Ok so I was wrong. To be honest I was not all that excited to be coming to Central America for 1/3 of a year when I had already been away from home for 7 months. I felt like the race was done after Thailand. I didn’t think that Central America was really going to be all that great. But I was wrong.
I tried to give a lot of excuses to justify this thinking. I said that Thailand was the last country on the route that I really really wanted to do ministry in. I said that I had stuff set up for when I went back home and I was excited to get those things started so I didn’t need to continue. I said that I had learned enough in 7months. I said that 7 was my favorite number and so we should just stop on my favorite number. I didn’t think that the Lord would really show up all that much and didn’t have that much for me in Central America. I said and thought a lot of really stupid things and I thought I was content to miss out on what the Lord had for me here. But I was wrong.
Central America is awesome. El Salvador is awesome as well and has quickly become one of, if not my absolute favorite, my favorite countries we have had the privilege to do ministry in on the Race. I was wrong before in my attitude towards the last 4 months of my World Race. If I would have followed that wrong thinking I never would have made the friendships I have made here, I never would have got to see how beautiful El Salvador is, and, most of all, I never would have got to see the Lord at work here.
So, as I have said, I was completely wrong before. I was most wrong in thinking that the Lord wouldn’t have anything for me to do here and that He wouldn’t show up as He had in the past. That was so dumb! The Lord had such a purpose for me being here if it was only to meet the people I did, see the things I saw, or continue to learn to trust Him and that His presence is never far away. There are so many stories I could share about what the Lord has done in El Salvador over the last month, but I will just share one that happened a couple days ago.
One of the main things we do for ministry with our hosts is prison ministry and that has been one of the highlights of my time here. One of the prisons that we go to was for teenage girls who are mainly in prison for gang affiliated crimes. That has been one of my favorite places to visit. The girls there are very friendly but it is also hard because they can be very crude, and have built a lot of walls around themselves and can be closed off.
We go to the girls prison every Thursday and this last Thursday after we shared a testimony with the girls we were just hanging out with them in the exercise yard. For the last couple of weeks I have decided to not play soccer and instead just talk to the girls that hang out around where people play soccer. This week I started talking to them and they started asking me some very inappropriate sexually explicit questions. I pretended like I didn’t understand what they were asking me because I didn’t really know what to say at the time. However, when we broke for lunch I was talking with my host about it and he was saying that he knew that I knew what they were asking me. We kept talking about it and realized that the problem was that these girls definition of love and view of themselves was wrong. Their definition of love was having sex. They thought that people didn’t love them or that they weren’t desirable to others unless they wanted to have sex with them. That was the way that they would feel worthy of love and beautiful.
This really upset me, and as we were talking about it with our hosts I asked if we could go back to that group in the afternoon and talk with them and he said yes and that he would go with me. So, a side note, my mom is a really awesome lady. And she has taught me so many things all my life and one of those things is self-worth so I got to share with the girls in the prison what my mom shared with me.
So we went back in the afternoon and talked with the girls again. I got to tell them that sex does not equal love. I got to tell them that they didn’t need to give anything to anyone else in order to be worthy of receiving love. I got to tell them that they have worth because Jesus says they have worth. I got to tell them that they were enough for anybody because Jesus says so and not only that but Jesus acted on what He said and died for them. I got to tell them that they were worth dying for. I got to tell them that they are more than just a body. I got to tell them that they were beautiful and they deserved real love and not just the “love” that the world offers. I got to share with them what real love is.
It was a really cool afternoon, and to my surprise the girls were pretty receptive to it. They started asking really good questions about salvation, why God loves us, and grace.
So I was wrong. God had things for me to do and see here for His glory. Even if the 4 months we spend in Central America were only about sharing the love of God with those girls in prison. So don’t be wrong like I was. Don’t think that there isn’t more. There is always more.
GLORY TO GOD!
Please pray for the ministry we have done this month. Please pray for the guys and girls in the prisons here. Please pray for Sus Hijos’ ministry. Please continue to pray for the countries my squad has visited. Please continue to pray for my squad and I as we head to Honduras in about a week.
