Dear Family and Friends,
I went with 600 other college students from my church to a south Texas town for a mission trip. http://acccollege.wordpress.com/ Here's the blog if you want to see some pictures and ideas of what we did. We stayed at a simple hotel with 3 great meals everyday and a great couple of christian owners who served the 600 of us and their other few hotel guests so well. We had the mornings to wake up, spend some time alone with Jesus and at 9, we would cross the street to a nice little conference center/warehouse and we would worship for a couple hours and then hear a message from some of the church leaders. Great messages on the father heart of God, the Holy Spirit's power, the way to Intimacy & Impact versus the way to Destruction, and other things like the things to consider as seasons of life change. It was a blast of good instruction and prayer for world changing in our lives and everywhere.
In the afternoons, we would alternating days have either a seminar (like on what a Man of God is or how to study the bible) or a work day. We went to a poverty-stricken neighborhood and simply went to houses asking if they wanted anything done or wanted prayer. I got to use my Spanish mucho. At the same time though, it was so far from perfect so I'm glad I'm going to spain. I'll surely grow fluent-ish. Anyway, we went out in groups of 3, each one having a Spanish speaker and a guy (sorta for protection). Cool conversations and hard to think of Spanish so quickly but it was fun. Our other work day, we worked at a buckner (www.buckner.org) warehouse sorting clothes and shoes and helping out.
Just to clarify, the afternoon and evening things are done in groups around 50, called a "section" (Within that we also have a "Lifegroup of 10-15 people). So about 10 different groups go 10 different places. It would be crazy to have 600 people show up to a park haha.
Each evening we would have an "outreach." An outreach consisted of going around and inviting them to a "set" at a certain time. The sets consisted of a dance, voiceless drama, and someone giving their testimony and someone else telling the gospel. It was amazing the fruit that the simple production produced. Many many stories of people hurting and us just being a God-send gift or relief. Dozens of people began a relationship with Jesus and at least many seeds were planted. Of course we had many invited but no shows or no response or people that were unsure of the message. We entrust God with all of them now.
So the trip was great. Walking away with lots of encouragement and a better community with my group of 50.
Love y'all,
Andrew
