All for Jesus.

I had to keep saying that to myself over and over and over again Friday night. We went out for ministry which ended up being a quiet night..relatively speaking. All the bars were shut down because of a holiday or at least until midnight, so it wasn’t the normal way of going about ministry. But we stumbled upon 4 girls who were eating dinner and chit chatting at their bar waiting for work to start.
 
We stopped to talk to them when unexpectedly they offered us some of their food. Of course we said “no it’s ok,” but they insisted. Not to ruin the opportunity of what God could do with the run-in we accepted their food. Laura took the first bite of whatever it was which was super spicy. Liz next. Hoping I could avoid it after seeing the first 2 reactions of a burning mouth they asked me and I politely turned it down. BUT they insisted with some encouragement from my wonderful teammates.

So I gave in. One of the girls fed me a big bite of the mysterious food and it did indeed send my entire mouth into flames for a solid 20 minutes. Then they gave us fried pork skins which clogged a few arteries just by looking at it.

It was about 15 minutes later when it all hit. My stomach felt like a hole was being burned through it and it was a strong possibility it was all going to come back up. Laura and Liz felt sick as well, but we sat there and talked to one of the girls for quite a while. We sat in the bar for maybe 45 minutes and found out about this girl’s life.

I was sick to my stomach and slightly miserable for the rest of the night, but because of us trying that food it created an open, fun, and comfortable environment. We were all laughing so it opened the door and they were cool with us hanging out with them for a while.

That food started a relationship and who knows what the Lord is going to do with that. It took me out of my comfort zone or rather my stomach’s comfort zone, but whatever the result, it was all for Jesus. And thankfully that truth got me through the rest of the night.

It wasn’t the most ideal way to go about things-at least for my stomach and mouth, but it worked. We were able to be Jesus to those girls and allow God to move, so it was worth it. Maybe next time will be a little easier on the stomach.