This morning was fun, and I am feeling so refreshed! After breakfast, a couple of the teams came back to camp to work on ‘Drimes’ – dramas set to music. We learned one for ‘Set Me Free’ by Casting Crowns. It’s so awesome! We will perform these dramas on streets and in services to draw crowds and share the gospel. I came away from the hour of practice filled with excitement to do this. I am excited for all the ministries we will do over the year, but this is something that is definitely up my alley. I haven’t done drama for a long time and performing with music is so great. My prayer is that I will always play my part well, and that onlookers will see the story of Jesus and not only me. Oh, so much fun!!
Sarah posted a blog yesterday that shared about how our different roles on the team look. She loves physical labor, I love drama, Amy loves street evangelism, etc… We all have different strengths, but God unites us together to make a strong team that shares His love.
Our hosts here in Mexico have been amazing. I am blessed so greatly but their generousity. Eleazar and his wife Marta opened their school building to us and shared in our adventures, giving us rides to town in his truck, taking part in ‘Feed Your Neigbor Cake’ night and doing whatever he could to make our stay there enjoyable.
Nestor, the pastor of the church at which we are staying now is wonderful as well. They have completely turned their church over to our squad for 17 days, keys and all, for us to live at. The facilities are certainly not American standard, but I’m totally cool with that. It’s such an adventures to learn to take a bucket shower with water that has been in a barrel for some time. And filling buckets with water to flush the toilet. I love it! We are camping in their yard, 25 tents killing much of the green grass. Though, with all the rain, it should recover quickly.
Anyway, Nestor and Selena have a generousity I pray I will one day bestow on others. We have hired Selena as our cook, but don’t have a very big budget, and she has done amazingly. But it means she is cooking literally all day long. We walk to their house for breakfast at 9am, lunch at 2pm, and dinner at 8pm. The meals have been great, and she’s always starting the next before we are done with the one. When Nestor was out of town on Wednesday, Selena took on the role of pastor at the church, all the while her meal is at home waiting for us.
On Wednesday night at church, Selena shared a story with the body, expressing her joy that we are here as her blessing. Amazing. For several years she has been praying that their church would be a part of a greater mission – into the world. She has wanted longer term missionaries to stay with them, to provide hospitality to some of God’s people in this way. God promised her once that the time would come for her to do this. As many of us do, she had set that promise in the back of her mind and just kept moving forward. During the service on Wednesday, the Lord reminded her of this promise.
The World Racers are the beginning of a Promise kept – how awesome that is! And she views us as a great blessing from God, when we see her and her husband and their church as phenominal blessing to us.
I am again amazed at God’s great design in all this. He has created his body to work together and be mutually edifying and blessings to one another. Seeing it play out like this makes my heart smile. I am challenged to think how I can take this understanding of hospitality home with me. I have always said I desire that my home be open to people, especially God’s workers, but I have a great perspective on that. Chad says this will only grow as we see this welcoming, serving spirit all over the world. I can’t wait!!
