Hello 🙂 I would like to share with you guys what God did on Sunday, December 11th if thats okay. Im still processing it myself so just bare with me!!
Starting off the day, my mini squad was able to celebrate our beautiful leader’s 27th birthday! Hannah, Lauren, Alyssa, and I decided to meet o ur three squad leaders at the mall here in Quito to go bowling and grab some pizza. We thought that was it.. pizza and some lovely bowling. But God, looked down and saw 7 of His willing children and then saw hundreds of his lost children… 8 hours later freedom flippen happened.
Lets begin with bowling. Standing in line to get our lane, I ran into this man on accident. He was with his family and when we made eye contact, I knew God was wanting me to share the Good news with him. I then begin to brush it off and start bowling… but then a few minutes later, he ends up at the lane right next to us. I immediately looked up and laughed at God. So now I’m just thinking about how to start the conversation… he then proceeded to bowl a strike.. so naturally, I clapped and cheered for him. Looking back, it was a pretty weird thing for me to do lol. After 10 minutes, I was praying for this man and His family who is still in Venezuela suffering from severe oppression by their government.
After bowling, we found ourselves sitting at pizza hut with a little boy named Luis. He asked if we had any food to spare. We pulled up a chair for him while we waited for our pizza to come out. Luis shared with us that one day he want to play in the world cup with the Ecuadorian soccer team. He also told us that Jesus was his friend. Then the pizza came and we parted ways with Luis.
Leaving the pizza place we ran into Marcelo. Marcelo is a man who lives in one of the parks in Quito. He was injured playing soccer and has to use crutches.. because of that no one will hire Marcelo and he has no family. We asked him what he knows about Jesus… he then proceeds to tell us that God protects him through the night. That when he is laying on the park ground looking up into the night sky, he sees Jesus smiling on Him. One of his only possessions is his bible… Immediately I got a vision of Jesus making his bed and preparing a beautiful room for Marcelo in heaven. Marcelo is able to endure his sufferings on this earth because he has hope and peace from knowing his Creator.
Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him. -James 1:12
Blessed is Marcelo.
After praying with Marcelo, God showed us another women on the street with her daughter. She sells caramels on a street corner to make a living. Of course, we all bought some.. and let me tell ya those are the best caramels i’ve ever experienced. So, if you ever find yourself in Quito, Ecuador… find this women. Anyways, she told us that she has always had pain in her hands. We all had faith in our God who is a God of healing. We prayed once and she told us that her hands still hurt.. we prayed twice and she told us they were better… we then prayed once more and she smiled and rejoiced because her pain was gone.
It keeps on going guys… I’m not sorry about how long this blog is about to be. So now we just start roaming looking for a rooftop to go on to see the whole city. After multiple security guards rejecting our puppy dog faces and stories that we made up to try and get on the roof.. finally my pal Hannah decided that a worker of this one business office we were at is going to walk up. We were going to be able to share the gospel with him. Then he would take us up to see the roof.
While we are waiting, ya got Alyssa and Kaiden over here speaking to a few Muslim men. They owned a shawarma restaurant right next to the business office. They talked about religion and how our God love is unconditional.. not based on works. It was hard because the men asked Kaiden, “how does the world view us because of our religion”. He told them the truth, but these men are so clearly men of peace and love. They invited us to come back to sit down, eat, and discuss more about who our Jesus is.
Then, all of a sudden, a teenage boy walks out of the business office. Hannah walks up to him and introduces herself. 5 minutes later, Hannah tells us that his dad owns the building and is taking us to the roof tomorrow at 5pm. GOD IS SO GOOD LIKE WHAT!!
So, we celebrated as anyone would.. and found an abandoned carnival and rode the caracul lol. We saw these christmas lights that looked so very fascinating so we found our next destination. The lights were beautiful but what really caught our attention were these huge murals along the side walks. They were big cubes that had a picture on each side of them. The pictures were bringing awareness to all the crap that goes on around the world. There was on in particular that really stood out to me.
It was a 15 year old girl from Kenya. She escaped from her home because she was being raped every single day and soon she was going to be forced into marriage with a 60 year old man. After she escaped from her home, she got word that her mom committed suicide. The picture captured the hopelessness in her eyes. It stirred up this anger inside of me. I started ranting to God… why? Why was she just born into that suffering and that way of life when I get to be born into mine? It all felt so unfair to me. God has never spoken to me more clearly in this next moment…
“Chloe, I have given you the life you have to get to know me so intimately and to have the opportunities to go out to the nations and share the gift that I have given you. This girl in the picture is my daughter and your purpose is to bring hope to the hopelessness and open blind eyes. But Chloe right now, you are doing life your own way.. when I am right here waiting to finally truly start this journey of freedom for my people.. with you.”
In this moment, I could feel His passion and His love for the world ignite in my bones. I was crying with excitement and just proclaimed to God that I was done. I’m done living a life where I’m the center. I’m done allowing my laziness or fleshly desires get in the way of impacting eternity forever. I’m done believing the lies of the enemy that I am not enough or that I am purposeless. I simply told Him…
“I’m ready to say yes, lets do this thing”
Then, listen to what God does… not even 5 minutes later we meet these two beautiful you ladies. They looked all torn up and had these crazy wigs on. They asked a couple of us to buy them some food. We had walked over to the food trucks and immediately the two little girls had this deep fear in their eyes as they saw one of the men who worked at the food truck. He would watch over them and keep a very close eye on them as they played with us. Immediately my squad leader, Kacie, knew what was going on.
God kept saying to me.. “He is my son too” I knew I was suppose to share my story with him. Kaiden was talking to all the workers and once they got off, we all sat around a picnic table. The same guy who is doing the bad things to the girls, looks me in the eye and asks me to share my story. Kaiden and I both shared how Jesus has redeemed our lives. The men all asked for prayer.. for their families in Venezuela, their drug addictions, and suicidal thoughts. These men were so broken but we were able to witness the chains being ripped off and freedom taking their place.
Leaving the girls was one of the hardest moments in my life. We weren’t sure where their home was or if they even have one. But I also had such a peace because I have never been so sure of Gods provision.
The craziest part is… God was guiding us the whole way.
By day the LORD went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day or night. -Exodus 13:21
Looking back on the night, the Lord was guiding our every step. He put opportunities in front of us and we kept saying yes. If we had never seen the lights we would have never been able to see those pictures, meet the girls, and experience freedom for those men.
This day was suppose to be just another one in Ecuador but it just shows that God can do so much more with your life then you can. I had planned to go bowling and eat pizza… but He had planned to take me on adventure of a lifetime. So yeah… I wanted to invite you into this day and what God is doing in my life. Hopefully your eyes are opened to how powerful our God is and that He is trying to tell you something as well. Are you the center of your world? Are you content with living the same day to day life? Ask yourself these rhetorical questions and know that we only have one shot at this thing called life. Know that theres is a whole other world waiting on the other side of you just saying “yes” to God.
