Everybody I know loves to hear testimonies. It really does something to your own heart and spirit when you hear how someone else accepted Christ.
When you hear their story of how they turned to Christ and how they let their old selves die away, encourages you. When you see the spark in their soul, it can ignite yours again.
Currently, my favorite stories are those from the mission field. When blind eyes are opened, the broken are healed, and dead bones come alive.
So I thought I would share a story from the mission field with ya’ll.
I went on my first mission trip to Mexico with Stonepoint this last January. (Will be going back in less than two months!) As we drove out of Mexico city, I was blown away my the scenery. I had honestly thought Mexico City would look like a version of maybe Dallas and I was so far from being correct. They don’t have clean drinking water, the children did not have clean or hole free clothing (mind you we went in the winter) and the elderly were still hard at work. Working harder than any work day I had ever put in. (The day we arrived the price of gasoline had risen to $2 a gallon with the average day of pay being only $2. The people were angered, tired and desperate.)
We went to a village to set up the medical clinic we would be working in for the day and in no time, people were lining up to be seen. There is a woman that stands out in my memory, she had come miles in to the village for the clinic because she had heard there were Christians and she needed help that a vitamin wouldn’t provide. Her daughter had married a man whose family was involved in witch craft and she felt like she was loosing her daughter. So she asked the men in our group to pray for her daughter and for protection and they surrounded her and called out to God.
One of our days we went to an orphanage on the side of the most beautiful mountain I had ever seen. We were standing around and singing songs, telling bible stories, making crafts with the kids and just loving the little kids. Then, my sweet pastors came to me and asked me to talk to the kids. Give a small message about salvation…(what??!! Oh man, I will never forget that moment.) I excused myself from the group, went up the hill, prayed, worshiped, and if I am honest probably cried a bit. Then I walked down the hill and went to the middle of these kids…then I watched as each person that spoke after me speak the same words God had just given me. That we are a family, that we have a heavenly Father that wouldn’t let us down, that we have brothers and sisters who pray and intercede for us.
That was the first time I felt the Holy Spirit. That was the moment I got a little Mexico dirt on my heart.
My blind eyes were open to the world around me, my broken heart was healed by the trust the woman had in our God to save her daughter, and my dead bones came alive when I felt the Holy Spirit.
My favorite way to see God is in the eyes of others that have nothing but Him.
