Archives January 2012

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Monday Vicky my roommate and I spent all day getting ready for our new roommate Cat. We were given a new bunk bed and new mattress because of the bedbugs, which are gone for good Thank God. Cat moved in on Tuesday afternoon and is a very sweet girl. Tuesday instead of going canvassing with our track I went out with the food truck to Nickerson  my site because Cassie the head of the food truck ministry is having trouble with people from Nickerson becoming violent because they think we are being partial to certain  people. She wanted me to going with her to see if I know anyone form Nickerson that could help in organizing everyone in a line and making sure no one jumped in line. I didn’t know anyone in the line but I think we were able to help reassure the people that we are working at giving everyone as much food as possible. Wednesday and Thursday we spent canvassing and preparing for a live concert and recording of Kevin Lavar’s new CD He performed Friday night at the church. The cool thing is we canvassed on Wednesday at Nickerson and Imperial so I was in Nickerson almost everyday this week with picking up for church and on Friday night for the concert. The Concert was beautiful and my kids loved it! Kevin Lavar has a amazing voice and he gave all of the kids that came on the bussing a gift card. He also paid for all of the busses himself.

Saturday Jonathan at the rally gave out the Adopt a Block yearly awards. It was really cool to see everyone so shocked that they were chosen for the awards. My team and I had so much fun at Adopt a Block. We were able to meet a lot of new people and start to build a great friendship with them. After Adopt a Block I was asked to go out to lunch with a out reach pastor and his staff that come down to see how we do Adopt a Block every week. So we went to lunch and I explained as much as I could all about how Adopt a Block works and everything we do through out the week that makes Saturdays a lot more effective. Sunday after church I went hiking with Courtney up to Griffin park so she could see the observatory and the great view of the city. Monday I had the day off so I went to San Monica and just sat on the beach. I enjoyed having some time all by myself. The beach was so beautiful and I really needed some sun.

Since we didn’t have internet the final 4 days I am catching up on my daily blogs from our trip last week. I hope you enjoy.My devotion today was Mission Motivation. There are two main motivations for me as I follow Jesus on His mission. I’m sure there are others but these stand out in my heart and life.

I.The pain…

I am motivated by the pain in my heart for those who don’t know Jesus, don’t have His peace, don’t have His joy. My heart breaks for the 2 million child sex slaves in the world, for the 800 teens a year that age out of the orphanage in Bogota alone and have nowhere to go and no one to help, for the lonely and sad children in institutions all over the world who need someone to tell them that they love them and that Jesus loves them. I find myself motivated by the pain…

“God break my heart with the things that break your heart.” – Bob Pierce, founder of World Vision and Samaritans purse.

Job 30:25 “Have I not wept for the one whose life is hard?

Was not my soul grieved for the needy?

“If you are a Christ follower, then you have been drafted into an army of compassion that knows no enemy but those things that break the heart of God. And it’s not okay to not do something about them.” – Mark Batterson

I feel the heart of the Father as He loves the world so much that He sacrifices His only Son. I feel the heart of the Shepherd as He searches for the one lost sheep. I feel the heart of Jesus as He weeps over Jerusalem and I am motivated to do more.

II.The Joy…

I am motivated by the inexpressible joy of being on mission with Jesus. I am driven to be near Him and to feel His heart as He loves these children. For some reason when I am near them I feel Him and His presence and His heart more strongly that when I am at home and so I am motivated to follow Him into the fields of the fatherless.

“One of the reasons that we are often not as happy as we should be and could be is that our vision of what our life is about is too small. We try to find happiness in our work, our family, and our friends. He wants the whole world to be embraced by His saving glory in Jesus Christ and He wants you and me to be involved in this. Our hearts can expand with joy in God as we watch Him triumph in the world. One of the reasons that missions is so advancing to our happiness is because you are engaged in something that not only is God very excited about but that cannot fail…  we are linking our lives to something global, something absolutely indomitable, and something absolutely eternal and when you are linked to big things, strong things, sure things like that your joy is deeper, stronger, and bigger.” – John Piper

“We face a humanity that is too precious to neglect. We know a remedy for the ills of the world too wonderful to withhold. We have a Christ too glorious to hide. We have an adventure that is too thrilling to miss.” – Theodore Williams

Mother Teresa  who stared out with 3 pennies and a dream at the time of her death had 610 missions in 123 countries

She summed it up as it relates to the joy of following Jesus on mission, “We all long for Heaven where God is, but we have it in our power to be in Heaven with him right now to be happy with him at this very moment. But being happy with him now means:

loving as he loves

helping as he helps;

giving as he gives

serving as he serves

rescuing as he rescues

being with him 24 hours a day

touching him in his distressing disguise, the poor and suffering.”

Will you pursue His presence, including the pain and the immense joy?

Today we invited 40 girls from Santa Maria orphanage who are all available for adoption and/or Padrino to come and spend the day with us at the club where we are staying. There was swimming, games, crafts, and lots of food. We had a wonderful day and grew even closer to many of these beautiful children. I spent part of the afternoon loving on and talking to a girl named Laura. I’ve known her for 3 years but we have never really had a chance to talk. She sat down with me and said, “Let’s talk” I said, “What do you want to talk about?” She said, “God” and so we walked and talked about God for a long time and she shared her heart with me about many things. It was a sweet time.

We were also blessed with a visit from Paul and Melanie and their daughter. Paul found my blog online some time ago and we have been enjoying Skype with them and also they have been spending time with our friends here at Fundacion Mundo Nuevo but today was the first time for Lisa, Brooke, and I to meet them in person. We had a wonderful visit and are looking forward to more work together in the future.

The most amazing part of the day was when we all met together for a time of sharing and testimony. Several of the girls got up and shared what the day had meant to them and how they had seen the love of God in the team. Two girls in particular shared about some terrible things in their past and about how God had brought them through and how blessed they were to have us and our friendship. Our hearts were deeply moved. Bill Byrd came up to me and said, “Let’s have a forgiveness ceremony and give the girls a chance to cast their burdens on the Lord.” So I shared a brief messaged about the hope of forgiveness and love that is in Christ and how that we are not made to carry our own sin, our own burdens, our own pain. I Peter 5:7 says that we are supposed to “cast those burdens on Him” and Isaiah 53 says that He has already carried them for us and by faith we can enter into His rest. So I invited the girls and the team to kneel before the Lord and cast our lives, hurts, and sins upon Him completely. There were many tears and many prayers. It was a very special time.

After, many of the girls said that it was the most special night of their life. Praise be to God. We then went out to a big bonfire and ate s’mores and sang worship songs in Spanish and English late into the night. We said our tearful goodbyes and the girls got on the bus and went home. Thank you Jesus for the pain and the immense pleasure of loving your little lost lambs.

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Well what a blessed last two weeks! God has really given me a heart for the people here in LA. In the office last week Jonathan told us that he wants each of us to plan one big event this year for the family of our adopt a block site. The event I am planning is a fourth on July party with fireworks, face painting for the kids and a old fashion bucket dunker. I have also been planning a block party at my site for the last Saturday in February. Being a site leader is a lot of work but I love how I can do special thing for my families. Last Saturday at Adopt a Block we were able to give one of our families a bunk bed it was the greatest thing to see the kids go crazy about it. The family has five kids and they only had one bed for the whole family.

Malachi the oldest when we told him we brought him a bed said why I don’t sleep on a bed. I told him he could now. This Saturday we also painted Malachi’s room. It looked so nice with the new paint and a new bunk bed with new sheets. God has really blessed us with the opportunity to reach out to families like Malachi’s and be His hands and feet. I pray everyday that I will never take for granted that He has entrusted me to represent Jesus to my families. What a great and humbling gift. Sunday I hiked with a some friends up a mountain right next to the Hollywood sing. The view  was so beautiful!

Our devotion this morning was Mission Imagination. I started out with a few of my favorite quotes on “thinking big for God”

“If your vision doesn’t scare you, then both your vision and your God are too small.” – Brother Andrew

“Faith does not operate in the realm of the possible. There is no glory for God in that which is humanly possible. Faith begins where man’s power ends.” – George Mueller

“God loves with a great love the man whose heart is bursting with a passion for the impossible.” – William Booth

We serve a big God!!!  He cannot be exaggerated!

Eph. 3:20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us,

“Dreaming is a form of praying and praying is a form of dreaming.” – Elizabeth Elliot

Faith is like imagination

Heb. 11:1 Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see.

“Oh you of little faith!” Four times in Matthew Jesus rebuked His disciples for not believing big enough about some pretty scary things. What in our life is He saying, “Oh you of little faith” about?

Matt. 6:30 Food and clothes
Matt. 8:26 Storm!
Matt. 14:31 Walking on water!
Matt. 16:8 No Bread!

John 14:12 “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father.

Can you imagine?

Immeasurably more than we can imagine…

I then told about Brother Yun from the book Heavenly Man and about his dream to send 100,000 chinese missionaries west through the 10/40 window all the way to Jerusalem.

Can you imagine? How big is your God? Can He be exaggerated?

Today was another beautiful day in the fields of the fatherless. We returned to Santa Maria orphanage today and spent more time loving on and witnessing to the precious 185 girls there. Because of many of the relationships we built yesterday it was easy to pick up where we left off and go beyond to spend more time sharing about Christ. Bill brought 12 EvangeCubes with him on the trip and these were a big hit today. Once we showed the girls how it worked and told the story of salvation many of them took the cube to other girls and retold the story with the cube. It was amazing. Many opportunities for sharing Christ arose today and one of our team members, Patricia, who is originally from Ecuador and speaks fluent Spanish was able to lead one of the workers to Christ.

Another blessing today was that my friend Raul Velez who runs an adoption ministry out of Florida was here today with 4 pastors that he brought from Florida. I was blessed to introduce Raul to Jose Vicente last year and they are working on some exciting projects together. We had a nice time of fellowship.

As I was standing talking to Raul my phone beeped that I had a text. I quickly looked down because I knew my daughter in law, Jana, was at the hospital with my daughter Beverly and other daughter in law Misti and that Jana was about to deliver her and my second son, Levi’s, first baby. Sure enough! When I read the text from Beverly it said, “The Baby is here!!!” I turned to my wife and said, “You’re a grandma again!” What a day! Now I’m a double grandfather or doble abuelo as they say here. Thank you God for all of your blessings. Jana is living with us while my son serves on a destroyer in the Mediterranean with the U.S. Navy so I will get to hold that precious little bundle when I get home on Sunday.

At noon Jose Vicente, Bill, Dave, and I had to leave to go to a very important meeting with the Colombian government. It was a blessed meeting. The rest of the team stayed and played with the girls. At 3:30 p.m. as planned Javier played some Spanish worship songs and then Luis Acosta, Pastora Liliana’s brother, preached an amazing message (from all accounts) and there were many decisions for Christ. Then the team headed for the bus and there were many tears as they said farewell to these beautiful girls for the last time on this trip.

We met up at a nearby restaurant for a wonderful time of fellowship and food. Thank you for all of the prayers. We love you all.

As is our custom every morning on our mission trips, I lead a devotion that relates to why we are here.  My devotion this morning focused on Mission Origination where I talked about the doctrine of Missio Dei and the fact that God is on a mission to redeem the world and He is the originator of the mission and He has invited us to join Him. I like how one person said it recently,

“Our mission is not to reach the world… that is too small a vision. Our mission is to be with God as He is on mission to reach the world.”

Jesus was the first missionary. He left His country and came to ours to preach good news to the poor and lift up the brokenhearted and release the captives. David Livingstone said it this way,

“God had only one Son and he made that Son a missionary.” – David Livingston

33 times in the book of John alone Jesus says, …the Father “sent Me.” We are also sent,

John 17:18 “As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.

John 20:21 So Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you; as the Father has sent Me, I also send you.”

I finished by sharing that when we agree to join God on His mission in this world there is no telling what He might do with that surrender. In 1947 Bob Pierce, a young Youth for Christ worker, set out for China with only enough money to make it to Honolulu. On the way he led a young girl to Christ named White Jade. When White Jade went home and told her parents that she had become a follower of Christ they through her out of the house. She came crying back to the people that Bob Pierce was staying with and they asked Bob, “What are you going to do now?” Bob reached in his pocket and retrieved $5.00, all the money he had, and gave it to the lady saying, “Take care of White Jade and each month I will send more.” And he did. In 1950 he founded World Vision who now helps people to sponsor children like White Jade in over 90 countries today. Bob also founded in 1970 a ministry called Samaritan’s Purse and took under his wing a young man named Franklin Graham. Bob died in 1978 but his legacy lives on all over the world. When we decide to obey and join God on mission, there is no telling what He will do.

Today we visited Santa Maria orphanage in Madrid. There are 185 girls residing there. It was a beautiful sunny day and we played frisbee, soccer, American football, tag, cards, made manillas (bracelets) and much more. The new and veteran members of the team were quickly surrounded and enveloped by beautiful lonely girls. There are too many stories to tell but suffice it to say that like Bob Pierce used to say our hearts were “broken with what breaks yours, Lord.” There were many smiles, hugs, kisses, singing, and a general good time all day. We handed out Spanish Gospel tracts and evangecubes and Christian coloring books and stickers and silly bands and lots of candy. But most importantly we showed them and told them of the love of Jesus.

One of the highlights of the day was that we were able to see the new computer lab that we purchased through funds raised in our silent auction in November as well as the funds raised by Michael Ford, his friends, and their teacher, Mrs. Lisa Stoyak, at Northpointe Intermediate School next door to my apartment complex. Santa Maria previously had only 3 old computers to share among 185 girls and they were constantly breaking down. With these funds we were able to provide them with 12 new laptops. They will use these computers to learn skills that will help them survive once they leave the orphanage. They were very excited.

We hope to connect the girls with Mrs. Stoyak’s class at Northpointe Intermediate via Skype very soon so that they can give her class a virtual “MUCHAS GRACIAS!”

We arrived safely at the airport last night and were greeted by many of our Colombian friends from churches, institutions, and our beloved Goddaughters. As I always joke, my heart, which lives in Colombia, was re-united with my body, which lives in Texas! It felt good. It was Lisa’s first time back in Colombia in a year and a half. It’s so good to have her here. Brooke hadn’t been here in a year and neither of them had seen Heidy in a year so it was triple good.

This morning we met for worship with all of our friends from two churches and Fundacion Mundo Nuevo, our partner here in Colombia. Pastors Lucas & Dorayne and Pastors Hector & Liliana were wonderful hosts at Iglesia Libertad. One of the blessings for me personally on this trip is that recently I met the brother of Pastora Liliana who lives in Houston and we immediately felt in our spirits that God had arranged this meeting. His name is Luis and he is a youth pastor at a Spanish church on 290 and the beltway. Pastora Liliana and her family have been dear friends and a help to our ministry in Colombia so I asked Luis to travel to Colombia with us as a translator and to preach in the orphanages for us this week and this way he could also see his sister (whom I didn’t know at the time he hadn’t seen in 3 years). It was a wonderful reunion for them and their father is coming down from northern Colombia later in the week to be with them all. How wonderful God works. So anyway, Luis translated for me as I preached this morning and it was the most anointed time of ministry I have enjoyed since I started coming here. I preached from Matthew 9:36-38

When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; 38 therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

I titled the sermon A Prescription For Revival.  There are 4 things from this passage that if we would imitate and obey God would surely send us a great harvest.

I.Visualize (he saw)

20 times in the N.T. it says that Jesus saw… Luke 4:35 “Lift up your eyes and look…”

II.Internalize (had compassion)

Take responsibility for the condition of the world…

III.Agonize (pray earnestly)

Hungry for souls…

IV.Evangelize (Go you)

When we have agonized we will have the Holy Spirit fire to evangelize…

At the end of the message God blessed with many coming to commit to Visualize, Internalize, Agonize, and Evangelize Bogota – Colombia – South America – Western Hemisphere – The World.

We spent the afternoon with the beautiful children of the Shamuel orphanage many of whom had only been there for days or even hours and many were crying and missing their parents. It was my blessing to talk with many of them about Christ and especially to sit for a long time with one girl named Carolina. Her father is dead and something happened to her mother and she was crying and missing her mom. I sat and rubbed her back and listened for a long time telling her that I understood and that I was sorry and then eventually the conversation turned to Jesus and I was able to share about the hope that is in a vital relationship with Him. She slowly cheered up and stopped crying and we had a lively discussion. I encouraged her to place her faith and trust and hope in Him and she assured me that she will. She was called away to dinner and I had a nice conversation with three young men and shared my testimony of coming to Christ as a 16 year old boy. They listened intently and asked many questions. I thank God that my Spanish has gotten to the point where I can really speak for Him! What a blessing. Just as we were about to leave Carolina came running up from the dining hall and hugged me and kissed me on the cheek with a big smile and said, “Gracias Mateo!” and then she was gone. God you are so beautiful…

We fell into bed exhausted but very blessed.

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It is impossible to realizes or even think about all of the conveniences you give up when to come to the Dream Center until you  leave for a week or two. All this week I have had to almost relearn how to live at the Dream Center. It’s not all bad because it actually is like a crash course in what it would be like to be a missionary. I believe to really make any difference in someone or somewhere you have to be willing to give up your want for a normal life and some times you have to be willing to give up everything important to you. I always see it as I could never give as much as Jesus did for me but I want to see how close I can get. God has really showed me this week how much I still hold onto that is more important to me then the people He sent me to minister to. I want so much to reach this world for Christ and to show them how life doesn’t need to be lived like they think it have to be but to do that I have give up the life style I have gotten accustomed to. Even having a Bible is a luxury here! I am so ashamed at how much money I have wasted over the years but I trust Jesus’ plan for the rest for my life. On Saturday I was so blessed to spend the day with a great family I have recently met. I am so blessed to be the site leader for Nickerson! One more story I have to tell is every Sunday I have four teenage girls from my site sit with me through the service and every week one girl named Andy asks me if she can look at my Bible. She will sit through the whole service looking at and writing down on a pad different verses. So I really wanted to get her a Bible but I didn’t know how, well I was organizing my room and I found a Bible I thought I left at home. So this Sunday when she asked to see my Bible I gave her one and said you can keep this one I got it for you. She was so exited! The other girl all asked me to get them one to, so I am praying for three Bibles I can give them. God is so good to me! He gave me the perfected job ever! On Sunday after church we went hiking in Glendale mountains again in a park called Eaten park. We had a great time and had a amazing Bible study as well.

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Wow I can’t believe that it has been so long since I have written my blog! Christmas is such a hectic time of the year and especially so for me because I went home for two week but let me start at the beginning of my craziness. So it all started with the Joy of Christmas musical at the church, it was wonderful. All of the cast member were people from the dream center and after ever show we gave a free toy away to all of the kids that came. My job for the play was to ride the buses to and from our sites to help with watching the kids and to make sure everyone got back on the bus before we went back to the site. We had a total of seven show and form my site alone we had on Saturday night seventy people! It was a mad home of trying to get everyone back on the buses and making sure we didn’t leave anyone. But I was blessed to be able to lead the kids through the line to get their present. I almost cried every time. Well right at the end of the Joy of Christmas which went form Wednesday night to Sunday night, we had our yearly Miracle offering at the church that Sunday morning. So every year in December the church has a time where you give to God a offering you know you can’t give but you give anyway in faith because you know He will bless your faithfulness to Him. It was incredible! Instead of passing a bucket around the pastor lad a white sheet on the stage and had everyone come up to the front and lay their offerings on the alter like it says the Israelites did at the dedication of the temple. We had kids from the Movement giving their coats, purses and expenses shoes. What a great way to start the new year renewing your trust in the Lord and not in your bank account. We also had an offering after every Joy of Christmas show for the new family floor we wanted to open before Christmas because the family floor we already have is full and we still have at lest twelve families on a waiting list. On Monday morning when we counted the offering we received for the Miracle offering and the Joy of Christmas, the cash alone was forty thousand dollars. It took me and my team four hours to count it all and there was six of us counting! We were able to open the family floor three days before Christmas! God is so good! Well right in the middle of all that I found out that the lady who was site leader for my site Nickerson Gardens in the Watts was not going to be able to be site leader anymore so Jonathan wanted me to be site leader. I am exited but all so little nerves because this is a big responsibility, but I believe God has  call me to this for a reason. Well if that was not enough me and my roommate got bedbug the Tuesday right before the Joy of Christmas started. Bedbugs are horrid because to get rid of them you have to spray your room and wash or dry all of you cloths, and when they spray your room it leaves a nasty film on everything so you have to clean you entire room. I also had to dry my bag I was taking home and all the cloths I was taking again to keep any of the bedbug from going home with me because if one bedbug is in my bag it will spread to my entire family. But we finally got rid of them the week before I left. So that is all before I went home! I went home a week before Christmas and boy did my sister Brooke have a lot in store for me! We had made a list of all of the things we wanted to do together when I was home. So we jumped right in it starting with going to itz. I put some funny pictures of us at itz on face book.
 I literally think I had one night at home the whole two week I was there. We went ice stating, rollerblading, and watched the new Sherlock Homes movie. I also went shopping for like three days strait with my mom and my sisters. It was so much fun being at home and having your family fight over who gets to hang out with you next. Saturday was my twenty-three birthday and I spent it with my brother and my niece at the state park walking by the lake and just hanging out. God is so good to me I don’t deserver His grace.