Yes, we’re still in El
Salvador and loving it (thank you, Jesus!) but I have some exciting news from
Honduras!
Henry – my newly-discovered little brother – is getting BAPTIZED today on the farm, along with two
of his friends/ street kids from Los Pinos that we worked with all month:
Cristofer and Ariel. I AM SO STINKIN EXCITED AND PROUD OF THESE BOYS!! It was completely their own
decision; they wanted to make this step to experience NEW, ABUNDANT LIFE in
Christ! Ah, my heart is so full of joy!! Tony
(our contact last month) and Pastor Nicolas (the pastor of the church we
attended there) will be baptizing them in front of a group of about 100 people –
80 from a church who are on a retreat there along with two new World Race teams
and other youth from the streets of Los Pinos. What an incredible testimony to what the Lord has done and
will continue to do in these boys’ lives as they follow after Him. PRAISE JESUS!!!!!!
Please continue to
keep them in your prayers – that God would touch them in a special way
today and that they would experience new levels of intimacy and depth in their
relationship with Him. Pray for God’s Spirit and love to cover and envelop them
today, and that they would feel the affections the Lord has for them. Pray for
people to come alongside them in their walks with God to continually push,
encourage, and challenge them to grow into the men of God He’s created them to
be. Pray also that they would experience true freedom and healing from things
in their past and that God would in turn use them as LIGHTS to bring freedom,
restoration, and redemption to their friends, families, and communities. I am SO excited to see what the Lord is going to do in
and through these boys!!!!!!
In other news… 🙂
It was Henry’s 18th birthday yesterday (he’s
growing up so fast!) and as a surprise, Tony set up a skype date so we could
talk!! Oh man, it was ridiculously good to see that boy and hear about
everything the Lord is doing in his life. There were definitely tears on both
ends… so precious. We made two posters for him – one for his birthday and another
as a congratulations on his baptism – and Team Beloved took pictures with them and
I showed them to him on skype. He loved it!
Before leaving Honduras I got him a devotional to begin
diving more into his faith and the Word and learning about what a life in
Christ actually looks like; he’s been going through the daily devotionals and
scriptures and learning so much! Praise
the Lord!
I don’t think I shared this before, but it’s super exciting and a beautiful example of God’s redemption in
action. A few days before we left Honduras, Henry decided that he wanted to
go out onto the streets and look for one of his friends and cousin – Josue –
who was currently living and working in the garbage dumps and struggling with
getting high on paint thinner. Out of his own will and desire, Henry wanted to
seek this boy out and talk to him about his transformed life in Christ and how
the Lord wants to offer that same transformation to him as well. When I heard
this my heart skipped a beat… it was too good to be true. God’s redemption is coming.
One of the things the Lord has made me passionate about on
the race is His divine REDEMPTION; it just pumps me up. I love how nothing in
our lives is beyond the redemption of the Lord, and in fact God loves taking
our greatest weaknesses/ struggles and turning them into our greatest ministry
tools if we allow Him to. For example, we’ve worked with a lot of Christian
drug rehabilitation centers around the world and have seen the ways God has not
only brought these people back from the grave and redeemed their lives, but is
also using them to minister to other addicts in a way only they can. God uses
the redemption we’ve experienced in our lives to bring light, freedom,
transformation, and redemption into the lives of others. I love this idea of
discipleship, mentorship, and continual redemption through Christ. Ah, it fires me up! God is so good!
So to see my little brother operating out of the freedom and
redemption he’s experienced and sharing it with others simply melted my heart. This is what it’s all about. THIS IS KINGDOM.
Before he went out to look for Josue the World Race teams
gathered around, laid hands on him, and prayed with power for God’s Spirit to
lead and guide Henry’s life and specifically this interaction. The Spirit fell
and many of us were in tears as we realized the significance and power of what
was taking place; the devil has no hold on Henry’s life any longer and God is
using Him to bring LIGHT into the dark places. As we prayed, Tony felt the Lord
speaking to him that, the devil
will be blinded by his (Henry’s) light on the streets today, and he
also felt a nudging to share the parable
of the lost sheep with him (Matthew 18:10-14).
I had the privilege and honor of sharing this passage of
scripture with Henry before he left; we sat down, read the passage in Spanish,
and then talked about it. After he read it he immediately looked up at me and
said that Josue was the lost sheep, and
he was like the shepherd who was going out to look for him. Joy flooded
my heart as I saw understanding in his eyes; in that moment he truly
began to realize the significance of what he was about to do and how he was
playing the role of Jesus to his cousin. He
was seeking out the lost to be found; he was offering a new way – a way the
Lord had already graciously showed him. I told him how proud I was of him
as I held back tears, that I loved him, and that I was thrilled to see him
stepping into all the Lord had for his life. He looked at me and gently said, “Yo tambien, Jenny.� (Me too, Jenny.)
It was a ridiculously powerful, profound, and divine moment to say the least. We
prayed together and then he was off, off to bring redemption to the streets –
to seek out the lost and to bring them home… to Jesus.
“‘The Son of Man came to save
what was lost. What do you think?
If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave
the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? And if
he finds it, I tell you the truth, he is
happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander
off. In the same way your Father in
heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost’�
(Matthew 18:11-14).
Henry and I a few days before we left… love this kid 🙂
