“Jesus is my Master” – embracing, body and soul, God’s work of doing in us what he did in raising Jesus from the dead. That’s it. You’re not “DOING” anything; your simply calling out to God trusting him to do it for you.”
Romans 10:4-10
It’s so unreal that I sit here writing my blog in Bolivia. I’m actually on the World Race. I am actually in a totally different culture getting the opportunity to love people with the love of Jesus.
It wasn’t an easy road. From having to say good bye to my family, my church home, the comforts of home and mostly my dog Conrad, But here I find myself in another process of saying “YES” to Jesus.
We met with our team at launch in Atlanta. From Atlanta we left as a squad to Bolivia. We flew over night and arrived in Bolivia at 5:15 A.M. We met our ministry host and left to our destination. Before we had arrived in Bolivia it was made clear to us that altitude sickness could be a reality for our team.
Altitude sickness hit our team like a bag of bricks. Headaches, to stomach issues, nausea and throwing up our bodies were trying to adjust to the high altitude. After talking to our ministry host we took the day to rest and get our bodies acclimated. Team SOZO had many effects of altitude sickness but one of our members was hit harder then the rest of us. On our first night around 11 P.M. my teammate woke me up asking me to get our team leader because she was so sick. We prayed for her and upon “AMEN” headed to get her something when I threw up in the hallway. I hadn’t had major signs of altitude sickness, so we woke our team up and began to pray as a team. We knew that altitude sickness would affect us because of our location but this seemed to be more of a spiritual attack on our team. We prayed tenaciously hoping our teammate would physically be healed. It wasn’t a wimpy type of prayer; we took our needs to Jesus. Then when we were done we praised God in advance for what He was doing in our lives and what He was doing in Bolivia.
In the morning our teammate seemed to be doing worse, so we had to make the call to take her to the clinic. After about 12 hours she arrived back to our ministry home. She had had IV’s and needed rest. Our first 24 hours in Bolivia as a team on the field and we had been stretched beyond our comfort zone.
Our team member had recovered, we had become stronger as a team and we trusted what Jesus was doing in our lives deeper then before. Although we couldn’t see God in the situation we knew He was at work and that became apparent because of our Teammate being healed.
We were then able to go and do ministry. We had all been itching to get to do ministry. We are working in Bolivia with “MISSION ADULAM.” Mission Adulam aims at rehabilitating people who have addictions. Team SOZO partners daily in sending our guys to work with about eight boys who range from 13-18 years old. The ladies on team SOZO work with about 10 girls from the ages of 15-27.
We have been doing projects for the girls home every morning, which so far has been serving the home by going through clothes that have been donated. The ladies of team SOZO have been rocking as a team sorting hundreds of clothes and having a great attitude while doing it. Then in the afternoons we get to do activities with the girls. Our focus here is to build relationships with them. It has been difficult because of the language barrier but God is opening up their hearts. While we are playing “FUTBALL”, card games or just being with them with their afternoon activities we believe that God is going to open their hearts and their relationships with Jesus will go to the next level. We can’t wait to hear their stories and love on them more.
We know God is moving, even when we can’t see Him tangibly move, we know He is at work here in El Alto, Bolivia. We know that He must go before us and it is Him working in our lives to move in the lives of the girls and boys at Mission Adulam.
Would you partner in prayer this month for what God wants to do in Bolivia. As our squad is spread all over this nation, would you ask God to move in the lives of the people that we have the opportunity to love.
Would you pray for my team- TEAM SOZO, that as we are here at Mission Adulam that God would move in the relationships we are building and that we would partner with what He is already doing in these precious lives!
Sending Love from the amazing country of Bolivia!
<3
Ash
#TEAMASH
#YEAROFTHENINJA
P.S.
I don’t know what you are going through this week, but I encourage you, God is always in the midst of the good, the bad and the ugly of your life. Things may not end up the way you think they should, but that’s a part of trusting God. Just like our team had to trust him this week with one of our teammates very life, GOD WAS FAITHFUL. So take some time, listen and praise God in advance for the things He is doing that may be unseen to your eyes.
