Hello my sweet blog readers!! I’m so sorry I haven’t written a blog in a few weeks!! It’s been a crazy time here on the world race, but i love it! So, a quick recap, over the last three weeks, we moved to Dunamis ( a ministry in Ecuador) , then Baños ( for midpoint debrief & street evangelism!!) then finally to Lima, Peru! Lima is the last stop on my travel list while on the race. It’s a very bittersweet time being here , and I’ve only been here for a little over a week! I’m going to write more about that later, but for now, I’m going to go through a high speed recap BUCKLE YOUR SEAT BELT DR. JONES!!
While we were in Dunamis, refer to my previous post for an explanation, a series of riots broke out in Quito between the citizens and the government. Things got nasty, BUT we were ALWAYS safe. The Lord is so intentional. He placed us in the mountains where we would be safe and have what we needed to live during the riots. Our 6 day excursion turned into a 13 day excursion. While the riots were going on, we decided to dedicate 24 hours of prayer over Quito, it’s people, and the land itself. My hour was 11pm; it FLEW by! After 45 minutes, I was like “WAIT I NEED MORE TIME” Luckily, around 10pm the citizens and the government made a peace treaty, and the next day, everything was supposed to go back to normal. So, I got to see God answer our prayers then go to pray! How fantastic is that?! I still prayed though. I prayed for healing, for the city, for hearts of those affected, and for physical healing. It was just so crazy to watch God answer our prayers, our friends and family’s prayers, and everyone involved’s prayers.
???FAST FOWARD ???
Two days later, we moved to Baños! In Baños our main focus was street evangelism. I hadn’t done street evangelism since I was like 13ish, so this was really new to me. The day before we were supposed to start doing evangelism, the Lord presented me and some of my teammates with the opportunity to pray for a local woman and her coffee shop. This woman had expressed to us how she didn’t believe in religion, and how she believed there is a God- but she doesn’t know which one to believe. So naturally when God told me to pray for her, I was like “okay God, You’re playing with me right? This woman doesn’t even want me to pray for her”. God was not tripping. He was very serious. So, after we paid and we’re saying goodbye, I asked her on a whim if I could pray that God would just bless her business. Somehow, this woman actually agreed and let me pray for her! It was the most incredibly nervous but rewarding experience so far. Over the next few days, God just blessed us with similar stories!!
???FAST FORWARD ???
A 7 hour bus ride to Guacyil then a 27 hour bus ride later, and we were finally in Lima!!
We rested for one day then jumped into ministry head first! Our first week, we still did street evangelism, but in a way we’d never seen before. The pastor of the church we partnered with had us do skits ( about Jesus though ) and pass out cards for her church in the intersection while the lights were red. ( no one was harmed in the making of these new believers ) I’ll be real, this was incredibly disappointing for me. I was so on fire and ready to tell people about how personal Jesus is, and how much He intentionally cares them. But … instead … I was just supposed to hold this sign..? That didn’t make sense. All week I struggled. I couldn’t talk to the locals, seeing as I don’t speak Spanish. I just couldn’t understand why my surroundings had changed so hard and so fast. But Sunday, after doing this all week, a man sat down in front of me at church with the card. It was his first time in church. See, even though I didn’t understand, it wasn’t my job to understand. God wasn’t surprised by this. God wasn’t caught off guard. I needed to trust Him. I needed to believe in His plan. God knew all along what was going on, and what He was doing with me. He just needed my obedience. This week, we are being answered prayers for a church who prayed God would send them strong bodies, strong spirits, and strong will to work. God literally heard them pray “ Lord, please send us help”. So then God said “alright, who will I send?” So all 21 of us said “Here am i!! Send me!!!” We had no idea over the past year what call we were answering, but now we see it. We see what their faith did.
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I hope you enjoy my recap! Stay tuned for another post soon! 🙂
