramas for people that needed healing.  A man came up and said that he had pains all over his body and his eyes constantly hurt.  So a few of the other guys from the team and I began praying for him.  We saw him begin to cry and after the prayer a translator asked if he had been healed.  With tears in his eyes, he said: “God has healed the sting in my eyes.”  God is good!

Before the trip I wanted to be set free for good of some sins that have just been little nagging things in my life.  Jesus died for my sins on the cross, but I am now walking in that freedom!  I also wanted God to show me what my purpose and direction in life should be.  On the second day of ministering, during our evening devotion as a group, I was praying about what God would have me do in the future.  During that time I felt as though the Lord was saying to me that I would be a missionary.  That had never crossed my mind before!  It was a hard word to take.  But I wrote it down and kept it in my mind.  Two days later after finishing up another crusade at a church where we were ministering at, the group and I got back on the bus to head back to the hotel for the evening.  On that bus ride back to the hotel one of the summer interns came up to me and just sat down and asked if I knew what I was going to do with my life in the future.  (Up to this point I had not even talked to her!)  I said, “Well, I thought it was going to be something relating to businesses and starting them, but the Lord has been calling me to do more missionary work while on this trip.”  She then continued to say that every time I had gotten up to explain a drama or share a word with the people that she felt as though I have a calling to be a missionary or pastor.  That blew my socks off!

With the word from God and a confirmation, I feel it was totally God speaking His calling over my life!  I am going to see what I can do to do more mission work within the next year.  It is an exciting journey following God!

VCH offers an intern program during the months of June and July.  As an intern with VCH one goes on every trip that VCH hosts during those months.  The mission trips take place throughout Mexico and El Salvador.  I am strongly considering doing the two-month internship this coming summer.

Thank you for all that you have done to help me go on the mission trip!  Every single prayer that was prayed was manifested in the work that we did.  Thank you.  Thank you also for the financial support!  Without your help, I would not have made it on this life-changing trip for me personally as well as to the thousands we ministered to.  We presented to over 5,000 people, and over 2,000 people gave their lives to Christ.  God is good!

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