Please forgive me for posting a bit more than once a week. After confessing my fears in the recent blog post ::CONFESSIONS::, I finally had the courage to share my experiences. So here is another one!
We had the honor to serve different ministries listed below this post, but right now, I want to talk about how we had the opportunity to meet and serve the men of Freedom House. It is a place where ex-felons and those who suffer from substance abuse find healing and hope. Freedom House facilitates re-entry into society. We invited the group of men over to serve and cook them dinner last week and then cooked them breakfast the following week. We also got to them some of them more deeply by helping some of them construct Miss Monas’ driveway. However, during this time over food, we had the privilege of hearing their stories. Our goal was to serve them, but their vulnerability and their kindness instead was a great exchange of them serving us. A connection formed over those tables this morning. Let me share a story.
My two teammates, Brittany, Mallory, and I struck up a conversation at the dinner table with a man named Elroy from Freedom House. Elroy is 19 years old, but you would probably guess his age is a lot older with the wisdom he carries and the life he has lived. He shared his story with us, and then asked us to record a message. It was a long message that was hard to upload to this blog, so Mallory wrote it word for word. These are his words that stuck out to me as an encouragement that he wanted us to share to the world:
“When you go through something so difficult, so heartbreaking, so soul-wrenching to the point where you want to kill yourself, and you feel no hope – nothing, then you become desperate. It doesn’t matter how many drugs you take in you, nothing can take away the emptiness you’re trying to fill. But once I learned the love and grace of Jesus who loves us, has a purpose for us, can redeem us, and we become willing to follow Him, there’s a new light, a new way I didn’t know before – and we can become transformed. There’s a new way, not my way, but God’s way. There is healing. There is freedom. Many times in my life, I’ve been sexually abused, spit upon, been abandoned in my life, been tried to be killed three different times by my parents, witnessed my own sister molested, guys the things that I’ve been through. Yet this is where God has brought me from. I was bending, bending, bending, and this is what He does to me: He straightens me back up. He straightens me back up. He wants me to continue to grow. It’s because Christ has suffered for us, and don’t think that this Christianity walk will be easy. Trust me. Christ has suffered for us, and we are gonna suffer just like Him. People are gonna curse us for the Word, people are gonna stone us, beat us down for preaching the gospel. And guys, it is up to you to be strong. As Jasmine and Brittany were sharing their testimonies, guys, these people came from who knows, even worse places than I’ve been, but God has brought them up to something. The challenges you’re facing in your life today, it’s a stumbling block. Don’t just keep on hitting, and hitting and struggling to get up. Find a way to get over or get around it. Ask the Lord for wisdom. Ask Him, ‘Lord I need You to move in me. Lord, I’m the clay and you’re the potter, mold me to who you want me, shape me out God, I’m tired of being a stumbling block, I’m tired of hitting the wall. Show me the way, show me a way that I could get over this, or around.’ And guys, He will help you. He’s gonna show you. He says ‘Alright, see that little stone right there? Move that one. See that one there? Move it. And see that stone? Move it.’ And when you move that stone, this wall will come crumbling down. If you just keep on stepping up…”
We learned that we all had something in common: a past. A past of failures, mistakes, shame, struggle, weaknesses, pain, and more. Some of us had consequences so severe as to going to prison or was enslaved by a substance abuse, but we learned that no matter what happened in the past, that is not who we are now. We are not defined by our past but by who we are in God – Jesus Christ. All of us in that room not just believes in God, but we follow Him. We shouldn’t dwell in the past, but instead take our freedom in Jesus and ask, what are we doing for Him? What we all have in common now is that we all want to live our life with purpose. Some of the men want to be a youth pastor or serve in some capacity in the church, and another wants to be an immigration officer. Throughout the weeks, we got to build a friendship with them, since some worked on constructing our host Miss Mona’s driveway. It was such an honor to get to know them.
Elroy and I.
They were thanking us for cooking them meals, for welcoming them, for listening to them, and for sharing our stories with them, but at the end of the last meal, I felt it was important they knew how much they impacted us. So I went in front of everyone and said, “as much as it was our goal to serve you all these past few weeks, I want you to know that you all served us by being so kind, sharing your stories, and for teaching us new insights on life. We want to thank you for your time, for giving us a chance, for celebrating life with us and for new friendships.” I said more, but that was the main points that I needed to share. It was such an awesome experience. If I had met them anywhere else, I would have never thought they had gone through prison or fought through a substance abuse. All the men were so kind and so welcoming. I am very grateful for the time I spend with them and the new friendships we built with them.
Winston, me and Dwight.
Elroy standing up after breakfast to sing a song of praise.
Elroy, Mallory, Brittany and I praying
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Definition of Ministry: To minister is to serve others for God. A ministry is service for others that has a specific mission and vision. Ministry can, and should, include ministering to the physical, emotional, mental, vocational, and financial needs of others. Jesus did, and so should we!
One of the churches we got to partner with is called the Belmopan Church of Nazarene.
Pastor Lewis leads this church, and he is an amazing man with a huge heart to serve his country and legit be the hands and feet of God. He has many different ministries in his church – including Freedom House -that we got to serve with. Let me share!
Some of the ministries of the Belmopan Church of Nazarene are included below. The ones we actually got to serve with are the ones with the star (***):
-A medical center that goes out to various villages that lack the resources for medical care
-***Kids of Honor – a program for children that teaches them about the love of God, and provides them the life skills needed to be a man or woman of God, of honor – and if there is no man or woman, then they will be that man or woman.
-***Freedom House – is a place where ex-felons and those who suffer from substance abuse find healing and hope. Freedom House facilitates re-entry into society. It’s a place to get a second chance and a new opportunity to be hedged in life.
-***Hedges is the new building they are refurbishing to house reformed prisoners. These past few weeks we have been helping them by cleaning, painting, cleaning, washing floors, windows and bathrooms. It’s been a lot of hard labor, but it’s been so worth it.
If anyone has any questions, please reach out and share. Otherwise, I would like to thank everyone who brought me here to reach out to these men and let them know that they are loved, and they have still have purpose on this earth and in their community.
-Jasmine Jaurigue
