Wednesday, April 18, 2007

BACK FROM MEXICO.


This last week, I went down to the YUGO ranch near Rosarito, Mexico and spent a week with the high school students of FBC. It was an awesome time of service, joy and community as we sang songs, gave capuches (piggyback rides), shared our testimonies, poured concrete, and played soccer. It was a blessing to encourage the students to be bold in their faith and to remember the life-changing significance of encountering Jesus - to embrace it wholeheartedly ourselves and to share that experience with others.

The teen in the picture above is Lalo - I met him last year playing sports, and after sharing my testimony with him and having a few short conversations in my broken spanish, I gave him a bible and signed in the front cover. A year later, on our first day of ministry, I didn't see him, but on wednesday he showed up. I wasn't sure if he even recognized me, but after awhile we got to talking again and I asked him about the bible I'd given to him. He said, "Si, Si!"

When I was a senior in high school, I went to Cuernevaca with Powerhouse and I played sports. At the end of the week, two of the kids who we'd been playing with, shoeless and in the wearing the same clothes that they had worn all week, asked me if they could pray to receive Christ. Their pictures hang on my wall now, reminders of the way in which GOD has mercifully used me, in spite of brokenness and imperfection, to sow his seeds in the hearts of others. Thanks, Jesus. See you soon.
What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor. For we are God's fellow workers; you are God's field, God's building. (1 Corinthians 3:5-9)

Saturday, April 07, 2007

CENTURY BIKE RIDE.

As I've already posted about, I am riding in a century (100-mile) bike ride on June 2nd. Being someone who's never been athletic in my life, sometimes I question my sanity. But I've posted about my enjoyment of cycling here several times, and I'm excited to express that joy in a meaningful way.

I'm riding in this race with Team in Training, a branch of The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society that trains willing people to complete endurance events and raise money for blood cancer research. The training has been very trying at times, but my family and friends have been a huge blessing - supporting me, praying for me, and making me feel loved. I'm riding in celebration of my sister Jordan, who is mentally and physically handicapped. I'm so richly blessed, it's dumb.

I'm also heading off to spend a week in Mexico with the youth group of FBC - I'm looking forward to a week of fruitful service, worship, and communion with people I love. And celebrating Easter in Spanish is going to be sick. See you soon.

Visit my fundraising page here
See my home for the next week here