This past month I served with team “So Entonces” who is yet another all girls team haha. However, I got to serve with 4 of my sisters from my first team and some of my other favorite people.
I had the privilege of doing unsung heroes again with this team as it was their first time. If you don’t remember or didn’t read my blog from Costa Rica, Unsung heroes is where we go out and search for new ministry contacts across the country (whatever country the squad is serving in for that particular month). Last month of course was El Salvador so it was much easier and shorter in terms of travel compared to most countries.
We started out feeling led to visit a town called Gotera where we met a pastor of a church. He was awesome. Except that he got the impression we were looking for a place to serve for the month #languagebarrier. We found out nearly before leaving the town that he had worked up a whole list of things or us to do that month. Needless to say we were there simply to meet with him and see if He would be a good fit to send future teams too. As we saw how diligent and organized he was we thought he would be a perfect host for future teams.
After returning to the capitol of San Salvador, we ended up running into a church that turned out to have over 9,000 members. Some of their ministries included an elementary school, a school for special Ed, a drug rehab center, homeless ministry, hospital visits, and a barber shop of all things. Crazy!! But they were such amazing people and we throughly enjoyed serving with them the remainder of the month. I couldn’t believe how invested and empowered their volunteers were. EVERY volunteer had an immense amount of passion for the area they were serving in. That’s over 2,000 volunteers serving and loving their community relentlessly. It was such a blessing to serve along side them. They did everything with excellence and I can’t wait to hear about other team’s experiences when they serve with them for a whole month!
We also met a pastor about 45 minutes away where we were able to participate in their youth service. It was awesome!! So many youth dancing and singing along with a live worship band. After we were introduced one of the guys leading the service (who is younger than us) prayed over is and even gave a squadmate a word from the Lord while we were on stage that was completely spot on. Never in my whole race have I felt as welcomed and special as I did there after he explained our story and what we were doing there. They clapped as if we had just graduated from high school again. There was definitely a feeling in the room of glory. Not for us but for the Lord.
It was an incredible month…full of laughter and joy which is exactly what I needed. I had reached a point of fatigue and burnout and the team truly helped me get back into the swing of things (through the Lord and lots of prayer of course). The one thing I asked for and wanted out of that month was energy and man I felt like I was on fire! Every chance I got I wanted to leave the hostile. My quiet time suffered a little because of it. However I got to experience the Lord through so much life and joy. I discovered how times like that are often when we hear some of the coolest ideas from him for our present situation and for our future. You won’t always find the solution sitting in a room full of white walls. Go get out and do stuff. Have some fun!
