"Jesus Misses Us!"

THIS WEEK I went to Miami with my team to do a Vacational Bible School with Bridge Church, which has very recently been planted there. The pastor, Fikri Youssef, told us his opinion that mission trips are one of the fastest tracks you can take to growth. I absolutely relate to that, because I have come back home very different. Where before this week I was just trying to make sure each day that I didn't waste my summer. Now I am so overwhelmed by the goodness of God that I hardly know what to do with myself.

God gave my team such powerful unity. We ranged in age from 9 to 50, and we all quickly became best friends. We had a running list of all the funny things people said, and we encouraged and prayed for each other all the time. I can see ways God put us together as a team so we'd have everybody we needed - for songs, for hugs, for wisdom, for laughter, for tricking Miss Kim into thinking we'd all run away from Miss Karen at MacDonald's.

For two days after VBS we would go pass out fliers to get more kids to come. One afternoon we were doing this in the park, and the Pastor's daughter, Amira, fell off a play set and hit her head. Her nose was bleeding and her eyes told us she wasn't doing well. Fearing she might have a concussion, we prayed for her together, and right then her nosebleed stopped, her eyes lit up, and she stood up happy and ready for dinner. The next day she told me she only had a little bump. God answered us.

John 14:13 "Whatever  you ask in My name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son."

The first night, a ten-year old girl on my team, Natalie, stood up from our table at a restaurant while we waited for our food. She wouldn't let the wait time be wasted. She took a stack of VBS fliers and started passing them out to the tables around us, in the hopes that even one more kid would come and hear about the love of God, that one more family would get connected with this new church and get to know Him.

All week I was asking God to make me brave like that, because rushing around to share good news with strangers has always made me nervous. But then, so had singing, and now God had taken that fear away so completely that I could help lead worship on this team. I didn't want this to be scary to me anymore. So God answered me. I'm getting a lot better at this. The second day, I felt more prepared to go up to strangers like that in the park and at the mall, so much that I almost gave away my room key giving a Bridge Church card to one couple.

I ran around that mall feeling so happy, because I knew this was what I was supposed to do, an effective way to glorify God, and it was getting less scary for me. Barriers of all kinds came down for every member of my team.

Kids did come. We had about 40, and my team, the Yellow Team, was made up of nine kids. The first day was fun, but I felt overwhelmed. I asked God to help me really love those kids like He helped me love my first team. You should see my pictures of them on my phone. Jasmine with a cotton ball on her nose, Teja and Dre hugging each other and smiling, Allison and Izabella dancing together. I love them so much, I can't stop showing people my pictures. He gave us His love for them.

We danced with them and sang about God's love and trustworthiness, and we had a room where we talked about Bible stories like the resurrection of Lazarus and the Crucifixion. Miss Kim asked the kids in this room if there was anything they were wanting to say or to pray about, and a little guy on my team, Adam, had something to say. "Jesus misses us!" he declared. He kept saying it the next day. I believe God was talking to his six-year old heart.

Romans 5:10 "For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by His life."

Nevertheless I wasn't sure my kids were really getting the gospel. They didn't seem too interested in letting Jesus be their "best friend and their boss" like we were explaining. I thought they might be more into the crackers we gave them and the games we played, and I didn't want it to end there. So I was praying I'd see something by the end, and that they would be saved.

We were all encouraged at the end of the second-to-last day when Pastor Fikri gave a message urging us to preach the gospel because it's everybody's job. He prophesied over each of us, and that was the first time that had happened to me. Paul said it was the best gift of the Spirit, and I see why - it's hard to beat the encouragement somebody can give by sharing the words God gave him about you. So God thinks I'm strong, and sweet, and He doesn't want me to be held back or afraid I can't preach the word because I'll come off as rude. I'm jumping out of my shoes excited about all the boldness and love God's pouring into my soul.

The next day while we were coloring, Adam said to me, "I miss Jesus!" Adam, who was so often impatient to watch a cartoon or have a snack, who never seemed fully engaged in what we were doing, seemed to understand the separation between us and Jesus, the gap that we needed Him to fill. It showed me that Jesus isn't using us because He needs us, but because He just wants to include us. He can get to our hearts all by Himself.

Isaiah 59:1-2 "Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or His ear dull, that it cannot hear; but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He does not hear.

Romans 8:38 "For I am sure that neither death nor life, mor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all Creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God which is Christ Jesus our Lord."



I talked to Adam about letting Jesus be his best friend and his boss, and letting Him live in his little heart and never go away. I love how simple God has made the gospel. What was separated can now be put back together. He wanted that, and so I helped him pray, and then I helped him spell his prayer on the paper: "Jesus I want you to be my boss. From: Adam." He was so excited he even wanted to take it home. But it was a big paper for the whole group, so I wrote it on his tag for him. Then I ran around the edges of the paper to have this same conversation with a few other kids. Five out of my nine kids were saved in that coloring room. That's the first time I've prayed with people in this way, and suddenly, like passing out fliers and singing in front of crowds, it's not scary. It's joyful.

And if it only takes God a week to do all this, I can't wait to see what He'll do in our changed lives here at home for this summer, and then during this school year, if it only takes Him a week to do all this.