It is July 25th (at time of writing). It is Day 3 of our mission trip in Belize and God is wrecking my life. Yesterday, we hosted a VBS (vacation bible school) for local children (mostly Spanish speaking) near Spanish Lookout. I have never been so frustrated while trying to spread the Gospel. We had about 80 kids and they were awesome. Rowdy and rambunctious little boys and girls, most of whom were so thrilled and excited by the fact that these foreigners were here to play with them. It has already been incredibly humbling to glimpse into their lives and of all those in Belize who live a far simpler life than I do. The high I felt coming to Belize and painting the DCI Missions buildings the day before was suddenly knocked down when I came face to face with serving and ministering to young children. I was pushed to the limit, far beyond my comfort zone. This kids only wanted to play with us. As soon as we wanted to sit them down and just talk about Jesus, we seemed to struggle to keep their attention. I struggled with this because this the very reason I came to Belize: to spread the gospel. If I can't successfully teach these kids the message of Jesus in one week, how will I ever be effective during 11 months of missions on the World Race? How do you spread God's love without talking about Him?
Later that night, after VBS, some of the other guys on the trip and myself got together to talk about things we were struggling with. I brought up my struggles with the kids that day and we began to hash things out. During Jesus' time here, he spent a lot of time with sinners. He didn't go up to people and throw their sins in their faces. He didn't say that had to achieve a predetermined level of faith in order to receive God's love. Jesus simply loved. Jesus met people right where they were, hung out with them and loved them, sin and all. Jesus IS love, and Jesus IS enough! We get so caught up with the details so often, that we over look and/or often over complicate the true simplicity of what it means to spread the gospel. It really is as simple as hanging out with people and loving on them. Once a deeper relationship is formed, discussions on life and Jesus will naturally follow. Even if those discussions never happen -such as in the case of us and many of the Belizean children- it's ok, it's not the end of the world. We bless the people around us and in our lives in what interactions we have with them (serving) and then trust that Jesus is enough to take it from there. Jesus can do what we cannot and is able to fill that gaps when we fall short.
Jesus is enough.
