Adventures WorldRace SethBarnes Sponsorship Giving

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 12/19/10

Last week, after we said our morning prayers, Pastor Jose came and told us that his friend’s wife had passed away the night before. His friend is another pastor but he requested prayers for himself and his family. After we prayed for them, several of us felt convicted to go to his house and pray for the family there, so off we went. I felt a calling and conviction from the Lord while we were at their house, but at the time I wasn’t really sure what it meant. Several days later we were invited to the funeral and they requested that one of us give our testimony.

I felt like God was saying “I want you, I want you” when we were praying with the family and I felt like He directed me to Galatians 1:1-5 where it specifically mentions that Jesus was raised from the dead, but it also mentions that God´s will be done and also for His glory. I also felt a calling to hold her hand. I’m not sure who the female was in the calling. When we prayed initially I didn’t feel called to go to their house of even raise the dead. This has led to several discussions among our teams, and one woman on our squad even shared that if she happens to die she doesn’t want us to try to raise her because it will be her time and she will be in Heaven. So maybe the call to hold “her” hand is in the future since they had an open casket…kind of, there was a window so you could see her but you couldn’t touch her.
Prior to this trip, I have only shared my testimony a couple of times, but it is getting easier to do since we are called to do it more regularly. However, I have never given my testimony at a funeral before, much less at a foreign funeral for a woman I never met. I think I have mentioned in my blog that when I was 21, four people in my life passed away, and to a certain degree I feel because of that I have “dealt with death.” I think I’m starting to learn that one may never totally “deal with death.” However, I had plenty of things I was going to share about my struggling of grappling with so many deaths but once I stood up in front of that church I couldn’t share what I had planned. I was going to talk about how I turned to the things of the world to help me in the grieving process, and I did briefly share that, but it didn’t need to be the focus because no one was really crying at this service. They were celebrating her life and singing and dancing. I shared my experience in El Salvador (see blog entitled “Toes in El Salvador”) and that Jesus has conquered death and through Him we are victors as well.
 
As I mentioned, there happen to be three teams staying in this one house since some of the other contacts and plans fell through for the other teams. But part of our plan, just for my team, was to team up with another pastor in Sixaola, Costa Rica which is just right across the border from where we are staying in Guabito – literally just across the border, we took a five minute cab ride to the border, walked across the sketchy bridge into Costa Rica and continued walking right to the church. It was nice because it was just our team and we just had to pack up enough things for four days. It was almost as if it was a missions trip within a missions trip.

There seemed to be a lot of oppression on in that area. Right when we entered the church, even though it was the middle of the day and we had plenty of sleep the night before we all seemed to get overwhelmingly tired and agitated at once without reason. We started praying to ward this off, but even as I was praying I was thinking of ways to tell my team that I was just going to sleep after this and sit out on ministry. However, Brooks could sense this and called me to speak out what I was feeling and pray against it. It was strange but this weight lifted off of me and my attitude was able to change. We had to do this several times throughout our brief trip because there was so much heaviness in the area.

We were able to help do grout work on the newly tiled floor of the church. It was nice to have a task like this because we haven’t had a tangible task for a while where we could visibily see the impact we were having (which I think is needed every once in a while). We spent a lot of the rest of our time there evangelizing in the community and handing out tracts. I have never done this before but was surprised at how naturally it seemed to come to me. I have really been improving in my Spanish since I’ve been on this trip, but that might have been why evangelizing was easier for me: I can speak enough Spanish that others can understand the gist of what I’m saying and I can have conversations, but not enough to have to go too deep into it. But there definitely is an element of getting over how dumb you think you look – and that goes for trying to speak Spanish and trying to evangelize.

We had no interpreters for our services and we had a service every night we were there except for one. The first night, we were asked to focus our service primarily on prayer. It was difficult to introduce all the topics that we were going to pray on, since most introductory Spanish classes don’t teach phrases like “church growth, “combating spiritual attacks,” and “holding each other accountable.” Brooks and I speak enough Spanish to get by but it can still be tricky. We stood up together and called people to pray for their neighbor and reinforced the importance of lifting each other up in prayer. However, we couldn’t really explain that so we led by example and I was standing on stage trying my hardest to control my laugher. Brooks was praying that God would use our ridiculousness to show others that we are for Christ and make an impact in their lives, but there are just some times on this World Race when you feel so out of place and like you stand out like a sore thumb and that’s over and above how much you stand out for simply being a Gringo (that’s what white people are called here, the children will yell “Gringos!” when we walk down the street).

I was really able to bond with some of the children in the neighborhood. It’s international that children love to be spun. I’m not sure what’s so great about it, but it works like a charm. I was out spinning some children and simultaneously winning their hearts one evening and was able to draw many of them into church that night for service. These little ones were so cute and were constantly trying to be the ones who could sit right next to me. It’s such a blessing to be able to go on this trip across the world and see so many of God’s little ones. The last evening we were there we had a children’s service which was filled with goofy songs and dancing. After the service, I was talking with several of the teenage girls and their mothers and we were joking around about different things and they invited me over to their house the next day just to chat. I ended up going to the house that I thought was their’s and they weren’t home. It was a blessing just to be invited.

We spoke life over each other one night when we were staying in that church and this is what I got: Brooks mentioned that I have a great brain and that God will use that and that it is clear that the Lord is speaking through me. Ashley mentioned that we have a good sister relationship where she looks up to me as an older sister. She also had a vision of me getting up on stilts to try to see Jesus and I am on the stilts and look down and see a child crying and lift them up on my shoulders so they can see Jesus too. Dawn had a vision of me in this dark place but I was this bright light shining, and thought that God had put me back in the darkness from which I came so that I could be the light there. Emily got the words “perseverance and endurance” since this will be a long journey ahead but it will be so worth it and to just allow myself to be overcome by the love of Christ.
P.S. When I mention that we “speak life” it usually involves being aware that our brother and sister´s identities are rooted in Christ and speaking life affirming things into them to build them up as the body of Christ. As a team we usually lay hands on each other and pray to God and talk to the person sitting in the “hot seat” and pray that the Holy Spirit would be speaking words of truth and life into this person through us. If you are part of a Christian community, I would highly recommend putting this into practice. It is a great way to love your brothers and sisters in Christ and form closer bonds.