Greetings from Cúcuta! Last night saw our team in the city center connecting with the shoppers and vendors there. We got to experience a new creative method for evangelism: ice cream outreach! We paid five ice cream vendors to make cones for the first 100 people who came and talked to our guests about our mission while they waited in line. It was so much fun to see people’s responses to an unexpected act of kindness.
This was also an incredibly eye opening experience for our team. Many of the men and women we interacted with struggled every day to survive. Some were without homes, others had been abandoned by their families. In the midst of this, we were inspired to see the way our ministry partner Gabriel was always ready to share the gospel, pray with them, and invite them into our church community. One man came asking for money but after conversing with Gabriel, he left telling us “Thank you, this is the first time I’ve thought clearly in a long time.”
Our students have grown bolder and bolder with each day seeing the examples of our ministry partners and experiencing God’s faithfulness for themselves as they step out in faith. Four of our students noticed a man kneeling just outside of the doors of a Catholic church service and felt called to speak with him. He shared his life story and the ways that he felt he no longer deserved to enter a church building. Our students spoke to him from Scripture about the hope of God’s grace and he expressed a desire to interact with our group again in future. Several of our students were crying as they said goodbye, feeling for the first time the true weight of the suffering some people carry with them daily. One of our 10th graders, Nico, shared this about the evening:
“Last night was a very deep and thoughtful night. I was able to talk to a guy who was rejected by the church, yet had a very deep and desperate desire for God. Talking to him and getting to know the story was a loving experience. Though he had been rejected by everyone because of his illness, the love God demonstrated to him through us renovated his views on Christ, our church, and our community.”
Lord willing, rather than driving our team to seek the comfortable, these intimate experiences with heartbreak will shape our hearts to be more like Christ’s who walked alongside the suffering. The hope and brotherhood we have seen in the midst of these hurting communities is inspiring. Our morning meeting more than doubled today as a bus brought members of the hill top church to join our restaurant congregation. We rejoiced in reuniting with familiar faces and got to meet new friends from among the street vendors who had been invited today. One brought her speaker and gave us a mini concert with some epic praise songs! Our students took charge running get-to-know-you games for the larger group, entertaining all the children who had come along, and sharing again from God’s Word. The kinship experienced with fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, no matter their background, never ceases to amaze me.
Because we are here to see and share Jesus, not to be comfortable, our team leader Robbie prayed this morning that our level of challenge would continue to increase as the trip moves into its final stretch. This is an intimidating prayer but a worthwhile one because we want to see our faith grow as we step out of the boat into the crazy, amazing things God has planned. Would you pray that our team would keep growing and would discover Jesus’ heart in increasingly bold ways in our final two days? The harvest is plentiful so let’s get out there!
– Bethany Litteral
