Sermon Transcript
The following is a lightly edited transcript generated from the audio; it may contain small errors.
- Welcome
- Pastor Bond
- Justice
- Brian
- Michael Smith
- Amy
- Laura
- Allison
- Daniel
- Steve
- Ben
- Sarah
- Scott
- Steve
- Sarah
- Further Highlights
- Closing Prayer
Welcome
We’re going to have sharing today. The Belize team is back, so we’re going to welcome them. I say the Belize team is back, all except for one. Becca Inman, right? Beck has said that one more or two more weeks? Yeah, so we need to remember. Dan, is you belch or something? What was it? So Dan’s pumped. So we’re going to hear from the team today. And so I’m going to turn it over to Pastor Bond. He was in Belize for a couple of weeks. Let’s welcome him back.
Pastor Bond
How’s everyone doing? Good. It is good to be back. I was gone for two weeks and, man,
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I miss you guys. So it is good to see you all and to be here to fellowship with you guys back in the States. We’re going to have the Belize team come on up and grab a seat in one of these chairs. And as they’re doing that, I will give you just a little bit of background. About half the team went, for two weeks. And then the other half went for one week. We joined together for that last week. And we were in the district of Corozal, which is in northern Belize, in a village that we’ve been going to for five years called Libertad. And Libertad is Spanish for liberty. And so ever since we’ve been connected with them back in 2009, we really feel that it’s been providential that God connected us with Libertad since we are Liberty. And we’ve been working with the same church for five years and we’ve built relationships with the church members, with people in the village that will sometimes come out for church when we’re there but won’t always keep going when we’re not. There were some encouraging things that happened this year that you’ll hear from some of the highlights that people share. Belize has about 330,000 people in the entire country. It’s right below Mexico and right next to Guatemala. I think they say it’s about the size of the state of Delaware, if I remember right. A lot of tourism, about 2.5-3 million people each year go to Belize. So you probably know people, even if you aren’t aware of it, that have been to Belize and gone snorkeling or scuba diving or visited one of the islands. There’s a lot of tourism there, but we don’t really deal with the tourism site. We’re more in the inner part of Belize in some poor areas and ministering to people doing amazing, amazing stuff. We had an awesome team this year. I’m blessed as one of the pastors of Liberty to have many of these people from Liberty. We’ve got sharp youth. We’ve. Sharp young men and women that have been in and we got some old men and women. That are pretty sharp too. It was a blessing this week. I’m excited to hear some of the things that they’re going to share. I’ve asked Justice to kind of give really the highlights of the different activities and things that we did, and then each person will get an opportunity to share one of their highlights.
Justice
So give it up for Justice. Hello, hello. It’s good to be home and it’s good to see you guys. Laura and I were in Belize for three and a half weeks so we missed you guys a lot. A couple of things we did on our trip. On Sunday we ran the Sunday morning and Sunday evening services and they’re really good. Laura, my wife, right there, led worship with the pastor from the other church we working with and Mike preached a wonderful message and it was really really good. Each morning we were there we ran vacation Bible school. We had 50, 60 kids, something like that. And Dan, do you know how many came to accept Christ? I remember there were 14 the first day. 36, 38 kids. So it was really, really cool, especially
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to see all these guys attached to kids and kids like hanging on them the whole week. We also did some construction projects. We painted Pastor’s House. We’ll have a slideshow in a minute, and you’ll see some of those kids, and you’ll also see Pastor’s House before and after. We kind of took the next step, because two years ago it was, we plastered his house and painted the inside. So we came along and painted the outside this year. We also worked on the, they have a church, and then they have kind of like a Sunday school building. And the Sunday school building had termites in the roof, and so the roof was getting ready to fall apart. And what was originally estimated to be a $1,500 project, thanks to Steve Inman, we cut it down to a $200 project and we fixed the roof for $200. And Steve and his team worked tirelessly to get that thing done and they did it on the last evening before our last church service, so they did a great job. We also got to go door to door and throughout the village and invite kids to VBS and we prayer walked through there. I know a couple of people had some really good conversations while we were doing that. We also had on Monday night and Wednesday night, we had outreach services. I know the first night we had probably 50, 40, 50 people and five people raised their hands to accept Christ and it was really cool. One of the, one of the church members had been, they’d been praying for his son for a long time, who’d walked away from the faith a long time ago and he showed up. And he gave his life to the Lord and had like the whole church around him praying for him. It. Was really cool to see. And then Wednesday night, our closing service had over 140 people packed into a church that probably seats about 40. It was amazing. God did some awesome stuff that night. Mike preached a phenomenal message to everyone and like the place was filled with people we had talked to throughout the village to the week and people that some of the guys had been playing basketball with they got to come out it was awesome. We also did and a lot of really good comments from it. And the rest of us younger people, we got to babysit the kids for them so that they didn’t have to worry about it for the night. So that’s kind of an overview of our week and what happened. Lots of people came to know the Lord and lots of relationships were strengthened and the church was definitely encouraged. So we’re gonna-have some people now share kind of like a minute or so of their like highlight of the week. Okay, too many to count, so here’s the one that really stuck out to me the most. Why didn’t you first say their name?
Brian
Okay, I’m Brian. I’m Batman. So the one thing that stuck out to me was the last outreach. And Pastor Bond, in the middle of it, he mentioned focusing on the physical things. And in the middle of that message…
Michael Smith
I’m Michael Smith.
And it had kind of a strange thing happen this year, and it was great to see how God worked with through some trials that we faced. And some of you may have heard about this coming down the line. I got bit by a dog while I was down there this year, and that’s actually my highlight it for the trip. Because I’m carrying this jug of water back to the hotel that we were staying at the first week and because we needed water and so I went down I got the water and as I was coming back I feel this pain in my leg all of a sudden and I look down and here’s some some dog is running back into their it’s yard the gate had been open and and so I get back to the hotel and I tell tell the guys hey I just got bit by a dog. Mr. Benson grabs his notebook, goes down, finds the dog owner, is interviewing him, finds a witness, and gets the dog’s name, gets all the contact information, comes back. And so, and meanwhile, Mr. Grinder is getting his disinfectant wipes.
We’re cleaning up my dog bite. And so then we’re going to go down to the hospital. And we’re going to go up to the office for the hotel to call a taxi to get us to the hospital. Well, the lady who owns the hotel offered to take us up to the hospital. Her name is Sylvia. And as we’re going up to the hospital, we find out that she’s from Belize, but she married a guy from Scotland. And actually, she lives 30 minutes away from Glasgow, where Dan’s daughter, Sarah, has spent a lot of time doing the work that she does. And this lady, lady’s been looking for a church up there. And so Dan’s able to talk with her and get her some information about where the church that Sarah goes to is at. And it was just real great to see that connection be made. And so afterwards we come back to the hotel after I get some medication and they put in a report with the Department of Health and everything like that. And we decided that I probably should take the afternoon off and kind of rest and recover a bit. Well, while I’m doing that, Dan’s sitting out on the porch and our neighbor comes over and says, hey, I’ve seen you guys coming and going, what are you guys doing down here? And so Dan has an opportunity to share the gospel with our neighbor. And even though he didn’t accept Christ, you know, but the seed was planted. And so then, you know, I wake up from the nap and we’re going to go out, head out to the village for the evening and do the way of the master class that evening. And so we go and we call it a taxi to take us out to Libertad, which is about 20 minutes away from the hotel we’re staying at. And so we get in the taxi and the taxi driver, his name is Rudy, starts asking us, hey, well, why are you guys here? And in the time it took for us to get from the hotel to Libertad, Rudy accepted Christ.
Right there in the taxi. And so, you know, and I was kind of out of it for most of this, but it was great to see how God was just using something like me getting bit by a dog to just make connections between different people in the church and then even to share the gospel. And so that was my highlight for the trip.
Amy
Hi, I’m Amy. This is my second year to Belize and I think that my highlight was really just seeing how
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many times God pulled through for us. Originally, me and Sarah, my sister Sarah over there, we weren’t going to go for two weeks to Belize. We ended up going for two weeks and Sarah really wanted to go the first week and I didn’t want to go at all. And I was like, I don’t want to go there because there’s no air conditioning and I’m
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Literally the day before we had to decide if we could go the extra week, me and Sarah were like four or five hundred dollars short of going. And then Justice texts me and he’s like, hey, you guys have fifty dollars over the amount of money you need to go the extra week. And I was like, okay, I guess I’m going. So then me and Sarah were kind of tied on cash and like, because I have to pay for school and I just bought a new car and all this other stuff. So I was kind of stressed out about the financial situation because then I still had to pay for the extra week. And like two days before Belize, my mom found this huge check that was hiding that had been in the cupboard for like three months. It covered all our expenses and so that was a huge blessing. The Lord just seeing all the great things that he did throughout the week. The first church service, the Bible study leader talked about having joy in trials.
God really stretched me in that area and was like, Amy, you didn’t have joy in all these trials. We get to the church that we were seeing out the second week and there’s one shower for 24 people and the water trickled out. It wasn’t good. Just seeing like Mike when he got bit by the dog, God was like, okay, here, now you get to share the gospel. And then there’s another time when we went to this restaurant and we happened to run into Joe West, like the worship leader and the pastor’s brother, and he was there with one of his friends, and we, Denmark. And we ended up getting to share the gospel with him and pray with him. But while we were there, it was really funny because as soon as Dan started sharing the gospel with him, there was like 50 distractions in the restaurant. The TV turns on, then these kids come in and try to sell stuff to us, and then this other guy comes in and wants us to sign some petition or something. And then there was this man outside with a megaphone yelling. And it was like all these distractions came in, but the Lord pulled through and was like, I want you to like, God just kept pulling through over and over and over again. And another time we were on a, me and Laura and Ben and Lacey were on a prayer walk and we’re going around the village inviting people to church services and VBS. And there was like absolutely no one outside and we’re like, we’re not going to get to share with anyone. And then we prayed and we’re like, God, can you just let us run into a few people? And then all of a sudden, everyone was outside their home and we got to talk to so many people. And there’s at least four or five people that ended up coming to the church service in VBS that we talked to that day, so that was really cool. Yeah.
Laura
Hi, I’m Laura. Hi, Laura. Hi, Laura. Justice and I were really blessed this year to be able to go for three and a half weeks. We helped lead trips. We were the facilitators. A team from Mississippi came down the first week, and the second week a team from Texas came down, and then we got to facilitate and participate in Archer’s trip. So my highlight is basically what I’ve been learning those three weeks, which is not to fear. I have kind of been a fearful person this last year and a half, and I haven’t realized how much I’ve let fear control me and my actions. And these three weeks, like before, then I was super worried that I wouldn’t fit in as an ATL assistant trip leader, or that I wouldn’t like the kids, or the kids wouldn’t like me, or that there’d be too many bugs in my bed and I would miss home too much. All these things, and I eventually even feared that fear would consume me. That’s how irrational my fear was. And coming to Belize, I had to trust God. I had to give up everything and learn that I couldn’t control my circumstances, but that God could and that He had His hand in my life and I could hand my future over to Him. The first week I was reading in Matthew 6 and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the passage that talks about the cure for anxiety and not worrying about your life comes right after the verse that says you can’t serve two masters. And I had realized that fear had become my master and I couldn’t fear and love the Lord at the same time. I had to choose one or the other. And so these last three weeks the Lord has really put on my heart to hand everything over to Him. And even though I still fall sometimes and I still fear certain things, I’m reminded constantly that God has everything in His hand and I don’t have to worry about it.
Allison
Hi, my name is Allison. Hi Allison. Or as the Belizeans called me all week, Elysian. But this was my first time to Belize, my first mission trip ever, my first time out of the country ever. So coming up to the trip and leaving, I felt like a big, big baby. I was super scared. But some of the highlights, God stretched to me a lot. One of the biggest stretches was, those of you who know me, I have a big phobia of sweat. My sweat, other people sweat. I don’t like sweat at all. I take a shower every day. So coming into this, I was like, I’ll just have to prep myself to sweat. Well, the Lord wanted to stretch me further. And I ended up having an allergic reaction to the water and bleach, so I couldn’t shower the whole week. There was so much sweat, it was awful. God does have a sense of humor, doesn’t He? God has a sense of humor and He wanted to stretch me, but it was awesome because, you know, it got me to think about, like, you know, it’s not about the appearance that matters or anything like that, or how I smell, it’s glorifying him through the whole thing.
And also, I personally don’t think I have patience for like kids for a long amount of time. Basically like the length of a babysitting session, like three or four hours I can do it. Like I love children. But after that I’m kind of, I turn cranky. So this whole week I knew I’d be around kids 24-7 with doing the VBS and the VBS stories with Mr. Benson. So I tried to connect the kids. I feel like they would look at me like I’m this weird white American girl. But they actually ended up falling in love with me and everyone else just like Amy and Sarah had been telling me before. But what blew my mind was one day Justice, me, and Mike were walking around doing a prayer walk and inviting people to meetings and VBS. And we stopped at this one house. And as we’re walking along, we hear this little tiny girl voice screaming, take a picture of me
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I bought suckers to bribe the children to come to VBS. So I gave them some suckers and I took a picture and I invited them to the VBS. And I found out the names were Jesseline and Nurica, these two sisters. So a few days later, the sister Nurica came, but by Wednesday, our last day at VBS, I hadn’t seen Jesseline. So Wednesday during lunch after VBS, I go outside of the church where we eat lunch and I’m just taking a breath, trying to get some wind and not think about the sweat. So I sit down, and also this little girl on a bike comes, and she sits next to me, she’s all excited. She’s like, I’ve been looking for you. I’ve been biking for an hour to come see you. And I didn’t know who it was. I couldn’t remember. Then I’m like, so I’m trying to like, so how do you say you’re an age? She’s like, I’m just lean, remember? I was like. She told me she had been biking for like an hour just to see me and the Americans because they knew we were leaving soon. And it just blew my mind that we made such an impact on them, and that I myself could make such an impact on these kids. And everyone, especially Mike, was bushing me the whole week saying, the kids will love you, shut up. So that’s what I did. And just knowing that someone like Just Lean would bike around a whole town just to look for me to say goodbye really blew my mind. And that was a definite highlight.
Daniel
My name is Daniel. What a crowd that condenses all this into one highlight is kind of hard. That’ll change.
That’ll change. Probably the big thing is this was an extension of camp.
God told me, from all the incredible things that happened at summer camp, the Lord really impressed on my heart that this was just the beginning. the beginning, that he was going to continue to do what he did in camp, what was going to happen in Belize, and boy did he fulfill that in spades. I have to admit when we first got there, that first Sunday night, it was pretty evident that Joe and Tony and the family, they were struggling a little bit. And that Sunday night I couldn’t sleep. I spent all night praying for them. And to see what we had in 10 days, from pretty much just the family being in worship to almost 140 people packing that place and the transformation that happened, was absolutely incredible. I wanna thank David Snyder for really helping me put together the Way of the Master program and for setting up or giving the website for the gospel balls. We bought 25 soccer balls with a gospel on them. We gave the last one away the last night. I know we gave away 15. There were 10. I have no idea what happened to them. They just disappeared. Which is a good thing, I guess. And we actually saw kids sitting down and reading their balls. When they were playing with them, they were actually reading the balls. And I mean, we had a game that we took over Tuesday. We took over the game. There was a big game between Libertad and another city. We bought snacks. We bought drinks. We handed out the Gospel of John. And then the message got preached to the players after the game. I mean, all this stuff happened. And the Way of the Master, we did Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday night. I did all eight lessons and four nights. It’s a lot, but out of that, really got to spend time with Joe West. We really developed a friendship. He was excited about witnessing. He was reenergized. He took copious notes, asked a lot of questions. It was absolutely tremendous. We came very close.
Joe West. Joe West is a famous player for believes he’s historic. At the end of the week he gave me my his shirt. This is Joe West soccer shirt. That was a highlight for me.
Steve
Hi, I’m Steve. Hi, Steve. You know, first of all, I want to thank everybody that prayed
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for me and my health down there. I went down there one year previously. My second trip down there was really hard because I suffered a lot from headaches and some stomach symptoms. And I felt your prayers this time. It was wonderful. I wasn’t sick at all. And at that alone, it’s truly amazing. I went down there for primarily to lead the construction. I also led an adult Sunday school as well as a parenting class. And I had expectations of reaching people in the village. And I certainly had one really good conversation with a young man named Ettney there. But that was not my highlight. My highlight unexpectedly was reaching into the lives of a couple men in the partner church that we went down there with, Riverview Baptist from Osage Beach. And even more unexpectedly, I was able to reach into the life of the youth pastor, one of the leaders down there of that church, through the parenting class. He had some struggles with his recent teenage daughter and was just really struggling at how to speak into her life and apparently the parenting class that I led really spoke to him greatly and he and I really headed off. He’s a great guy. In fact, the whole team with Riverview, the whole time we were down there, it felt like there wasn’t liberty and Riverview. It was God’s church. the beginning. And several times we made some mistakes where we were supposed to do something just for Riverview or just for Liberty, and even they said that it felt like they were leaving us out during this particular Riverview picture time, and it was that close of a bond between our churches. It wasn’t two churches, it was one, and it was just an awesome, awesome thing to experience. And the very last night on the island, as we We went out to the island and it was late in the evening. Some of us old men, Brian and Dan and Steve got to sit down with John and speak into his
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life and as he’s getting ready to go away to college, he had some concerns about being down there being accountable because he wasn’t going to have anybody like his best friend down there to keep him accountable. We just really poured into his life what to look out for and what to do, things that he can do to join Christian groups down there and to keep himself accountable and to continue being the man that he already is. And it was just awesome to see that in their lives. I just was overwhelmed by that.
Ben
Hi, I’m Ben. Oh gosh, I don’t even know where to start. I saw some of the people come back last year from Lee’s. And I saw how God had really touched them. And I thought, you know, I want a part of that. So God just kind of touched me and encouraged me to go next year. I was really looking forward to it. But my sister, Becca, she was down there for five-weeks. And there was a possibility that she might have not been in Libertad while we were. And I was really sad about that. But God let her come to Libertad the entire week we were there. And I was so happy. And then I was also heard about all their friends that they had, the Belizean kids. And I was like, you know, I really hope I can have some friends like they did. And I went down there in the first two days, so I was kind of anti-social. And I wasn’t really like full on, yeah, let’s do this. But the next day, I think it was Wednesday when we were having the, when you guys were having the parenting sermon. And we were babysitting the kids. I had so many friends and they were all just on my back. One of the main things they said was back me, which was how they said, give me a back ride. I heard a lot of that. But it was just so awesome to bond with the kids and have so much fun with them. And then we were playing football with them. And John and Robbie went up to this guy who was sitting in the bleachers watching us play football during VBS. they were sharing to this guy and apparently his dad had committed suicide and his mom was working down in Libertad, but they lived elsewhere and they were sharing to him and he didn’t come to church service, but you could tell that the seed was definitely planted and I had so much fun.. I can’t wait to see who all goes next year
Sarah
Hi, I’m Sarah. This was my fourth time to Belize and I was blessed to be able to go for
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two weeks and it was just really really awesome. The first week we were down there, like the
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I was reading in Micah chapter 7 one night and I was reading these verses and I just really had like Libertad in mind like I felt like God was just speaking this to me in chapter 7 verse 8 it says do not gloat over me my enemy though I have fallen I will rise though I sit in darkness the Lord will be my light. Because I have sinned against him, I will bear the Lord’s wrath until he pleads my case and establishes my right. He will bring me out into the light. I will see his righteousness. Then my enemy will see it and will be covered with shame. She who said to me, Where is the Lord your God? My eyes will see her downfall. Even now she will be trampled underfoot like mire in the streets. And I just feel like the devil like probably thinks he’s got a pretty good hold on Libertad, but he really doesn’t like. God’s like totally gonna take back Libertad and it was just really cool like being there for two weeks because I got to see like more of like more of like the fruit of what we’ve been doing and just like I got to see like people’s hearts change and like a lot of the young men ended up I kept coming to church because a lot of the men on our trip were witnessing to them the whole time. A lot of the kids’ parents came. I don’t know. I just really felt like God is going to break this cycle. It was just really awesome.
Scott
Hi, I’m Scott.
For me, the highlight of when I was down there was the beginning of my second week when the rest of the team came down there and Pastor Bond gave a sermon Sunday morning and then the other pastor with the other church review, Pastor Steve Adams, he also gave a sermon that night and they both happened to be on the same thing pretty much. The love of God and it was just really awesome and I think they did it to just put us in the right mindset for that week. Just to be showing love towards Belize and Sesari, like a witness towards them. And what it meant a lot to me was actually God put it on my heart like before Belize that I wasn’t really showing the love of Christ. Just reading my scripture and being around some of my friends who were just amazing and just their love for everybody that I just couldn’t understand. How can you love this person or the sacrifices they had, including around me, why am I not doing that? And I realized that it could have been because I didn’t really understand Christ’s love and how awesome it is.
I grew up in church my whole life, so people always told me, Jesus loves you. And I was like, yeah, he does, right.
And you hear that so much that it just doesn’t mean… Like, you know, sometimes you just fully don’t grasp it or comprehend it. And I don’t know, and like another side of this was like during worship a lot, I’d be like, you know, why am I not like getting into worship? Like, you know, I’m not like really feeling it or whatever. And it’s like, I don’t know, I feel like if you really understand like the love and the grace and like the sacrifice that like Christ has for us, it’s like, like how can and you like stop worshiping. So that’s like something that God put on my heart like before Belize. And so like that was when Pastor Mike and Pastor Steve gave us those sermons. It was just like a great reminder and like how like my mentality should be like why I’m like down in Belize. And I think it was for like the rest of the team too. And I guess just an example of for when I was in Belize, every, pretty much every day, me and a couple of guys would go down like the basketball courts in Belize. And that’s where like most of the like young men were just like hanging out, mostly like older high schoolers and probably all the way up to like age 30, they’re just like hanging out, play basketball. And most of the time, Like They would just be down there playing basketball, drinking alcohol, getting drunk, smoking the reefer They never did that when Dan was around, but I think they’re scared of him My mentality, even a year ago, when I would be around people like this, I’d be like you know, man these guys are losers and hopeless. They’re just like a bunch of drunken potheads like why, like why should I like even bother? And I don’t know like I just like, God really put it on my heart like after talking to Pastor West and Joe West that like, we really need to reach these guys because they’re lost and like most of them like just feel like this hopelessness like a lot of them are like unemployed and they’re just trying to fill the holes in their hearts with these substances or whatever. And so it was my goal this week to show them that they could fill these holes with Christ.
So I would be down there pretty much almost, I try to every day be down there in the evenings hanging out with these guys. And I really didn’t know how effective I was, and if it was doing any good. And then, like Justice mentioned, like the last night, we had like over 140 people came, and a lot of the guys from like the basketball courts came. And I was just blown away, like I was surprised. None of them had like mentioned to me that they were coming or that they had wanted to come or anything. And I was just like taken aback. It just completely blew my mind. And unfortunately, I wasn’t in there during most of the sermon. I was needed elsewhere doing other things. But I know that at least for a lot of these guys, a seed was planted and hopefully when
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when we were doing the prayer walking, I was walking with John and Stephanie and Rebecca, and this lady, her name is Lillian, and she invited us into her house.
She was in a car accident two days after her birthday, and she broke a part of her leg and her foot, and she was in a lot of pain, but she was just so happy, and she was happy to be alive and she would still praise God and all that and I just think that was really awesome. And to see her love for him and another one of my highlights was there’s this little girl, her name is Chassidy and I got to talking to her. She’s about 14 and she struggled with some depression and I did too when I was about that age and it was really awesome to talk to her and to share the gospel with her and she came to Christ. And, uh, yeah.
Steve
Hi, my name’s Steve.
Hello. Uh, and I went down for two weeks and, uh, there’s, there’s just so many things but I will have mercy on you and focus on a couple. Like Sarah mentioned, we took the Gospel of John down there, 700 of them, and we pretty much covered the village and handed out 500 of them to the people at the homes that we met along the way. And that was really for me. I think the Lord will bless that, you know, and plant a lot of seeds there. And the last day of VBS, we also handed out the some of the Gospels to the kids as they were leaving. And it’s just neat to see, you know, that they all wanted more, you know, one for their sister and then their other sister and then their other sister, you know. And they were really excited to get them. And I know they probably would want a lot of anything that is being handed out free, but this time it was the Gospel of John and that was neat for me to see. The other thing is from the first week Dan mentioned the soccer game that we provided snacks for and Dan got to preach the Gospel to dozens of the players and other hangers on and it really reached a group that was hard to reach. It was older than, it, it was guys that were older than the VBS age and for the most part they weren’t guys that we played basketball with and some guys from another village and that was just great because Dan did a fantastic spirit filled job of preaching to them and I thought that was a really great moment.
Sarah
Hi, I’m Sarah. This was my first missions trip and I was really blessed to actually be able to go because I decided really late that I wanted to go. And I was really excited to go but when it came time to go I was like really nervous because this was like my first like church I was nervous the first couple of days, and I was like, well, it’s not all about me, I’m not here for me. I’m here to do God’s work, and I was here to do what God led me to do. I prayed about that, and instantly I felt a lot better, and I connected really good with the rest of the team and the other team, and especially the kids at Liberty. Just the rest of the week went really well, and I can’t wait to go back next year, and I’m really excited. I forgot to give my highlight.
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Further Highlights
Like I said, Laura and I were down there for three and a half weeks and God taught me a lot too. We had the privilege of seeing several hundred people come to Christ over the three and a half weeks, which was awesome. And we got to share the gospel with people. But the highlight was definitely coming third week to Libertad and joining our team. Having been since 2009, like, to see things happen through the church, it was really cool. And to see our team, like, I mean, I work with a lot of these people. So like, there’s definitely, like, it’s a blessing to see everyone, like, working together. Every team I’ve ever worked with, for the most part, has complained about something. Even when the first night we had one shower and not really any working toilets. Nobody complained about anything and these guys are awesome. We did get that fixed. We ended up somewhere else with four showers and five toilets. And that was a blessing and an answer to prayer. But, God kind of, he was teaching me to be a servant and to sacrifice the whole time I was down there.
And like my wife did great because she doesn’t like bugs and we slept with a lot of bugs and scorpions and spiders.
Bed bugs, yeah. So, it was really cool to see my wife step up as well. That was a highlight.
But when Mike and Steve both preach sermons on like love, it was basically on loving God and everything else comes after that and loving people comes after that. And so I was like, it reinforced everything. I was like, you love God and you honor God and like everything else comes through. And we had some somewhat difficult situations at certain points where I was like, okay, this doesn’t seem like the good idea here, but we need to do the thing that’s honoring to God, and like he’s gonna bless that. And so we we submitted and we did that and we honored God, and like God was really faithful. And the last night he brought in a flood of people like literally when you stepped inside the church building there were so many people like there wasn’t really anywhere to step into, but it was probably 25 degrees hotter in the church than it was outside because there were so many bodies in there. And it was definitely a highlight to see so many young men like Scott and some of the others shared about in the church, because we haven’t been able to really get them to come in the church before. They don’t want to come in through the door. They’re too ashamed. And so to see God bring them in so that they could hear the gospel was definitely a highlight for me. Yeah, it’s amazing.
As a couple people have mentioned, I talked to Steve Adams, the youth pastor from Riverview a couple of days before I left. We were like, hey, what do you think in terms of your topics? And I was preaching twice. He was preaching twice. And really, we didn’t have any clear direction. were still both praying. And So that’s really where our conversation left was, I don’t know what you’re preaching on and I don’t know what I’m preaching on. And so, um, for, you know, I preached first on Sunday morning and then Steve’s message just went perfectly with mine and really kept the, the, this theme of love. And then he preached, um, really his evangelistic outreach message was on, um, the story of the paralytic man and healing and how we need to be spiritually touched and then mine kind of bounced off that because I had was preaching on the blind man who you know Jesus touched twice and I mean it was it was amazing and as Brian shared Wednesday night was our last night there our last and when it got to be like 7 7 15 I mean there really wasn’t anyone there and I’m like oh great you know we passed out hundreds of flyers and you know and then no one’s here and then slowly people started trickling in. And Justice texted me like, because I was kind of just focused on what was going on, and the worship and everything, and Justice texted me halfway through the service, and he said, we have over 130 people right now. And I was just like, and it just kind of so slowly happened, you didn’t even realize it, but you had to get what ended up being over 140 people in that little church. It was a lot. It was amazing. Pastor West ended up sharing. He kind of had a little testimony to give. And his job, the way he gets income is he’s a taxi cab driver. So he owns his own business, which means he just drives around in his vehicle and gives people short rides and charges them a couple dollars. And so I had kind of had a conviction it’d be great for us to be able to get him a vehicle. I only shared that with a couple people. I shared that with some people in our life group. I think only part of the staff at church, and then I shared that with the entire team. We had a small handful of people commit about, I think it was $5,700. I went to the team about a month before we left our show and I said, hey guys, we’ve been talking about this and here’s where we’re at. We have $5,700. If we wanted to get him a halfway decent vehicle, we really need about 10,000 American because what 10,000 would buy here would be actually a pretty nice car. which actually wouldn’t buy that nice of a car there. So we needed a pretty good chunk. I shared that with the team. The next day, someone walked into my office and gave me two checks for $4,000. So that brought us right up to about $10,000. Yeah. Yeah. . Yeah. Yeah., yeah. Yeah. So I called him and told him that. And he was kind of in shock. And he said, you know, I’m like, we have, it’s 20,000, it would be 20,000 Belize. So we have 20,000 Belize that a small handful of people have given for you to buy a vehicle for yourself, because we believe it’s important for you, you would be able to do your job. His vehicle was totally trashed, the firewalls burned through. Yeah, you guys, I think the first week drove quite a bit and now it doesn’t work, right? Yeah, well, perfect timing. And he said, you know, we’re going to pray about how to, I’ll take this to my church and we’ll pray about how to use the money. And I’m like, well, you can pray however you want, but this money’s going towards the vehicle for you. Because I said, this is what the people have given it for. They specifically gave it for you to buy a vehicle. And I know you have a big car and you’d take half and spend it on other needs for your church, but this is what they gave it for. This is really what you need to do. And so he agreed. So that night, he hadn’t bought the vehicle yet. We told him to take your time, look for the best deal. He got up in front of the church, and I was wondering, how is he gonna like share this with the village where everyone knows him? And all of a sudden he shows up with, with a brand new used vehicle. And he just, he shared that, he started by saying, I’ve been praying for over three years for a vehicle. And he said, and I wrote it in my Bible, and he had his Bible with him, and he had dated it. And he And he said, and to make sure that everyone knew that the Lord was going to answer this prayer, I had had my daughter signed next to it. Kind of like, almost like as a witness that this is what I’m praying. And he had shared this and had people at the different churches that he’s connected with in different villages praying for them for a vehicle. And he was just like, he doesn’t get like super excited, but I mean he was excited and just smiling, you know, just ear to ear. and he told this 140 people, you know, I was given 20,000 beliefs, and like every single mouth like dropped open. That’s a lot of money in beliefs. That’s a lot of money. for them, that’s more than a year’s salary. So whatever you’re making, think if someone handed you a check for a one-year salary for you. I mean, that’s a lot. And the guy in front of me, he just like, he like flew back in his chair when he heard the amount. And he was like looking at the person, you know, next to him. And he just said he went to the bank, and he, because it went through Prain Pelican, they handed him a check for 10,000 American. He went to the bank to put it into an account to keep it safe. And the teller was like, man, where did you get this much money? And so he kind of told him the story. and he’s like, why would they give you that much money? And he said, because they love me. And the teller said, I wish someone loved me that much. So he got a chance to share.
And he made it really clear to the village that I don’t have the money on me. The money’s in a bank and that was good for him to do. But he did a great way of really using that as a testimony to the Lord to share with many people that were there that were unbelievers that, you know, this is how God had answered his prayer. This was a faithful God that would be there for them. That was, the last night, just the culmination of that, the Lord bringing people in, Brian was right, in the middle of when I was talking, I literally just said, we get too focused on the physical, and my microphone like started popping and making noises and we mess with it. And I just put it down and it was just like, b I don’t know, it was like, it was almost like the microphone had been holding me back. It was like, I don’t know, God touched me in a way that he hadn’t too many times before. It was amazing. And from my perspective, being up on stage, you know, seeing everyone, when I gave the invitation, I mean, hands were going up everywhere, asked for recommitment to the Lord, hands were going up everywhere. It was an amazing, amazing night. It really was the culmination of what we had been We could be up here for hours and hours telling more amazing stories, but it was great stuff. Probably the key thing that I thought was a lot of us did have a heart for kind of that age gap between maybe 14 and a young adult that we felt like was missing. And in talking with the pastor, you know, he knew it was missing and was humble enough to acknowledge it. So that’s why we did the marriage and parenting class. And our bus driver, Eustace, who also works for praying pelican as an assistant trip leader, he was in there for our marriage and parenting class, and he said it was one of the highlights of his summer to hear that. And I think that really just echoed what us Americans, as we prayed how to reach Belize, is that there’s some maybe shortcomings when it comes to parenting, even with believers. And that’s why there is that gap from 14 on up. They’re not fully passing it on to their kids and getting their kids to grasp a hold of it. It was encouraging that Eustace saw that. He encouraged us with that, encouraged us to keep doing that. The pastor had come to us, which reconfirmed that that’s really what we were supposed to do. All of us saw, I think, different aspects of some breakthroughs. Those kids from the kids, the young adults adults from the basketball court that Scott had been playing with and the other guys had been playing with for them to come. If you haven’t been to Belize, it’s a little more challenging to understand how big that is for them to come through drinking, smoking, all of that stuff. It’s just you don’t go to church if you do that. You just don’t even think about entering church if that’s what you do. So for them to come, that alone for them was a step of faith and that was cool to see God doing that in many people’s lives. So you know really we were blessed. Would you guys say that you were blessed this week and the Lord taught us many things, grabbed people during the lunch downstairs to hear more stories. We could talk your ears off and you guys need to when you’re sitting around your people downstairs. It was really cool. It was an amazing week. Thank you for your prayers. I have only, actually I’ve had text messages back to the United States when I’ve been in Belize the last three times, but this time there was some crazy stuff going on in spiritual warfare and so I sent text messages back and everything time I sent those back to certain people, like within a day, that stuff cleared up and the Lord answered it. And so I know many of you were praying for us for different things and honestly, the Lord answered those prayers. So thank you guys so much for praying. Amen.
I can’t get the pastor. That was good, Amen.
I wanted to put my Belize hat on to show my solidarity. What do you think? Good? Good? Good? Good? So, Alison, I’m not sweating. I thought it was funny you sat next to Dan. No, I’m just kidding Dan.
Yeah, I’m sure. I’m sure. Next, we want to clarify next Saturday, Master Plan is going out, there was some confusion about the time. Do you want to stand up or David? David Snyder, welcome David. Next week at 10.30 here at the church, we’re going to meet here and we’re going to take and I take whoever can come out with us, and we’re going to share the gospel and the streets of St. Charles. Be here at 1030. Be here at 1030, when we have carvings, all you have to bring is your cell. Okay, and you’re going to go to Old Town? Main Street, that area. We’ll try to actually get all the guys to stuff. And we’ll go over all that between we’re here at 1030, and we’ll leave it and share the gospel. Very good, 1030 next Saturday. Now listen, listen, here’s the Lord, lead in my heart. I wanna share something real quick with you guys. You have returned from Belize, but you have not returned from the mission field. Did you hear that? That means we’re all on the mission field. They’re home, but now they’re on their home mission field. And so I wanna see every one of these people here Master Plan next Saturday. But I think to encourage them to do that, I think that we should all show up next Saturday since we’re on the mission field. Now for some of you, it’s like Ellison’s sweat problem. The idea of going out and handing somebody a track makes you tremble. Makes you sweat. And you’ve never gotten over it. It’s like Laura’s bug phobia. Now if she’d given into her phobia, she wouldn’t have been able to see all the miracles that God did in these couple weeks. Right? Am I right? to you’re standing on a threshold, and on the other side is God using you to bring people to Jesus Christ, and on this side is your fear. And you have a choice, and you can step over that threshold and be used by God to save souls. To save souls. I want to say to Scott, I was the drunken pothead. When I was 14, I started drinking hard liquor by the time I was 17. I was drunk or stoned every day until I was 19.
We would do things like on Christmas break, we would make a vow with our friends that we would be drunk the whole time. I was drunk for 21 days in a row. The first thing you did when you got up is you started drinking. And the last thing you did before you went to bed as you drank. And we wanted to see if we could do it, and we did it. That’s who’s preaching the gospel today. That person. The person that used alcohol and all kinds of chemicals and smoked all the funny weeds.
That person, okay, you have to understand, if you would have seen me then, you would have said, drunken podhead, don’t even bother giving that person the gospel. But that’s the person that Jesus loves to save. That’s the person. It’s not the respectable people. It’s the very people we think are unsavable, that he saves because then he gets all the glory. He gets the glory. So we are on the mission field. And I’m, this is not just for them, they’ve done a lot of work. But I do want to see them next week. Because we get excited about going over there to preach the gospel, but there are people here that need the gospel. There are people in Old Town, next Saturday morning when we walk out there, you’re going to see potheads. You’re going to see all kinds of people. You see moms and dads, you see little kids, you’ll see it all. And every one of them needs the gospel of Jesus Christ, and Jesus cares about them. He does. If He cared enough to save me and my drunken, chemical-induced stupor, then He cares for them. And we need to let the love of Jesus come into our hearts, we Christians, and let it flow through us to a lost and dying world. need to get over it. You just need to get over it. Laura got over it. We should applaud Laura for getting over it. You know what, Amy, Amy, Amy, she
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some of the men here to shame. They got over their fear for Jesus. What about you? Amen? Amen.
So let’s do this thing we’re called to do, it’s called the Great Commission, and we just need to get over it. Get over it and get on with it. Because there are people that God wants to save, and I believe that just as in Belize, so here if we will obey and step over that threshold and trust God and walk in faith, we will see.
Closing Prayer
Father, we thank You just for how amazing you are, that you save wretches like us.
And we just thank you God that then not only do you save us, you turn around and use us and make us the instruments of your grace to other people. I pray Lord for everyone that was touched and believed, God, I ask that all the seeds sown would bear fruit and the fruit would remain. And when we return, we would just see just what you’ve done through the ministry there the past few weeks. We do ask Lord, keep Becca Inman in Your care as she is still there. Guard and protect her, Lord, and bring her back safely. I pray, Lord, for next Saturday. I ask God that we would just be willing to go. Just be willing, God. And that we would stop saying no to you when your spirit prods us. And I ask God for your anointing on the outreach next Saturday. Your anointing Lord. Your spirit God. Lord the love of Jesus flowing through your people. This is what the world needs to see. And we thank you that you can save wretches like us. And that you’ll do that if we’ll obey you. Lord as we fellowship downstairs over food we ask that you bless the food to our bodies, bless the fellowship to the edification of your body and we ask it in Jesus name Amen