Hello everyone my name is James Geither. I am 17 years old currently and I live in Ohio,USA. This purpose of this blog is to document everything leading up to my eventual “journey” into foreign lands where I will spend 9 months in 3 different countries(Thailand,India,Guatemala) both aiding and preaching to the people that live there in order to enrich both their lives and my life.
I cannot say how grateful I am to God for putting this opportunity into my life. I hope that I will be able to spread the Good News to the far ends of the earth. My previous missions trips have shown me that there is truly power in the Word of God. Both my expeditions to West Virginia and the Dominican Republic have impacted my life and the lives of those who accompanied me greatly and I want to continue the path that God has set before me by going on this trip not only to benefit myself, but those around me.
My school every year has an option for juniors and seniors alike to have the opportunity to go and spend a week preaching the gospel and aiding a local village in the Dominican Republic. A lot of the guys that went on this trip joked about how they were just going purely for the adventure of it and didn’t expect anything to come out of it spiritually and I shared that same mentality with them. I heard stories of people who went on that trip being transformed spiritually and being made ‘anew’ with Christ, but frankly I didn’t see that happening, especially with my group. I thought that by the end of the week I would be the same person as I was before, boy was I wrong.
I remember one night specifically where we had chapel. It started off as a regular chapel where we would sing for a bit and have a brief service about what it meant to be a christian. After that service though we started singing a few more songs, and then more songs, and then even more songs and I remember that after every song that we sang we would get down on our knees and say whatever Christ spoke into our hearts, this would range from a simple prayer to any burdens that might be on our hearts. After the first few songs nearly no one spoke out, no one wanted to share the contents of their hearts especially in front of their classmates, but as we sang more and more songs more people eventually became comfortable pouring out their hearts to God and I got to tell you it was a powerful thing to witness.
You would have people that were either extremely quiet or people who were to ‘cool’ to share their feelings(I was apart of both of these parties) pouring everything that they had into what they said, tears streaming down their faces just basking in the glory of God. People would reveal some dark aspects in their lives in front of everybody with no regret, we all realized that night that we are truly blessed and that we are surrounded by people who both love and care for us. I remember the last song that we played that night was Let it Rain by Paul Morton and the exact moment that we finished that song it started raining almost as if on queue. After everything was said and done we ended the night crying and hugging each other, it was a powerful moment that I will never forget.
This is what I want to spread to others, this indescribable joy and peace that Christ brings into your life. I want people to shout to the hilltops about the happiness that Jesus brings to them and I want the gospel to be spread to every corner of the earth. I hope that this trip will make this dream a reality and that I, through God can make a huge impact on the lives of those I touch.
Thank you for reading and I hope I didn’t repeat myself too much.
