Chains being broken in Haiti:
Hey everyone! I am currently up in the mountains of Costa Rica pretty far back in the forest/jungle. I have been here all week with one of the teams doing manual labor in working in the jungle cutting down trees and doing construction in helping the pastor prepare the ground to build a church. It’s been a great reminder of coming back to the basics, working hard, and being rooted in simplicity because were pretty much in the middle of no where. I will be getting to travel a lot this month as I leave the mountains on Tuesday to travel to another team about 5 hours away in the city of San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica. I will stay with them for a week or so and then leave to go visit two more teams after that. This is the first month where all of the 8 teams of O squad are all separated. So myself and the two other squad leaders are getting to travel around a lot visiting and spending time working with all of the different teams and their ministries.
I want to briefly describe our month in Haiti though last month and then end with the highlight story of the month for me and our squad.
It was a great month where the entire squad of O squad was together, all 53 of us every day. It was great, but wow was it tiring. The three of us squad leaders spent our days not only going to ministry with the squad but then spent much time pouring into, ministering, and speaking into our squad mates in the evening and night time after ministry in the villages. It was a great month with some hard stories, but many great stories and uplifting stories as well. I am continuing to learn a lot about myself and continuing to grow as a leader, yet even more as a servant. I feel so thankful to get to help lead and serve this squad and have seen the Lord pull our squad together more closely than we have ever been before.
As I get to relive the world race again in this time being on the other side of the coin in leading and mentoring others as their squad leader, I am seeing the full picture of the “process” that the Lord has and still is taking me through. As I speak into others lives, I am continuing to learn more about my life. I am also able to relate and see things in others because I have too traveled along the same road that they are traveling on. I can now sense, recognize, and relate to what they are going through and the process that they are in because of walking down same roads myself. I think sometimes, the Lord takes us through trials, not only to show us that He is with us through those trials, but also so that once we have walked out of and completed those trials and gained a key to unlock the doors to those trials, that we could then go back and help others out of those same trials and dark tunnels that we ourselves were trapped in and walked in for so long.
I guess that is what this month was about….chains being broken, keys being given, and doors being unlocked. It was about people enduring the process and realizing the process that the Lord has them in. I know some reading this may have no idea what I’m talking about while others will know exactly what I’m talking about. It’s a process of being broken down into a broken vessel where you meet your Father, Savior, Friend, and God face to face in intimacy, identity, and love. It’s a journey that we are all on our entire lives, but when your traveling over sea’s and being put into extreme poverty and intense spiritual conditions, the Lord has a way of breaking you down faster than you realize. But in the breaking down, treasures our found and keys are given. You come out of the fire a little brighter by knowing who you are because you now know and have experienced who your Father and Savior is.
One of the nights we had an all squad worship night. I felt like The Lord was saying to me…”lead them to worship me and come to me with no agenda, let me be your agenda.” So that is what we did, we just worshiped. We as leaders didn’t have any talks planned or any agenda set, we just showed up! We had no idea how long the meeting would go or what would exactly happen, we just worshiped God with all of our hearts and expected him to show up. The amazing thing was that about half of our squad, including myself didn’t even want to be there to worship, Some of us were tired, grumpy, and just didn’t want to be at a meeting on a Friday evening after being in the village all day. Yet we showed up and God met us in a way that we would have never have expected or planned.
In the middle of worship I felt like the Lord called me to stand up on a bench and get vulnerable with the squad (I’m not sure why but something powerful happens when you stand up on something and share vulnerably.) God called me to openly and courageously share what I was struggling with to the squad. I was open, raw, and real with the squad about the process that the Lord has been taking me through for the past few years since going on my world race in my journey of becoming and believing that I’m a son. As I shared my struggles and how The Lord was molding me and shaping me, I then invited others who felt led to stand up on the bench and share theirs. It took a couple of minutes, but then it happened. Someone walked up, stepped up, and faced their fears in the eye. As they courageously shared they not only fought their fears but paved the paths for others to confront their fears as well. After the first person there was a trickle affect where then more than half of the squad came up one at a time with tears flooding and hearts being exposed to share what the Lord was doing in them. I can’t really explain what happened but chains were starting to break.
I am learning that conflicts are hard and that hardship in life is just not fun at times. But in the midst of the storms there are lessons to be gained that we could never have gained anywhere else. When I’m in a storm, I so just want the storm to be over. But when we learn to rest in the storm and embrace the presence of our Father and Savior through the storm, we then come out different through the storm.
A story that The Lord kept putting on my heart this month was the story of Jacob when he wrestled with God that is told in Genesis 32:22-31. God has been speaking to me this month about not running from the struggle, but embracing it. Jacob had to wrestle some things out with God. He faced God face to face and wrestled with Him and when the wrestling match was over, Jacob’s name was now not only the different, but the way he walked and lived was different, because now He was different. God met Jacob in the wrestling and God changed him through it!
God has shown me this month that he wants to meet us in the wrestling. He doesn’t want us to pretend everything is okay. He wants us to be real, raw, and vulnerable with him about what were struggling with and going through. He sometimes heals things right there on the spot in us, and yet then other times He takes us through a long journey of wrestling. But through the midst of wrestling and working things out, we are healed and changed from the inside out in the midst of the process.
So I know to some who are reading this it way seem weird and way out there, but I can speak from experience that the process is real. The Lord takes us through a process of conforming us, changing us, loving us, and molding us to be the amazing people that He has created and designed us to be. But with anything in life that is worth fighting for, this is not always an easy process. If it was, everyone in the world would believe in it and do it, and we clearly know that many (including myself at one time in life) does not believe in the journey and life with Jesus Christ because in a lot of ways it is hard and does goes against what the world wants and teaches us to do. But I now declare that I am tired of running from the process, because even though the fire hurts and the molding stings, I come out a little brighter, a little deeper, and a little bit more being the true Ryan Dennis Otto that my Father in heaven created me to be. I come out of the hardship looking more like my Father and a little less of my old self and a little more like my true self because I’ve spent time being trained, shaped, and molded by my Father through the process that John 3:30 hints to.
So friends where ever you are in this life and whatever journey you are going through, embrace the struggle and process that the Lord has you in. If you don’t have one to embrace then help someone else in theirs because we all need each other and we are not meant to do this thing called life alone.
When we were worshipping as a squad that night and after many were done vulnerably yet courageously sharing we invited everyone to come forward who wanted prayer. We then as a squad and as a family prayed courageously in the Spirit over twenty or so people and as we were praying a song broke out of people’s voices called “Break every chain” (that is sung by Will Reagan and the band Jesus Culture.) It was a beautiful and powerful moment where prayers, hearts, and songs united in the Lord breaking off our chains. I am learning that through the process of our chains being broken, the Lord uses us to help others break their chains. Free people free others and I along with 52 others of O squad, are in the process and journey of being set free!
Know that God is fighting for you and that He is using the process that you are in to show you who you are to Him and most of all who He is to you….
He loves you because He loves you because He loves you…
Believe it and Receive it…
His love will change your life for ever….I’m living proof of it and so are you!
“The Lord is fighting for you, all you need to do is to be still and let go.”
– Exodus 14:14
“I will go before you and will level the mountains, I will break down the gates of bronze and cut through bars of iron. I will give you treasures in darkness, riches that are stored in secret places, so that you may know that I am The Lord, the God of Israel, who summons and calls you by name. For the sake of Jacob my servant of Israel my chosen, I summon and call you by name and bestow on you a title of honor, though you do not acknowledge me. I am The Lord, and there is no other; a part from me there is no God. I will strengthen you, though you have not acknowledged me so that from the rising of the sun to the place of its setting, all people may know there is none besides me. I am The Lord, and there is no other. I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, The Lord do all things.”- Isaiah 45:2-7
God is a God of love and is fighting for you and working through all situations so that you would know him and have him as your Father, Savior, Friend, and God!
He is with you and He loves you…Let him have His way with your life…
He is for You!
“Remember that through all things, God works for the good of those who love him and who have been called and created for His purpose.”
– Romans 8:28
That’s You…He is working through all things for your good!
BELIEVE…
