March 10–End of Outreach

I don’t even know what to write on here… I feel like I should sum up outreach or something, because it’s the end, but so much has happened that I don’t even know what to say. 

Mexico City was hard.  It was really good, but really hard, for everyone on my team.  The street evangelism that we did was really challenging for me.  I really like doing evangelism when I have something to start a conversation or something – like bringing homeless people pizza and water, or something like that.  But in Mexico we just went up to people and tried to talk to them.  God taught me so much through it… I don’t think it’s something that I’m called to do with my life, but it was so good for that time. 
It was really challenging too though personally being there too.  The first week I was there I got altitude sickness and couldn’t really get out of bed for I think 3 days, then had a cold for pretty much all of the rest of Mexico, and wrecked my knee (again) – funny story, there’s a reason Mennonites can’t dance in church… it’s dangerous.  Pretty much, I just spent a lot of time sitting around, it was hard, because it made me feel useless, and it was sometimes really hard not to question why God had brought me to Mexico, but then I was sick or injured for so much of it and missed out on a lot.
But when it comes down to it, God used our team, and he used me.  Looking back, we saw over 200 people saved, and about 3 people healed (I don’t know the exact numbers)… not to mention the countless amounts of people that heard testimonies, or the gospel, or got prayed for.

God is doing amazing things in Mexico City, I’m so thankful to him that I was able to have a small part in that.

Then there’s Thailand… this place is amazing!  It’s by far the most incredible place that I’ve ever been to before.  God is doing amazing things throughout Asia!  The church is rising up so much – I haven’t met a Christian here that is at all ‘lukewarm’ in their faith, every person that I’ve met is just on fire for God, and so passionate about sharing his love with everyone that they know.
ARK International and the work that they do here is awesome.  Knowing that they’re giving the kids home, and a possibility at a better future, as well as showing them Jesus, it’s such great work that they do.  I’ve loved being a part of that so much for the past month.  The kids here are impossible not to love… they just have the hugest smiles anytime you see them, and coming running to where you are.  There’s this ‘game’ that we play with the kids in one of the communities when we see them.  Basically we throw them up in the air over and over and over… and they love it.  There’s nothing better to them than just being loved by people, and by being able to be a kid for a few hours with us at Live Life, or for a Saturday morning at Nak Suu. 
Bangkok is a place that I’m so sad I have to leave.  I would love to just miss my flight back to Perth and stay here, or to get on the wrong plane to go home, and come back here, and be with these kids again.  They’ll stay in my heart forever, and I know that because of the work of ARK, I’ll see a lot of them again someday, whether I come back here or not (I really want to, in case you couldn’t tell – but we’ll see what God says), I’ll get to see them again someday in heaven and it will be awesome.

I think more than anything though, outreach has given me such a huge heart for the world.  It’s made me so much just want to go everywhere, to be able to share God’s love all over the world.  To actually do something that has eternal value with my life.  I don’t want to live just going through life – working every day, hanging out with friends, never really making an impact on the world.  I want to be someone that’s used in world-changing ways, someone that when life’s over, I can stand (or more likely just be flat on my face) in front of God, and he’ll tell me “well done, good and faithful servant”, and then hug me, and then I’ll get to hang out with him - the kids in the slums, and the kids that I’ve cabin led, the people that we talked to on the streets in Mexico City, everyone from the amazing churches that I’ve been to over these last six months - forever in heaven!

 

I guess that’s it then… my DTS is over.  It feels like I’ve been here for forever, being at home seems like another life to me.  But not in a bad forever, it’s kinda just like time doesn’t exist anymore, being all over the world, and doing so much stuff, I’m actually just so confused at what time of year it is.
But DTS has been amazing – if you’re reading this and haven’t done a DTS yet, please do… God will completely change you.  He’s taught me so much about him, it would be impossible to write it all out for you.  There’s something about actually being in missions though, even if it is only for 3 months right now – you learn so much more how everything that you learned about God is so true.  About how he is your strength, about how he’s bigger than any language barrier… whatever it is, God is bigger, and stronger, and all you need.

 

But all that being said, I am happy to be coming home, for however long it is that I’m actually there.  I’m excited to see my best friend again (even though I have to spend 24 days there first alone.  I’m excited to see everyone else too: to go to vespers at CBC again (even though I’m not a student there – whatever, I’m pretty sure like half of the people there aren’t), to ride a scooter with Rose (please pray I don’t die, she’s driving), to be able to actually decide what I want to eat, to get to drive again… there’s way more. 
I’ll miss being here, everyone here, I’ve made such amazing friends – but I’ll see them all again someday, heaven’s going to be a giant party!  But it will be good to be home again…

See everyone soon! (Unless you’re David, in which case you would have to come out to BC to be seen soon)

March 2

This afternoon we went into one of the communities that ARK works in.  It’s one of the smaller ones, I don’t know exactly how many people are in it, but it’s only street – most of the communities that ARK comes into are smaller, because they like to go where there aren’t any organizations in yet, they’re mostly in the really huge slums.  So we went in, and split the kids there into girls and boys.  We took the girls into their little Buddhist temple thing, and led a bible study with them there.  We told them about how God loves them, and they are special, even when people tell them that they aren’t.  We also got them to write on a piece of paper questions that they had, or what they were feeling, so that they could figure out what they were going to do in future bible studies (I’ll tell you a bit about a couple of the girls on the bottom of this).  After the bible study, we went out, and met up with all the boys again.  We played with them for about half an hour or so, and all that they wanted to do was grab our hands and jump with us – to get us to help throw them in the air higher.  It was insane how that was all they needed to be so happy.  These weren’t just 3 year old kids, they were 10 and 12 years old, and all they wanted was to be thrown up and down.
So here’s a story about one of the families in this slum, apparently it’s a pretty common story.  So there’s these 3 sistersp.  All of them have different dads – they live with their mom and Tip’s dad.  Last week their mom had another baby.  Then the day before we came to do the bible study, the mom picked up and left with the baby.  The ARK staff said it was really likely that it was because the baby wasn’t her husbands, but her boyfriends (it’s really common for the wives to have boyfriends on the side, or for the men to have girlfriends on the side).  These girls, when we asked them to write down what they were thinking, or questions that they had, one of them said “I don’t want my mom to leave, I want my mom and dad to be together”.  Another of them said, “Why did my mom throw me away?” 
These are common stories that happen in the slums here in Bangkok, please pray for children like this that have broken families.

February 26

This morning was Nak Su.  It was awesome to actually get to be there for it, we’ve been hearing about doing it for months, and were all so excited to work with them.  They have between 80-100 kids from 5 slums and a boys home there every week that they split up into teams to coach. 

I was helping with a girls team, and a U-8 mixed team.  The kids were so cute – as soon as we got there, they jumped all over us, and wouldn’t let go.  Some of the little girls would stand on our feet, and make us walk them around places.  I brought my sunglasses with me, and for the whole time, all the little kids would steal them from me and each other, it was so funny to watch.

Coaching the team was really funny though, because I have no idea how to play rugby – I don’t even know the rules for it.  It was a lot of fun though, some of the kids are amazing at it.

They were telling us about it a bit, and they said that they have sponsors that are willing to give these kids scholarships and stuff for university if they get good enough at rugby – it’s awesome to know that they’re not just getting to play rugby, but also are getting a chance to actually be educated and have a future more than just the slum that they live in.

February 24

This afternoon a few of us went into a slum to do a bible study type thing with the kids living there.  As part of ARK (the ministry we work with) they run these types of programs every week in all of the slums that the kids come to Nak Suu (the rugby program that they run every weekend).

We went into a community that’s entirely built over a swamp/pond area.  Going in there was crazy to see the way that these kids live.  They live getting only one meal a day, at the most.  Most of the people in this slum are from Cambodia, a lot of them are illegal immigrants.  Because of that, they’re scared to even let their kids come to our programs, because they’re scared that the police will take the kids, and bring them back to Cambodia.

When we got there, we just found a bit of an open space and played a bunch of games with the kids, and then taught them the story of creation.  It was really cool, because they had been learning about it a bit already, so the way that we did it today was that we brought pictures of creation, and then they told us the story of creation.  The kids love learning about God so much, it’s awesome to see.

February 19

This morning we went over to ARK International’s office/house.  It was the first time we’ve seen it – it’s an absolutely amazing building.  They have 2 houses that were given to them to use – one is for the family that runs ARK, the other is for the offices, and some more housing. The places are so nice – you could stick them in a Canadian neighbourhood, and they would be really really nice.  We did a bunch of prayer in the morning, and then work around the place, cleaning and doing inventory of stuff.  Also, another girl and I worked on planning crafts for the kids for one of the ministries that we’re going to help run while we’re here.

Then at night we went out with the counselling school and ARK to part of the Red Light District to do ministry stuff.  It was insane, seeing how open everything is here, there’s no hiding what goes on in the district at all.  The area I went to, it was a big open market, and as you walk down the street it was just like, market stall… market stall… women… market… women… family looking around… market… people in the Muslim dress things… women.  It was so out in the open, I’ve never seen anything like it before.  We spent a bunch of time praying for the women working there, and then me, a translator, and a couple of the counselling girls went to talk with one of the girls.  Her name’s Sofia, and she’s actually one of the sweetest girls that I’ve ever met.  She was really eager to talk to us – she told us about how she was heart broken right now.  Then she went on to tell us about how she used to be married, and had 3 kids.  But 2 years ago, her husband took her kids, and moved to Canada, so now she has to live here alone, and hasn’t seen her kids since they left for Canada.  It was so heartbreaking, to see how much pain she was in because of it.  As we talked to her, it was obvious that she wanted to get out of her job so bad, but she couldn’t, because it was the only way that she could afford to live.  While she was talking, we just saw so much how she has the kindest heart – she said that any time any of her ‘friends’ need anything, she’ll do it for them, if it’s giving them money, or anything, without expecting anything back from them – but she also talked about how her friends were only her friends when they could get something from her, when she had money that she could share with them, or whatever.
We ended up talking to her for about an hour – she just kept talking, because she didn’t want to be working so badly.  At the end of our time, she only stopped because her friend literally grabbed her by the arm, and dragged her away so that she could get back to work.

Please pray for Sofia and girls like her – they don’t want to be in the situations that they’re in.  Please pray for opportunities, and for ministries, within the Red Light District that are helping to get these girls out of the lives that they’re in now.  Also, please pray for safety for the girls – it’s really dangerous down there for them, we were warned when we got there to be really careful about even talking to any of the girls, because if they’re seen talking to someone and not working, they can get into big trouble by the guys that own them.

February 17

This morning we went to a university here, to hang out invitations to a church service this Sunday, and just talk to people.  The university that we went to has about 700,000 students (that’s about 5-6 times as big as Abbotsford).  It’s insanely huge.  It was really cool, because most of the students there at least spoke a bit of English so it wasn’t too hard to talk to them.  It was weird though, because I’m so used to being in Mexico City, where you go up to someone, and just start talking to them about God, and they’ll talk to you.  But here, we can’t do that – people are super closed to hearing about God, and a lot of people don’t even know who God is.

Then in the afternoon we went to one of the International School’s in town.  It’s a kindergarten to grade 12 school, that's a lot of the missionary/diplomat kids, as well as a lot of the kids from rich Thai families. We just hung outside of the school for a while, playing drums, and being with the kids.  There are some people that go there every week, and use drumming as a way to draw kids in, and then to be able to talk to them about God.  So we just went there, and drummed with them.  It was really weird to hear kids speaking English again.  I don’t even remember the last time that I’ve actually been able to have a conversation with a kid without having to pull out the little bit of Spanish I sort of know, or sign language or anything.

Octopus tag with the kids.

Sharing the gospel and giving testimonies.

February 16

This afternoon we started working with ARK International (a YWAM Perth ministry that runs here in Bangkok).  They go into the ‘communities’ (slums – they don’t call them that because of the negative connotation that it has, but that’s what they are) and pick up a bunch of kids to run an afternoon program with them.  We picked them up from 2 different communities, and brought them to a park to play games with them.  We played octopus tag with them, it was so much fun.  They all just jump on your back, and ride from one end of the court to the other that we were playing on.  The funniest part about it, was that if you got tagged, instead of them sitting down with you, they would get off you when you sat down, and they would keep running.  It was so much fun to see them have so much fun playing the game with us.

Then after, we shared a bit of the gospel and prayed with them.  They seemed really receptive to it, it was really cool.  They all listen so well to it, and seem to be taking it all in, and starting to receive it.

There was one little girl that I was sitting with, she had this little barbie with her.  She was so cute, she kept saying how the barbie looked like me, because it was white.  She got me to put up the barbie’s hair like mine was and everything, it was so cute. 

February 15

We went on a ‘religious’ tour of the city today.  Pretty much it just consisted of going to a bunch of the different shrines/temples around Bangkok.  It’s insane how much they put into their religion.  Tons of people come to the shrines every day to pray and make sacrifices every day to the Buddha’s.  They all seem so dependent on something that’s so dead, and can’t actually do anything for them. 

But then at the same time, it’s really weird because they’ve turned their temples into tourist attractions.  They charge money to get into a bunch of them, we went outside the Presidential temple today, they charge about $10 a person, just to see the Buddha that their King worships.

Here’s a couple pictures of the temples, they’re really cool looking:

Bottom Left:  This Buddha is called the Reclining Buddha.  It’s literally reclining.  As in it’s a 42 meter gold statue that’s lying down.

Bottom Right:  The Presidential Temple.  It’s in the complex that the president lives in so it’s crazy touristy.

February 14

This morning we had out Thai cultural orientation… it’s crazy how different Thai culture is from North American culture.  Mostly for humour’s sake, I’ll put up a few of the differences here:

1. The head is the most honourable part of the body – if you touch someone else’s head, it’s incredibly insulting.

2. Feet are dirty.  Never point your foot at someone or something.  Don’t sit with your legs extended.

3.Buddhist monks can not touch a woman.  If a woman has to give something to a monk, she must pass it to him through a man.

4. The Thai people love their King.  When they ask you anything about the King, you have to reply “The King is good”, even if they’re asking a question like “Is the King tall?”

5. Questions like “Why are you so fat?'” or “What kind of birth control do you use?” are perfectly normal, and not considered nosy.

yep… kinda some weird things that will probably take a while to get used to.

 

After orientation we had a bit of a food orientation… it was awesome.  Thai food is amazing.  We went to a restaurant, and they just had a billion different foods there for us to try (mostly it was just lots of different stuff to put on rice).

February 13

We landed in Thailand today… it’s a completely different world here.  Everything is so foreign, and amazing.  I love it so much. On our way home from the airport we rode in the back of a truck, and passed by fields and rivers; pretty much it was exactly like anything you see of Asia(the parts that aren’t actually in the huge cities) on shows like the Amazing Race, or something like that.  We’re living at a YWAM base here… they have a dorm-type apartment building that the have for outreach teams.  There’s a massive market right by our house too… it’s so cool!  They have pretty much everything you could imagine there – and everything is super cheap, it’s awesome.

I think the weirdest experience so far here has been eating.  Because we have no idea what anything is, and obviously can’t even try to figure out the menus like we did in Mexico.  So the only thing we ever have to look at is the pictures… but so far it’s worked out pretty okay.

Also, really weird thing… I keep trying to speak to all the market vendors and pretty much everyone else too in Spanish, even though a lot of them do at least speak a little bit of English.  It’s such a weird experience, because I’ve never thought that I would try to speak to people in Spanish before I tried to speak to people in English before.

February 11–Goodbye Mexico City

This morning we left Mexico City (at way too early in the day to be alive)… It’s weird to not be there anymore.  It had gotten to the point that our church was home, and it was like we had been there forever.  It was an awesome experience, but I’m ready to go to Thailand, so is the rest of my team.  It’s really exciting though, to think of how the work that we’ve been doing in Mexico City isn’t going to stop because we left, but I know that the church there is so grateful for Megacities coming to them, and they’re going to continue so much with everything that we’ve been doing there.

Here’s some random things about Mexico City that I’ve discovered over the past 2 months, but never put up here:

1. They have absolutely no respect for women.  You walk down the street (even if you’re walking with 8 guys that are 6 feet tall) and guys whistle at you all the time – it’s weird to not hear it.  At first I was confused, but then I realized that at least part of it is due to the fact that porn is everywhere… literally.  There are magazine stands at pretty much every street corner, and there are always porn magazines everywhere. 
If you guys could pray for that, that would be awesome, just that those stands and that disrespect for women would just really get torn down.

2. The smog here is disgusting.  We were in the airplane this morning, and looking out the window onto the runway, I couldn’t see the end of it, because the smog is so thick.

3. The city is literally sinking.  It was built on a lake (dumb idea… apparently some Aztec god thing showed the people some sign or something that they should build there city there).  You walk through the city, and it’s the weirdest feeling ever, because it seems like the whole world is tipping sideways, but it’s just the city sinking.  Also, if you go into some of the buildings, it feels like the whole building is a huge ramp because of how sunk it already is.

4. Taco’s are pretty much the best thing ever… I’m pretty sure I could eat them everyday of my life and not get sick of them.  Like actually though, there were weeks here that we would eat Taco’s for one or two meals a day for a week straight… it was awesome.

5. The Mexican church is amazing!  They’re all so excited about their own city, and about bringing God into their city.  It was so cool to see, because at home it always seems like the hardest place to reach is your own city, and that it’s so much easier to just go overseas, or even an hour away to a different city or something.  But the people here are all so excited about bringing God into the people they know, into their neighbourhoods, into their city.  Mexico City is going to change so much in the next few years because of how excited the church is for God after this year of YWAM being there.

February 8

Today was our last day with the kids that we teach English to.  It was so weird knowing that we aren’t going to see them again until heaven someday hopefully.  The kids are so cute though.  They always just repeat everything that we say, so that they can learn better.  So when we get there, we’ll ask them how the are, and instead of answering us, they’ll ask us back.  I never actually thought that I would like teaching so much, it was always one of those things that I thought I would hate so much, but I’ve loved teaching these kids so much.
We were talking to the lady that runs the Salvation Army, and she was telling us about how us teaching them English for around a month with help them out so much in life.  It was really rewarding, to get reminded that what we’re doing is actually doing something for these kids, it’s not just something that we’ve been doing for the past month to just fill up time.

This is a picture of our class:

January 30

This evening we went to a Youth Church here in Mexico City (it isn’t actually called that, but that’s pretty much what it is).  After the service, we took a bunch of the youth out on evangelism to a market right by their church.  When we were there we split up into groups of 3 and just wandered around the market talking to people.

Me and one of my leaders, with the leader of the church went out together.  Pretty much as soon as we started, a huge crowd of people came walking down the street, so we stood there, and I gave a super short gospel type message about God’s huge love for us.  After, we were able to pray with 3 people, it was really cool.

Then all of us got together again, and did worship – it’s really cool to worship in the middle of the street in 2 different languages.  Most of the worship songs in church are translated from English, so we can sing along with a lot of the stuff that they sing.

Also, on a completely different note, there’s this taco stand in the market we did evangelism with, and we were told that as a sort of initiation into this church/evangelism thing, we have to eat a taco.  So they bought us all tacos, that were the hotest things I have ever tasted (I didn’t actually eat a whole one, just a bite)… it was terrible.  Everyone that ate them were crying from the heat – Dad, someday you need to come down to Mexico so that you can try one of them.

January 29

This morning we went to a little slum that’s a couple blocks from where we live.  It was crazy, seeing how different these people live.  I’ve never seen people that live in such huge poverty before.  Their houses we made of whatever they could find for walls, and then their doors were just made out of curtains.  We got to play soccer with a bunch of the kids for a while, then did a couple dramas for them, and did a testimony, then I told them a kid version of the gospel… it was awesome.  After we just played with the kids some more.

I met a little girl, Fatima, she was probably only 2 or 3.  When we first came, she was super shy, and wouldn’t even come close to us.  But then eventually I found a little ball, and played pass with her for probably almost an hour.  It was so cool to see how happy she got when we started playing, and how simple it was for her to have fun.  It really made me realize how much we have in Canada, how even as little kids, everyone gets new toys so often, and here, these kids only have one ball, and that all that they have to play with… and they’re so happy about it.

January 28–Island Breeze

 

So all day today we were with a ministry from Perth called Island Breeze.  Basically who they are is  Polynesian dancers that travel around sharing God through dance.  In the morning we did a huge open-air even with them in one of the parks by our church.  They danced a bunch, people gave testimonies, and then a pastor from Nigeria presented the gospel.  Through that, about 15 people were saved!!! It was amazing to see, how much people were impacted by the dances. 

Then in the evening we went with Island Breeze again to one of the churches near us.  We put on a night of worship, and again, Island Breeze performed a bunch.  As well, my team did our dance that we have been doing in some of the churches that we go to.  The whole point of the evening was to encourage the church to go out into the world as missionaries.  They talked a bunch about how for years people have been coming to Mexico as missionaries, and how now it was time for the Mexican people to go out into the world.  At the end of the night, we had a time where anyone who felt like they were being called by God could come up to the front, and us and some of the Island Breeze dancers would come and pray for them.  We were able to pray for about 30-40 people during this time.  It was really awesome to see how what we’re doing here is not only affecting the people that we talk to, but how it is also bringing up more missionaries to take over our work when we leave.

January 27

Most of our day was spent advertising for the Island Breeze event tomorrow, but in the evening, we were able to go to a children’s hospital nearby and pray for people, and give out bread to the parents of the kids in the hospital.  We went there, and made a big, general announcement about how we were just there to pray and talk with people as they waited for their kids.  As soon as we made the announcement, people started coming up to us, and we had a pretty steady stream of people asking for prayer for over half an hour.  It was crazy, seeing how much people wanted God there with them and their kids.  We got to pray for people that had newborn babies in the hospital, that weren’t sure if they were going to even survive, and people that had kids that had just come out of surgery and weren’t healing properly and stuff.  It was so good to just share with the parents at the hospital that God is there for them, and is with them through everything.  The times that we go to hospitals are becoming my favourite times here, because it’s so easy to share God with them.  Everyone is willing to try anything so that the people they love will be able to go home, it makes it so easy to just show people that God is there for them.

January 20-26… Because I’m negligent and having been writing my blog often enough (plus just not a lot of stuff has happened)

So on Friday we’re having a huge open-air event with one of the ministries from YWAM Perth called Island Breeze (they’re a Polynesian dance ministry).  They’re travelling around to each region in Mexico City, doing open airs and church services, so all week we’ve pretty much just been handing out fliers and putting up posters everywhere advertising for it.

Also, one really cool story.  On Wednesday night, 3 of us went to the hospital by our church (the one that I’ve wrote about before).  We went into the emergency waiting room, where all the families of the patients were.  We went in to pray, and ended up meeting a couple of nuns pretty much as soon as we got there.  We talked to them about what we were doing there, and they were really excited about it, so they got up and made an announcement to the whole room about how we were there praying for people, and how if they wanted prayer, they should just put up their hand and we would pray for them.  Because of that we ended up praying for about 20 people.  It was so cool to get the chance to pray for that many people, it’s really just another one of those things where you just realize how open the Mexican people are to God.

Also that night, we met with a lady at the hospital that we had met with the previous 2 weeks.  When we met her the first week, she was with her mom, who was in the hospital.  At that time, she knew that her mom was passing away, and that she had no idea how much time she had left.  We prayed for her and her mom that week, and then when we came back a week later, prayed for both of them again.  Then today we saw her again at the hospital.  She said that her mom had just passed away that day.  It was really hard to see how sad she was.  We talked to her though, and she said that she was so  glad to know that God was with her through it.  She isn’t a Christian, but she said that every time that we would pray for her, she would feel God close to her.

January 19th… It’s A Party!!!

This afternoon we went out to a park, and ran an open air.  We did 2 dramas, and then one of the people on my team gave a testimony, and we shared the gospel.  It was awesome to see how many people will stop and listen to what we’re saying.  It’s really encouraging; knowing that even if we don’t se massive amounts of salvations every day, we we still are able to share God with so many people every day, and hopefully then when we leave the Mexican church will pick up where we left, and will be able to talk to these people, and more, even after we have gone.

One of the youth groups in town runs an afternoon thing right by one of the high schools in town after school once a week.  We get to go out with them every week, it’s a lot of fun.  We do stuff in a mostly empty parking lot, so we bring soccer balls, and footballs, and play sports with the kids.  Yesterday there was also face paint, guitars, and one of our guys from PNG sharpied Island tattoos on the kids.   It’s really fun to be able to hang out with the kids, and to build relationships with them.

Tuesday, January 18

So this afternoon we went out to the Salvation Army church in our region.  Our group split into 2 teams.  Half of the team went out and handed out fliers door to door inviting people to church services and to afterschool programs and stuff.  The 3 of us that didn’t go door to door stayed back, and ran English classes for the kids that live around there.  We had 6 kids there that we were teaching.  They’re all super enthusiastic, and are so willing to learn English, it was a ton of fun to teach them.  It was super hard though, because I don’t know any Spanish, I’m trying to teach them American English (it was actually a bit confusing, because I kept spelling words ‘wrong’), they all pretty much spoke no English, and they were all young enough that they were only starting to learn to read and write in Spanish.  But it was still a ton of fun.  We’re doing these classes 3 times a week, I’m really excited to get to keep working with the kids.

Saturday, January 15

The basilica in our region is celebrating its 50th anniversary of their new cathedral this week.  It’s awesome, because there are massive crowds of people everywhere.  So we were able to do a couple open airs outside the cathedral, we did 2 dramas.  And then we shared testimonies, and the gospel.  It was really good, people were really interested in what we had to say, and I think things really stuck with some of them.

Also, since it’s the anniversary, there’s a ton of Aztec worship that went on at the basilica.  They had dancers and drums, and pretty much the whole thing was really just worshipping death (the Mexican culture right now is totally full of death, they even have a day called Sante Morte… the Day of the Dea).  It really reminded all of us on the team of the story of when Jesus goes into the temple, and throws over all the tables, because it’s a holy place, and people aren’t respecting it as that.  The Catholic religion in Mexico is super weird, because the first Europeans that came over wanted to make it appealing to the Aztecs, so they changed the names of saints, and added in a bunch of Aztec beliefs so that the people would accept it, and all that stuff is still believed today. 

Later on, we died in the Metro… it was awesome.  Pretty much we just all at the same time dropped dead on the train, and then one of us would get up and give a testimony and present the gospel to the people on the train.  It’s great, because the people have no where to go, so they are kinda forced to hear the gospel.  It was really cool, I don’t know the exact number, but about 5 people gave their lives to God because of it.

In the evening we went and hung out with a bunch of the skaters that always hang out at the market by our church.  Eventually we ended up going over to a basketball court, and played basketball for a while.  It was a ton of fun, we haven’t really played a ton of basketball since we were here, and it was a lot of fun to be able to again.

Sunday, January 16

One of the churches in our region was celebrating it’s 8th anniversary today, so we were invited to the service to celebrate with them.  The church service ended up going for 6 hours… they had 3 worships sets, 1 concert, 4 offerings, 2 sermons.  It was the weirdest service I’ve ever experienced. 

But afterwards they fed us insane good Mexican food for lunch, or I guess more like dinner.  That made it mostly worth it…

In the evening we met with the pastor of the church that we’re living in, as well as a couple of the youth in the church.  It was awesome, we spent a ton of time praying for Mexico City.  They’re a city that really doesn’t have any faith that God will actually move.  They pray for God to take over the city, and to completely change it; but they don’t actually believe that God will move.  So we prayed about that for a couple of hours, it was awesome.

Day 8

So there’s a ministry that goes on at one of the hospitals in my region once a week, and while we’re here, we get to be a part of it!  We’re going to be going there every week and handing out coffee/tea and bread to the visitors that come there, as well as going into the hospital and praying for people there.

We split into 2 groups, one that went inside to pray, and the other that stayed out and talked with the visitors.  I went with the group that went inside and prayed with the patients.  Its amazing to go in there, because there’s no one that will turn you down.  Everyone in there is in so much need of something more.  We were able to pray with 11 people, some of them being family of patients.  At the end of the time, it was so hard to leave, because there were still so many people that wanted prayer.

The group outside gave out bread and coffee to people, and then did one of our skits for them.  After that, one of the girls on my team shared her testimony, and then presented the gospel.  After this, 61 people decided to give their lives to God!!! It was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever experienced.

Day 7

In our region, is a huge Basilica.  It’s the second most pilgrimaged place in the world.  Hundreds of people visit there every day, some days, it will look like the pictures of the huge intersections in Asia (the ones where there are just people everywhere).  It’s an amazing spot for us, because hundreds of people are coming to us, looking for God.  I went there this morning with a couple of other people on my team, and with our very limited Spanish, we were able to pray for a couple people there.  We were able to explain a bit about how God wants to have a relationship with them, one that doesn’t have to go through a priest or whatever.  It was really cool to be able to explain how much of a personal, two way thing Christianity is.

Day 6

So about once a month we have a day here where all the teams in the city at the time (about 15 right now) get together for a day, and do worship, share testimonies, and then do evangelism together.  We had this today, and it was awesome… it’s easy to forget that we aren’t the only team in the city, so it was really encouraging to be reminded that there are other teams all around us. We met a bunch of teams from all over: Newcastle, New York, Sydney, Los Angeles, and a couple other places, as well as seeing everyone from the Perth base again.

In the afternoon we went out on evangelism.  It really made me appreciate how open the people are to us in the region that I live in.  In the region that we were in today, nobody really wanted to stop and talk to you at all ever, so it was really hard to actually have good conversations with people, also, I didn’t have a translator with me, which was also difficult, but not too bad.

I don’t know the exact numbers, but between all of us that day, we saw about 15 people saved, and 4 people healed, and were able to share the gospel with about 40 people!  It was awesome.

Day 4

So we went to the church this morning kinda like Youth Church… it was awesome.  They’re so friendly, and almost all of the youth speak at least a bit of English, so it was really easy to talk to everyone.  Also, we performed a dance in church… yep, that’s right, I danced, in church, probably illegal, but it was awesome.  There may or may not have been a couple of the guys on our team with ‘dust’ in their eyes.  It was a ton of fun, I’m going to try to get it filmed next time, so I can put it up on here so you can see it, it’s pretty spectacular.

After church we went out on evangelism with a bunch of the youth.  I went out with one of the guys on my team, and a Mexican that translated for us, and we just went and talked with a bunch of people.

The first people we met were high, drunk, and who knows what else.  But we were still able to talk to them and share God with them, it was really cool.  They still understood what we were talking about, and really seemed to be receptive, even though they were completely out of it the rest of the time.  It reminded me a lot of doing stuff on skid row in downtown LA, where they just need someone there to just listen to them, it was amazing to be able to be that person.

For sure the best part of the day though, we found 3 people sitting on a bench, and went up to them and asked if they had anything that we could pray for them about.  The first 2 were a couple, and they said they had 3 children who were all really sick, 2 of them were in the hospital, and the other was just really sick, so we prayed for them.  Then after, we went to the 3rd woman, and she said she needed surgery for something (the translator didn’t know what was wrong in English), she had diabetes, and a bunch of joint pain that caused her to not really be able to walk.  So we prayed for her, and then I asked her to stand and tell me how her legs felt, she said they felt a bit better, so we prayed for her again.  After, she said that she had no pain in her legs at all!!! It was amazing, God’s so good.

Day 3

This afternoon we went to a huge sports complex in our area of Mexico City.  A few of us went and talked with 3 guys for about an hour.  We went and sat there, and talked to them mostly just about life.  It was awesome, they were so interested because we’re foreigners, and they just kept asking us question after question.
Later on in the afternoon, 4 of us found a soccer team practicing, and were able to play a pickup game with them… it was so much fun to use sports in our ministry, it was the first time we really got the chance to.  At the end of it, they invited us back to play on their team, and come out and practice with them every week… Dad, you would love the soccer here, you could just go and play with anyone whenever.

So in the evening we went into the square by our church, and were going to play football there with the kids that hang out there.  The girls on my team were just hanging out by them playing football and a girl came up to us... I"m pretty certain we're the first white people she's ever seen.  She acted like we were celebrities, it was so funny.  She took pictures with us, and just kept on giggling because she was so excited to see us, it was so funny.  But we ended up getting her to agree to come to church with us tomorrow, which is really exciting, even if it was just because she was so excited to see it, it works.

Day 2

So this evening we went to a church bible study… the church seems like pretty much a Spanish version of Youth Church – their focus is on the skater’s of the area of town that we’re in.  I love working with them so much because it is so similar to YC.  The pastor of the church is amazing, he’s been a pastor everywhere – in California, in Bellingham, and like 10 other places.

Outreach, Day 1

We started our outreach today, for real… the evangelism part of it at least.  We went out into the city, found crowded places, and did a couple open airs, doing testimonies, and preaching the gospel.

The first place we went to, a few of us had a chance to talk to a man there.  Shortly into our conversation with him, he decided to make the decision to follow God!!! It was amazing to see his response, and how open he was to God, the people here are so much more hungry for God than at home.  He told us that as soon as he prayed, he felt God come and give him a big hug.  As we continued talking with him, he told us a bit more about where he was coming from.  He had been in jail for the past 5 years, only getting out about 4 months ago.  But being out of jail was really hard for him, and it ended up that yesterday, he tried to commit suicide, but a friend found him and saved him.  At the time, he was angry at his friend, but because of us, he said that he now knew that God didn’t want him to die.  That God had a greater purpose for his life.  It was amazing to see.

We continued looking for crowds to be able to talk to, and ended up finding a huge crowd of families, waiting in a line to get free toys for their kids.  So we decided to do the banana song (if you don’t know what it is, find someone that’s been at pretty much any camp at some point in their life, they’ll know it).  The response was so cool.  We ended up getting asked to do it again at another spot in the line, because people liked it so much.  Because of that, we were able to share testimonies, and pray for people through the line.  I was able to pray for a girl that’s mom has cancer; the doctor’s aren’t sure if she is going to survive or not.  It was awesome to be able to hear this girl’s story, and to pray for her and her mom. 

Everyone that we talk to, no matter where we are is so curious about why we are here, and about who God is.  It’s amazing to see how just because we’re white, and don’t speak their language, we have that opening to be able to share God with everyone we talk to, because it is so clear to everyone that we don’t live here.