During ministry in Cru in Ecuador, I got to do something I never got to do before that showed me my purpose for being on the race.
In Cru on Wednesdays, the interns would fast and pray about something specific for their ministry. Sometimes they would pray for specific evens or about certain colleges and students, but they always tried to pray for something different each week. I was praying that morning and heard God telling me to not just fast for the day, but to fast for 3 days because I needed to learn to rely fully on God. I was nervous, but I obeyed, because I knew that this was something I needed to grow in.
I only drank fluids, so I would have coffee in the morning, juice, and lots of water, but nothing else. At first, I felt like I was barely able to make it through the first day, but then I started to see the fruits of this discipline.
On Thursday, we visited the Central campus, which is one of the largest universities in Quito and is public, so many students can go there. We met 3 girls who were students at the campus and they helped walk around with us to do evangelism. There was a fourth girl who was going to join us from another campus to help, but she was running a little late. I decided to stay back and wait for her so that she and I could go evangelize together. During that 30 minutes I was waiting, the hunger pains grew strong, so I prayed. I interceded for those who were intercession and that God would open the hearts and the minds of the students on campus.
Then Agnes finally arrived and we walked around campus. We had about 45 minutes to share, and in that 45 minutes we talked to 2 people. The first person we talked to was a guy who was a physical education major who was catholic, but had some different view. For instance, he believed in Jesus and accepted him as his savior, but he also believed in reincarnation. Regardless, he did have a lot of faith. He said whenever he gets stressed, he just prays and leans into God, so we gave him some info about Cru because we thought he could really benefit from having a community of Christians on campus that he can talk with and a safe place to ask questions and seek truth.
After that, we went into one of the college cafes and found a girl sitting by herself. When we asked her if she wanted to do our Soularium activity, she seemed hesitant at first, but still agreed to do it.
Basically what Soularium is is a picture quiz with questions that lead to spiritual conversations. We would ask questions like “Pick 3 pictures that describe your life now” to “Pick 1 picture that describes God”. When we started with her, she kept saying she had been through a lot of darkness and that she feels very stressed out and alone a lot in school (we later learned that she was not a student at Central, but she was just there visiting her boyfriend). She seemed confused and lost in whatever darkness was in her life. Then, Agnes shared the gospel with a piece of her testimony with the girl, and she really seemed to connect. She was inspired by the hope that a relationship with Jesus could provide for her life.
So after Agnes was done sharing, she asked if the girl already had a relationship with Jesus, and she said no. Then Agnes asked if she wanted one.
AND Y’ALL SHE SAID YES!!
This was the first time I had been really on my own evangelizing, and Angie was new to it, too, so at first we looked at each other in excitement, but there said “Okay, now what?”. I asked Angie if she knew how to pray the prayer to accept Jesus, and she said not really. I had already heard a lot of people pray this prayer in Colombia, and even though I had never done it myself, I felt pretty confident about it. The girl we were with was studying English and she wanted to pray the prayer in English which worked out great for me! I had her repeat after me that she believed Jesus died for her sins and that she desired Him in her heart, and she did the whole thing.
It was amazing to see how much she transformed just in that moment. When we had approached her, she seemed downtrodden and alone, but after we prayed for her, I literally saw light radiating from her. We were sitting across from her at a table, but after we were done praying, I jumped up and gave her a hug and told her about the promise I saw for her and her life through what Christ had just given her by her accepting Him in her heart. Then her boyfriend came up and she walked away with him, but she just looked like her heart and mind had been fully renewed. We invited her to join Cru so that she could continue to walk down this path of faith, and find other Christians who could support her in her walk.
Whenever we reconvened with the other group, we found out the 3 other people on campus had accepted Christ that day, too! Now, we had already been working with Cru for about 2 weeks, and everyday when we would evangelize, we would barely get past the spiritual questions of Soularium, and occasionally would find someone who was open to hearing the gospel, so the fact that we jumped from that to 4 people accepting Christ in their hearts was INSANE! This just goes to show that as I was praying for open hearts and open minds, God answered that prayer and was faithful in showing us people who needed to hear His word on that day.
Then on Friday, we got to hang out and fellowship with the students of Cru. We went to a local park and had devotions, played games, and worshipped together. The first part of our time together was structured, with planned worship songs and a planned bible study, but the rest of the afternoon was just free time to play soccer, football, and to just hang out. I played soccer for a little bit on my very empty stomach, but then I saw a group of 4 people singing and worshipping and I wanted to join. I had brought my ukulele, so I took it out and jumped right in. We sang song in Spanish and in English, and as we worshipped, more and more people from our group joined. We got to sing with complete abandon and dance, shout, jump, and play together and just worship God with the fullness of our hearts in that moment.
The park we were at was a public park, and afterwards, one of the Cru interns told us that while we were worshipping, a woman with her kids walked up and asked what we were doing. He told her that we were with Cru, what Cru was, and that we were just hanging out and worshipping together for the afternoon. The woman was so inspired to see so many young people spending their free time glorifying God for all to see, and she told him that she wished that more people could see this, because this is what being a true follower of Christ looks like. The intern, Derek, had asked her if she wanted to join us, but she said she had to go somewhere, but knowing that our worship in that moment was reflecting the true love of Christ in that place and amazing.
During the three days of fasting, although my flesh would occasionally cry out in hunger, I never felt like I was lacking anything. The Lord was filling me and sustaining me with His spirit, and those days of ministry became the highlight of my time in Ecuador. Just getting to lead someone to Christ was an experience I will never forget. I was so nervous about evangelism before this trip, but just watching the way God could transform someone before our eyes was worth every no we had gotten before. Knowing that we have the authority to bring people that peace and joy of Christ is worth going out with boldness and possibly being rejected in order to get to that one person who needed Christ. Also, just getting to share in fellowship and worship so freely with the students of Cru just showed me what being a part of the body of Christ is truly about, and that’s why we are here. We are traveling around the world to show people that church is not confined to a building, but that it is a lifestyle and a relationship with Christ, and that no matter where we are, we can glorify Him, and He will be walking with us every step of the way.
Working with Cru this month has been such a blessing, and I was so grateful for the chance to step out of my comfort zone and to go places in faith that I never thought I would go. God is our sustenance. He is the living water that flows in and through us, and we should not dam that water up. We are called to share His blessings with everyone, and to trust that He will provide us everything we need.
