Returning

Well hi there and welcome to my blog, glad you got on your internets and clicked to my little blog. I am a little Texan gal who is passionately in love with Jesus and almost 3 years ago I started writing on this blog about my walk with my man Jesus! Thank you for clicking on my page, now let’s go on and drive right on in y’all!!

This last week I was in El Paso with 4 other amazing youth leaders and some really awesome youth kids. We drove out at 6am last Sunday morning and drove for 11 hours to El Paso, Texas for a jam packed week of serving, reading, serving, praying and eating some really yummy food.

Before I get into the really important part, I feel it’s really important to express my love for Empanadas. This was the first time I had ever eaten an empanada or biscochos and my taste buds were extremely pleased by said pastries. I’ve only been back two days and I already miss the empanadas and the biscochos so much. So, a cry for help if you will, if any one knows how to make empanadas, please hit me up and teach me your ways. Muchas gracias.

Okay sorry, back to the actual point of this blog. Hehe.

I spent a week 600 miles away from home, sleeping on a gym floor with 100 other girls in west Texas, sleeping very little every night and serving every day and it was the best week of my whole life. Never before had I been so immersed in the presence of God, never before had I been surrounded by so many young people loving and seeking Christ, never before had I seen so many middle school and high school kids serve so selflessly. It took 5 seconds of being with my group to fall in love with these girls so much that they each feel like family.

I guess I could explain a bit of what this trip was and what every day looked like.

I am a middle school gals youth leader at my church and we took 8 girls, 5 boys, myself, and 4 other youth leaders. Every day there was an optional prayer meeting at 6:30am, and breakfast was at 8am. Most everyday we had kids either doing breakfast prep or serving breakfast or cleaning up after. Once breakfast was finished, we had a time of morning worship and then 20 min or so of quiet time. Then from 9:45ish to 4:00ish we were learning about what track we would be on, and going out and serving. The tracks we did were Salvation Army, Ciudad Nueva, Homeless Outreach, a work project and the Missions track. Once we returned from this, we had about an hour and a half ish of free time before dinner, we had kids most every night either preparing dinner, serving dinner or cleaning up after dinner in the kitchen. After this we had worship, a message, prayer and worship and then the kids went to their small groups while the leaders went to a leaders meeting. We would go back to the gym we were staying in and then lights out at 11.

Now that its cleared up what the heck we were even doing in West Texas, I gotta tell y’all about how God moved because, wow.

I have been thinking and thinking about how to explain in my lacking human words what God did this week in myself and in the kids we were leading. No words I have seem to big enough to describe it. I suppose the best words I have are conquer and victory. This week I saw a lot of kids come in with a lot of walls up and a lot of bondage and so many lies that had been rooted so deep in their spirits. I saw God conquer those lies, set kids free and I saw victory of the Spirit of God rooted deeper in our youth than the lies of the enemy could ever go. This week I saw our youth serve others selflessly. I witnessed kids pray for each other, point one another back to Christ, and love each other in a way that only comes from Christ.

I was standing in the back of the room during worship during the last night and I witnessed each of the kids in our group praying for each other, hugging and encouraging each other and I couldn’t help but be brought to tears by God’s love for us and his will to work in us. I am brought to my knees by the grace God has, the unconditional grace and love and mercy God has for us. I am blown away that God sees the lies I have believed about myself and that his desire is to root up those lies and show me more of his love. I have the hardest time wrapping my mind around the fact that God sees my sin, but he sees me through the holy filter of Jesus. He doesn’t look at me and see sin, he looks at me and sees me as His daughter whom he made perfectly, the daughter whom Jesus died to save. You and I are the children Jesus died to save. You are the kid God died to save.

I looked my kids who came in with pain and watched how in just a week God transformed that shame and that hurt into their testimony. I listened to kids ask me to wake them up extra early so they could go to prayer, and they didn’t just listen during that 6:30 prayer time, no they were crying out to God for what was on their hearts.

On Tuesday morning, after prayer, I had a few gals sitting at a table with me waiting for breakfast and so I said, “Hey girls, it’s really on my heart to pray for our brothers and sisters in Mexico” and so I started praying and every single girl in that group cried out to God for what was on their hearts for their brothers and sisters in Christ, proclaiming the love God has for all his people! That morning I realized how much these girls were going to impact me, and the truth is even with that morning, I still never could have expected what this trip did to my heart. I never saw coming the way God used me to work in the girls, and vice versa.

All in all, this was the most amazing trip of my life. A little blog and my limited vocabulary does not do this justice. If you have questions about this trip or want to know more that I just couldn’t fit in this, message me and I would be happy to tell you.

My biggest take away from this trip was the love God has for us, the unconditional, reckless, amazing and selfless love He gives so freely to us. He loves my brothers and sisters in Mexico, Australia, New England, Brazil, Africa, etc. just as much as he loves me. Color doesn’t matter to God, your social stance in society doesn’t matter, your past doesn’t matter, it’s about your heart right now, do you love God? Do you love people? Are you willing to drop everything and obey whatever Jesus calls you to? Or are you still living in perpetual fear of the “what if’s”?

Eventually we must all reach a place where we say, “okay God, I have no control. I need you and where ever you call me to, I will go. I trust you.” We must reach a place of obedience to whatever God says because God isn't a cute little ornament on your life, He’s gotta be your whole life and there's no bargaining that. It’s all or nothing with God, he doesn’t want our sloppy seconds, he expects our first and our best because he gave his first, only and best for us. So how are we going to live? Are we still going to live in fear of what someone else might think of us and our love for Jesus and the things we are called to? Or are we going to recognize and know that this world is not our home and we suffer for a short while here and are rewarded eternally in Heaven? What choice are we going to make? Jesus or the world?

This is life or death, y’all. Jesus is life, and everything else is death and truth be told, there must be an urgency to know and follow God with a fire and passion, not this half hearted crap.

Whew that little bit came out of no where but maybe the Holy Spirit needed someone to read that, it’s what I am trusting.

Thank you so much for reading and if you have any questions about this trip or just wanna be friends, hit me up :) I like frands!

Happy Monday and have a great week friends.

Lil.

​