Okay so day-to-day ministry looks different for everyone on the race. It looks different from country to country and from contact to contact. That is the best part about the race. The experiences, people and ministries that you run across help to strengthen you in all the ways the Lord has planned.
Let me just give you a tiny look at what ministry has looked like in the past 4 months.
Our ATL Ministry in the DR brought us to Jennifer, our server at a Pizzeria who became a close friend.
Dominican Republic:
Our assigned ministry— work with a pastor out in a village town 20 minutes from our city. Church services, evangelism, village prayer
We went to his church/the village about 7 times (for the whole month). We would BE the church. We would arrive to greet people and listen to the pastor when we would over hear a translated message to us saying something like, “Kate is going to be speaking to us today” or “Justin will be leading us in some worship” or “Jaclyn will be closing our service in a prayer”. The preparation time would bring us to a whole new level of dependence on God for the words, the message, the musical talent, the prayer, and the insight would need to be from God, and need to be given fast. Everything needed to come from God.
We would also prayer walk through the village. We prayed over sick villagers, families, and really anything they wanted. We would speak to them about their beliefs or their way of life.
Our ATL ministry (Ask the Lord)—things we did when we weren’t in the village.
None of it was assigned to us or even given to us. God brought us to these.
1. We made friends with a waitress at a local restaurant that we ended up shopping with her and talking to her over Google Translate about beliefs, God and salvation.
2. We would go to a local hospital and pray over patients.
3. We would prayer walk through our town to the other religious buildings, etc.
Being open to 3,000 highfives comes with the ministry of crowd control at a slum church in Haiti.
Haiti:
Our assigned ministry— physical labor for a new sports camp, church services, outreach
We painted 9,000 feet of chain link fence over a course of the month. We also mixed concrete to build a new dock, weeded and de-rocked an area for a ropes course and organized donation bins and storage units.
We also were crowd control at a church service held in the slums for 1,500 children. We helped hand out food and clothes as well.
We also stuffed and handed out 500 emergency bags for villagers before and after Hurricane Sandy.
Our ATL ministry—
1. Prayed over a worker a the sports camp for healing
2. Played with and encouraged our ministry contacts family
Thailand:
Our assigned ministry— work with Lighthouse in Action with their three ministries (X-life, WonGen, Love Acts)
We were working with X-life for 2 weeks where we lived in host homes with villagers. We would live life along with them. We also helped to harvest their rice fields.
We worked with Love Acts for one night. We went to the Red Light District and did bar ministry. We would talk to bar ladies, ladyboys, travelers and locals. We would do prayer walks or just love the people.
We worked with WonGen one day. We worked in the coffee shop helping to deliver food, take orders, or talk to people. We also worked with the college students across the street talking to them, doing a small amount of evangelism.
Our ATL ministry—
1. We cooked a thanksgiving dinner for our village families where we shared the Gospel, testimonies, and sent off lanterns.
2. Living life with the villagers allowed for many moments of God work.
3. Harvested garlic alongside of our Thai moms
4. Painted a villagers porch, living room and bathroom
5. Taught English at an elementary school for 2 days
6. Put on makeshift VBS
Ministry at the hospital consisted of caroling through the waiting rooms and hallways before the 25th.
Malaysia:
Our assigned ministry—Just Caffe, Kawan, Adventist Hospital, Evangelism, Luma
The list could go on of all our ministries. We had lots to do and lots of opportunities to serve. I personally had the opportunity to work at all of them. I worked a week at Just Caffe where I worked in a coffe shop talking to customers and prepping food. I ministered at the Adventist Hospital doing fundraising for heart transplants, walking around as a chaplain praying over patients, or caroling for the Christmas season. I also worked at Kawan which was a homeless shelter where we helped to prepare and cook breakfast and lunch for many homeless locals. And lastly we would do evangelism walks through the city on Wednesday’s meeting homeless people or prostitutes and loving on them. And I also helped a tiny bit with Luma which was an art show that we helped at. The other members of my team did more with this on but it was an outreach tool to get people to see the Gospel in a new way (in a closed country).
Our ATL ministry—
1. We made friends with the people who worked at the restaurants that we would eat at or the stores we shopped at.
2. We would attend PenHop (Penang House of Prayer) and pray for this city, these people, and these ministries.
3. Praying over a lady boy and a prostitute from the street.
