It’s absolutely crazy to think that I’ve only been in Colombia for two weeks! Finally all the talking, dreaming and guessing about what the World Race is about is over; it is now the time of action and living out what the World Race is.
Like I said in my previous blog, this month we have been working alongside JuCUM (YWAM) Cartagena and even in the short amount of time we’ve been here, God has already revealed so much.
Week 1
JuCUM is an organization stationed in over 180 countries. Each campus focuses on a variety of different ministries. JuCUM Cartagena focuses on a discipleship program in which the students live on campus, have daily chores, and go to classes that cover Bible theology, leadership, and arts for hours on end. The mission of JuCUM is to prepare short and long term missionaries to send all over the world.
Most of the students here are between the ages of 17-24. Their faithfulness has been such an encouragement. As I thought about their willingness to commit to living at JuCUM for months at a time, 1 Timothy 4:7 came to mind:
Train yourself for a holy life! While physical training has some value, training in holy living is useful for everything. It has promise for this life now and the life to come. This saying is reliable and deserves complete acceptance. We work and struggle for this: “Our hope is set on the living God, who is the savior of all people, especially those who believe.” Command these things. Teach them. Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young. Instead, set an example for the believers through your speech, behavior, love, faith, and by being sexually pure. 1 Timothy 4:7-12
During our first week in Cartagena, we, World Race team, ended up doing a lot of manual labor around the campus and nearby neighborhood. These activities included: cleaning a trash-filled river, wiping down and setting up tables and chairs for lunch, and also deep cleaning a shed filled with bed frames and a whole lot of dust. Each day brought a new set of blood, sweat, and tears (oh yeah and mosquito bites). This week it would have been so easy to complain; complain about the heat or about the small amount of food we’ve had each day. In addition to those two, it would have been even easier to complain about doing labor that anyone could do or work that may seem unimportant when compared to other type of ministries. My thoughts could have easily been “I didn’t sign up for the World Race to clean someone else’s shed!” But guess what, this is exactly why I signed up for the World Race. I was reminded this week of Colossians 3:17 &23
“Whatever you do, whether in speech or action, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus and give thanks to God the Father through him. Whatever you do, do it from the heart for the Lord and not for people”
In the midst of cleaning and sweating, I realized what a blessing our team was to YWAM. This is their home, they do this sort of work day in and day out on top of their already busy schedules. For even just a few days we were able to lighten their load and allow them to focus on their studies. In every action big or small our desire is to serve the way Jesus served.
Week 2
Our second week we took a two hour bus ride to the small village of Palenque. Palenque is known as the first African civilization that was freed from slavery in the Americas. They hold in their hearts their traditions, language, culture and way of simple living, but along with this, life here is still extremely hard. There is lots of drug addiction, poverty and witchcraft present in Palenque. During my week here I would wake up at 5:30am to intercede for the village, play games (fútbol being the go-to game) with kids, share testimonies and sermons, translate way more than I ever expected, and went into middle and high school classes to talk to the students about dreams and passions.
For many students, their future consist of working in the same fields that their parents work in. It’s very hard for the Palenque people to have dreams, much less to pursue their passion. When we went into the classroom we shared with them the parable in Luke 19 about the faithful servant. God puts passions and talents in our lives for us to steward them well – to be diligent and bring him honor in using them. He also promises: “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much…”- Luke 16:10. It was truly amazing to see the students open their hearts to be able to dream and to work towards bettering their lives.
Final thoughts
When thinking about how different these last two weeks have been to each other, I’m reminded of the promise I made to God when I accepted going on the World Race. “Lord, where ever you send me, whatever the danger, whatever the ministry, whatever the language, I will say yes to serving you everyday and I will choose joy.” Let me just tell you, when you have a “yes” spirit for God, He will take you to and through some crazy amazing adventures.
Lastly, this next week we will be ministering to victims of sex trafficking. Please pray for this ministry as it is a very sensitive subject. I am both excited and very nervous for this next week. Also, please be praying for healthy mental and physical rest (and no more mosquito bites!! So far I’ve got 97 ). I am only 1 of 2 people who speak Spanish in a group of 11 girls (this month 2 World Race teams joined together- my team Sweet Heat and team Redeem). Also, the days have been very busy and yesterday was finally our first day of- so naturally, we went to the beach
Till next time
In Him,
Lila
