Archives 2016

In May of this year my adopted sister Mercy and I had the unbelievable opportunity to visit her biological family in Liberia and see the work God is doing through Mercy’s House there. During our trip we had a life altering experience and it has taken me this long to write or even talk about it because I needed time to understand what God was telling me through this experience. For you to understand the significance of my experience I need to tell you some of my past struggles.

I had what most people would think was a perfect life. I was raised in a loving family who were totally devoted to God and His mission in the world. I met God at a young age and fell in love with Him as a teenager. I never “sowed my wild oats” as a teenager. I committed my whole life to God which lead me to serve in inner city Los Angeles, Zambia, Rwanda and Colombia. But even with this seemly flawless life, I was tortured by self-doubt, depression, anxiety, worthlessness, and a desire to leave this life. I was never suicidal but I wanted God to take me “home”. I prayed that He would give me an incurable disease or let me die on the mission field somehow. I had this overwhelming feeling that this life was to hard and I just couldn’t take anymore disappointments or hurts. You see, I was molested at a young age and I know that had a lot to do with my feelings. But through counseling and Bible-studies I had started healing and even forgave the person who hurt me. I started understanding my worth in Christ. I knew He had a plan for me and He had a mission for me in this world. I knew He loved me and I was His spotless Bride but still I couldn’t shake the feeling that I didn’t want to live here any longer. Every time I took a step in the right direction; I would pray and admit to God what I was feeling and ask Him to help me; I would still wake up the next morning feeling the same way. I was still living the life I knew God wanted me too but my heart was never fully in it. So now that you are caught up, back to Liberia.

Liberia has some of the most beautiful beaches and ocean I have ever seen. So one day while Mercy and I were in Liberia we decided we wanted to go swimming at the beach right next to her sister Olive’s house with Olive and her daughter, Little Mercy. Mercy and I had played in the ocean the day before but didn’t go in very far. We wanted to jump the waves and play in the beautifully warm and clear water. We were having the time of our lives until a wave more powerful than the rest came and quickly pushed us both out to sea. Suddenly I couldn’t touch the sand any longer and the waves were so strong I could barely keep my head above the water. Mercy was right next to me screaming as loud as she could for help. I am a better swimmer then she so I tried to swim back to the beach while holding onto her but I only succeeded in allowing Mercy to push me under the water and hold me under until I almost filled my lungs with water. When I finally struggled free of Mercy and lifted my head out of the water, I was nearly out of strength. As I looked back at the beach, I realized we were so far out now that even if I swam by myself I couldn’t get back. At that moment I thought, “why are you trying so hard, isn’t this what you want, to die here in the mission field? This really isn’t your fault. You could just stop swimming now and it would all be over.” But as I looked at Mercy desperately trying to keep her head out of the water, I knew I couldn’t give up. I had to keep on trying. And at that moment I began to hear Mercy praying “God please help me! This can’t be the end!” And I started praying too, “God please! I don’t want this to be the end!” Suddenly I heard God answer me, “are you sure, I thought you where done, I thought you wanted to die.” I said, “ No I was wrong, I have so much to live for, I want to see my nieces and nephews grow up.” Then I thought about my family and all the people God had given me in my life and I realized how selfish I had been and I repented and asked God for one more chance. At that moment a huge wave came literally out of nowhere and shoved Mercy and me back toward the beach and I was able to make it back to again get my feet on the sand; I helped Mercy reach me, pulled her in, and we walked back to the beach hand in hand then dropped on the sand and lay there a long while just breathing. From that moment until now I have been free from all the depression I had felt and I wake up every morning thanking God for another chance to live and do what He has called me to do.

After four months of reflection on why God allowed us to almost drown and then saved us, I have come to some conclusions and I want to share then with you.

First, God can deliver you from anything. He not only saved us from the water but also freed me from the depression that had haunted me most of my life. I can truthfully say I am finally and fully fee! Praise my Jesus!

Second, You can’t save someone if you are also drowning. This might sound weird but it has opened my eyes to most people’s condition. We always want to judge people and be angry at them for not being better people and helping us when we need them. But most people are going through more than we know or will ever know. They can’t help you when they can barely keep themselves swimming. God, however, can save you and He is all you need.

Third, Jesus hears you and will answer in His time. Maybe not as dramatically as He did for me but He will answer you as He see best.

Here are some of the scriptures that have meant the world to me in the last couple of months. I hope they show you how Great our God truly is. He can do what He wants at any time and He is so passionately in Love with us that He hears us when we pray!

 
[quote] “I sought the Lord, and He answered me; He delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to Him are radiant with Joy, their faces are never covered with shame. This poor man called, and the Lord heard him; He saved him out of all his troubles.” Psalm 34:4-6[/quote]
 
[quote] “But now, O Jacob, listen to the Lord who created you. O Israel, the One who formed you says, “Do not be afraid, for I have ransomed you. I have called you by name; you are mine. When you go through deep waters, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown. When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up; the flames will not consume you. For I am the Lord, your God.” Isaiah 43:1-3a[/quote]
 
[quote] “He reached down from heaven and rescued me; He drew me out of deep waters. He rescued me from my powerful enemies, from those who hated me and were too strong for me.” Psalms 18:16-17 [/quote]
 
[quote] “For I am the Lord, your God, who takes hold of your right hand and says to you . Do not fear; I will help you.” Isaiah 41:13 [/quote]
 
[quote] “This I declare about the Lord: He alone is my refuge, my place of safety; He is my God, and I trust in Him.” Psalm 91:2[/quote]
 

Love, Rebekah Bullen

At Large Missionary

Mission Critical International

Photos of Rebekah’s Ministry

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Placing roses on the mass graves.

Almost exactly a year ago today I received a text message while at work at Baxalta; it said that dad had been in a car accident and totaled the only vehicle that my family had. I informed my boss of the situation and he being the amazing human being that he is, may God have mercy on his soul, told me to go home. On the way home I was praying and fighting with the Spirit regarding how I felt about the situation. I arrived at the freeway exit and hit a red light, while waiting for it to turn green so I could turn left to get home; I felt God ask me why I didn’t join my dad in ministry. I responded angrily and tearfully while beating the poor steering wheel of my car yelling, “My dad gives to the poor, loves people, and if anyone has ever trusted You in faith he does!” “Yet he is always broke, always abandoned by his friends, and can’t even own a car!” “If this is how you treat those who give everything to You and trust You in faith then I want no part of it, no thank you God, I don’t have enough faith and you don’t take care of my family enough, to abandon all my hard work for You.” I was expecting Him to respond in anger or condemnation but instead I felt the Spirit ask me what it would take for me to join dad in the ministry; I asked for a salary. I told Him that if he could match 60% of my Baxalta salary I would quit my job and join dad in full time ministry, but the money couldn’t come from donors, couldn’t come from Mission Critical, and couldn’t come from dad’s business; it had to be free of all strings and just magically appear into my account every month. If God could answer that one simple prayer and show me that He does indeed take care of His children who trust Him at all times then I would walk in faith to wherever the Spirit led.

Less than a week later I felt spiritual warfare all around every aspect of my life. I could sense demons stalking me everywhere I went and I could sense angels praying for me and encouraging me. Obviously I was terrified and oddly curious as to what was going on. I spent hours in prayer, reading the word, and doing everything I could to minister to anyone I ran across. The spiritual presence intensified to the point that I walked outside at 4 in the morning with my hands raised in the air yelling at God, asking Him what the heck was going on! He responded, “trust me at all times, abandon everything and follow me.” A few short hours later I parked my car at an unknown location in downtown Atlanta and simply walked away from it, threw my keys off a bridge, threw my phone on the ground shattering it, and threw my wallet into someone’s mailbox; odd I know. The spirit strongly encouraged me to perform a miracle and told me, “We will walk and not grow weary, we will run and not faint.” So I walked, ran, walked, and ran all over Atlanta without saying a word for the following 28 or so hours. Never grew tired, nothing hurt, never grew hungry, and had no sore muscles the following day. While walking I saw many signs and wonders as well as many visions, some of which have been explained since, most of which are still a mystery to me. However, at the end of the walk I could not remember my name or where I left any of my belongings so I was committed to a psych ward. I have no idea how my family found me but they did and came and collected me.

Several months later after applying for veteran benefits I was declared disabled both physically (bone spurs on my feet and loss of hearing in my left ear) and mentally (PTSD). I received a disability pension that equaled 80% of my Baxalta salary and at that moment I knew God loves His children and can indeed do mighty miracles through those who trust in Him at all times. So I joined Mission Critical full time as we started planning several trips for 2016.

The first trip was to Colombia and I wrote 2 blogs of my experience there and I highly recommend to anyone who wishes to please read them, one was about the children in poverty there and around the world,  the other was about veterans here and abroad.  Both were written from the heart and difficult to write but expressed what the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is doing around this world with both children and veterans from my point of view. While those blogs came from the heart and were hard to write both pale in comparison to the experience I had in Rwanda.

Rwanda, oh how I could write from now till Jesus returns about the blessings and trials that country is and has been through and it wouldn’t cover a fraction of the feelings I have for that country. I read many military briefs and summaries of Rwanda while I was in the Navy, both of the failure of the international community to step in during the genocide and of the massive accolades that Rwanda has received for it’s humanitarian work since then. When I started working for Mission Critical and I heard that we had a contact in Rwanda who was working to build a Mercy’s house there and how he wanted us to come and preach there my first response was; who are we that Rwanda has anything to hear from us? We are not worthy to set foot in that sacred country; on that sacred ground. Yet in July of 2016 Rebekah, Brooke, Dad, and I stepped off a plane onto the tarmac in Rwanda, and THAT story alone is a miracle that needs to be told on another day. When we stepped off the plane, the same angels that I heard praying for me in Georgia were singing praises to God for us around the airport. I never felt closer to God than the day I went walking in faith in Atlanta, and stepping off the plane in Rwanda.

But what was it specifically about Rwanda that is so hard to write about? Is it the genocide that happened? The fact that that genocide happened during my lifetime? The fact that I remember watching it unfold on the news as a kid? Yes and no. On our first day in Rwanda, my first time ever visiting Africa, we ran many errands to finish the final preparations for the many crusades that pastor Ndagijimana had planned for us, also on our first day in Rwanda we discovered that not only had Ndagijimana finished and finalized the paperwork to make Mission Critical Rwanda a legitimate entity in Rwanda but that he also planted five churches under it. So now not only are we a mission team in Rwanda trying to start building an orphanage there, we are the heads and representatives of five new churches in the country, shocking news to us. After running many errands to finish preps for the crusades he planned we visited the genocide memorial. Let me say that nothing prepared me for what we were about to see.

Preaching in Nygatare

We arrived at the museum and I noticed that they were selling roses to place on the graves, the proceeds for the sales would go to the families of the survivors. “Magically” there “happened” to be 5 roses left for sale, there were 5 of us, so I bought them and we walked down to the graves. I had no idea what to expect from this visit or what the graves would look like but as we walked down the steps I saw 5 large slabs of concrete surrounded by black walls with red roses bushes, the blocks of concrete looked like half finished basketball courts to me, rough and just sitting on the ground with no edging. When it finally hit me what those blocks of concrete were; I audibly gasped, I started shaking, and had to remind myself to breathe. I was looking at the unmarked unfinished tombstones of 250,000 people. My dad happened to be nearby and I grabbed him violently so I wouldn’t collapse. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe, and couldn’t walk. He gently but forcibly shoved me forward trying to remind me, I guess we haven’t talked about it since, not to make a scene at this place of remembrance. At the bottom of the steps, there was a wall with many names on it. I thought at first how odd it was that SO MANY of their first names were the same, then I realized that they listed the last names first. Because this was a genocide of a specific ethnicity of people and of course they wiped out whole families, so this wall has at one spot 26 last names that match, the entire family. The rest of the museum is dedicated to laying out the history of the country, the theology and colonial history that led to the genocide, the actual daily events of the genocide, and the aftermath of the genocide. Before colonialism Rwanda did not have different ethnicities, just a social caste system that presented titles to different Rwandans based on their wealth or social standings. The Belgians took this caste system and made it, forcibly, into different ethnicities in order to more efficiently rule over the Rwandans. After Rwanda became free this social order remained and the church even got in on it by teaching Hamitical theology to support the idea that some Rwandans were born lesser than others, children of Ham. This entire situation came to a head in the 90s where the government spent at least 10 years planning the genocide as a final solution to the problem of the children of Ham and set in motion the Genocide. 1 MILLION people killed in less than 100 days, faster and more efficient than the Nazis. Afterward the “children of Ham” took over the country and wiped out all records of ethnic background and basically forgave the perpetrators of the genocide. Sentences were handed out but in our eyes would be considered very lenient. How do you punish 2/3rds of your country for killing the other 1/3rd of the country, there wouldn’t be enough jails or gallows to hand out actual justice.

THIS is the Rwanda that shocked me. As an American I’m used to stories of gross injustice where a hero rises up and overcomes evil. While that story IS there, the oppressed people rose up and using sticks and stones defeated the government forces who had guns and tanks and stopped the genocide, but the ending surprised me. How can you forgive, how can you move on, how can you let people who machete’d unarmed men, women, and children in the streets return to normal life after only repairing a road here and a house there? How does Rwanda today set the example of humanitarianism in Africa only 20 years after the genocide which had deep systemic racism for the 150 years before that? Obviously from my point of view God worked a miracle but these aren’t the kind of miracles I was taught in American churches. I’m used to the miracles and stories of God stopping injustice and punishing the sinners who abuse the innocent. I’m not familiar with the stories of how God seemingly turns a blind eye to horrible horrendous offenses and then FORGIVES the offender. I’m familiar with the God who protects the innocent, not the God who allows the innocent to suffer so that He wins over the abuser.  While I earnestly believe that every victim of the genocide was and is dearly loved by God who comforted them in the afterlife for their suffering. I also learned from Rwanda that the same God forgave and loves millions of the perpetrators who committed the genocide and comforted them in the afterlife from the guilt of their actions. That is why the visit to Rwanda shocked me so badly that I had to remind myself to breathe, but also took me months of reflection before I could write a blog about it.

The blue choir

What does my story in Atlanta have to do with this? Minutes after throwing my keys off the bridge I was led into a tunnel that had beautiful murals on both walls of African women in blue dresses who were staring at me, their eyes and expressions followed me through the tunnel; as if to say, “don’t give up Levi, we need you.” Two weeks after visiting the museum I was scheduled to preach a sermon to our new church in Nyagatare, a border town in the North East of Rwanda, and as I stood up to preach I realized I was preaching to the choir from Kigali, Rwanda’s capital and our base of operations in East Africa. They were all beautiful Rwandan women wearing blue dresses who were staring earnestly at the American who was about to deliver God’s word. During my sermon I was reminded of that vision so I forsook my notes and mentioned it to them. I don’t know entirely why God wanted me in the ministry, I have nothing to offer, but I do know that during the genocide which rocked Africa and the entire world in 1994, He knew I’d visit that museum and learn something about how He truly works and what forgiveness actually looks like. The story of redemption in Rwanda, redemption in my life, and the Bible for that matter is not a story of an underdog who overcame evil and stops injustice from happening. It is a story of an innocent defenseless man who is brutalized, tortured, and killed and yet forgives all involved. Just like Rwanda is a story of a group of people who were brutalized, tortured, raped, and killed and yet forgave all who were involved. Rwanda could have easily rejected the Gospel of Jesus which was taught hand in hand with Hamitical theology for 150 years and returned to their tribal ways which were very peaceful for thousands of years. Instead on that museum etched in the wall are written these summarized words, “While the Europeans brought racism and genocide, they also brought modern medicine and the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and for that we thank them.”

Probably the most chilling and yet amazing words I’ve ever read.

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When I was a boy I watched a movie called “Behind Enemy Lines” and in that movie there is a very brief scene that made me cry uncontrollably and still affects me to this day. There are these rebels holed up in a warehouse and the military blows in the walls with tanks killing almost everyone, when the troops breach the wall the camera pans and in the foreground for about 10 frames you see this little girl probably 4 years old playing with a doll, gently talking to it and stroking it’s hair, oblivious to everything that is going on. As a boy and now a man that scene affected me, all I wanted to do in this life was pick that girl up and give her a hug, to take her out of that horrible situation and give her a normal life. Well obviously the movie is fiction but the reality is that all over this world that little girl’s story is real and in June 2016 God took me to a place that is so incredibly poverty stricken that I was fighting back tears the entire time I was there. In fact as I type this up the tears are finally pouring out.

This is Suba, we were visiting a privately run and inadequately funded orphanage named Colombia Chiquita. When we first arrived the orphanage owner gave us a brief tour of the 3 story building where they house dozens of abandoned children. These children had some of the most precious smiles I’ve ever seen as they greeted us, before we started the day of playing and testimony they wanted to take us to the girls’ house which wasn’t far from the main building. So we walked down the streets of Suba and my God the poverty was intense. Most of the families in the area recycle trash in order to feed themselves. While we were walking to the girls’ house I spotted a boy about the age of 7 sitting on the “curb” playing in the sand with a stick and his, I presume, sister sitting beside him playing with a piece of rope. She couldn’t have been older than 4 years old and she was gently talking to her brother while stroking the end of the rope like it was a doll and that was it’s hair. I had to look away as hot tears filled my eyes as I was reminded of the above mentioned film. Somehow God had brought me full circle from being moved by scenes depicted in fiction to seeing the real thing in real life and knowing that there was not going to be a happy ending. That girl was probably not an orphan and I will never know her whole story but I do know that there is never going to be a knight in shining armor that comes along, picks her up, gives her a hug, and tells her the whole world was going to be ok. I still hope and pray for her even though I don’t know her name or story, but honestly she was just there to remind me of how cruel and torn this world is; how viciously cruel this world is to children: especially to little girls.

Most children in Suba from the age of 4 dig through trash piles with their parents and family members looking for plastic or anything recyclable, they then load this trash onto carts or bags and haul it I don’t know how many miles to recycling centers where they sell it for next to nothing in order to survive. These kids’ education is so bad that they don’t even know the difference between letters and numbers. Their education level is so horrendous that they aren’t even qualified to go to public school, the public school system in Colombia is horrible btw, so they will spend their entire lives either gathering trash day to day or end up having to enter a life of crime. These mind you are the lucky ones with parents and family willing to give them a home.

God wasn’t done making a grown veteran cry that day. We walked back to the orphanage and took the kids out to the nearby “park” to play with them and make them laugh all day. We had a great time with these kids yet the entire time I was struggling with tears for these orphans. Suddenly, at the end of the park a door opens and these two kids run out of this “house,” maybe 7 and 5, and start playing in the street. I’m using quotation marks because if you could have seen the conditions of this neighborhood the terms curb, park, and house are too nice of words to describe the horrible condition this place was in. This town literally looked one strong breeze away from falling down, it looked like a card house project gone wrong. So these two kids a boy and a girl are playing, they looked like they haven’t showered in a month, the rags they wore were so dirty that it looked like if you shook them too hard you could collect a bucket of sand from their clothes. The little girl, the 5 year old, knocks on the door and to my incredible surprise a 2 year old answers it and decides to come out and play with his siblings. The poor thing had on sweat pants and a t-shirt and the sweat pants were soaked as if he had been peeing in his pants for days. At that point I looked back at the orphan kids we were playing with and my tears held back, I could justify staying emotionally neutral because these kids all had on clean clothes. Yes they were orphans with no hope, yes they lived in a horrible part of town, yes their education level was sub-par to the public school system, and yes their parents had all been killed in the civil war or drug violence; but at least they had on a fresh set of clean clothes so Levi didn’t start crying on the spot because Levi could see that they had on clean clothes.

When we returned to the orphanage God wasn’t done breaking my heart. I learned that some time before we arrived the water company sent a man to shut off water to the orphanage due to lack of payment. When the meter man arrived and saw the children he couldn’t shut it off out of conscience. I also learned that their food budget ran out and they were trying to sell broken bikes they had stacked on top of their roof to get the next month’s food. With tears rolling down my face Rebekah asked me to pray over the orphanage owner for the money they so badly needed. Angry at God but trusting in His good will I prayed like I never prayed before in my life for the funds for them to stay open, feed their kids, have running water, and basic necessities.

When we returned to the hotel my brother Luke and I stayed up until about 1 in the morning praying and talking about God and His plan for our ministry. Honestly I was dying inside and losing hope for the immense task ahead of us. Luke needed some prayer and discussion so I kinda kept it all together for him. We talked about everything we had seen that day and the day before. All the little signs that God gave us letting us know we were doing His will. I kept everything that I’ve shared here to myself until writing this but there were many other signs up to that point that I talked with Luke about.

The next day I was supposed to lead a devotion on a topic of my choice. Honestly, I was so broken hearted for those kids and so incredibly helpless to do anything about their condition that I really didn’t want to lead the devotion, I didn’t want to be there anymore, I wanted to go home and pretend that kids are only in those conditions in fiction. I really wanted that little girl in the movie to be the only problem I’d face like that. But God was still working on me and led me to the book of John once again. He led me to where Jesus commands us to ask Him for anything and it will be done. The day before Luke had taught on being helpless before God so I decided I’d teach on praying helpless before God. If God is indeed like the judge in the parable that Jesus taught about, only good instead of evil, then the best way I know how to get someone to change their mind is to show how helpless and desperate the situation is when pleading my case. I believe that God showed me these things in this way to show me where true power lies, in being helpless and completely dependent on Him. People with money don’t need God, people with nice houses don’t need God, people with busy lives are too busy for God. God also reminded me of the story of Lazarus and the rich man, He reminded me that the little girl I saw was Lazarus, and that while in this life she isn’t comforted, while in this life she doesn’t have dolls, and while in this life no one is coming to give her a big hug and let her know everything is going to be ok; in the next life Jesus has every doll she will ever want, in the next life she will be comforted, and in the next life she will never cry again. I felt strongly that if I’m even to see a glimpse of what awaits her I needed to get busy doing what Jesus commanded us; caring for the orphans, the widows, and the sick in their time of need. It’s easy to pass on a picture of Christ carrying the cross on FaceBook saying, “would you help Jesus up, share if you would, ignore if you won’t.” It’s hard to do what Jesus said is helping Jesus in His time of need, that if you so much as give a glass of water to one of these little one’s you’ve done it unto Him.

The last thing that broke my heart that day was when we were walking back to the orphanage I learned that Dad was giving the place all we could afford as a donation and I thanked him. He said, “yeah son, this isn’t slum tourism, we are doing all we can to help.” I literally lost it when I gave him a hug for saying that. Mission Critical can’t even begin to be a drop of water in the bucket of the problems we face and see in Colombia and around the world, but we can make sure that their stories are heard, show that their pain is real, and maybe give some water to 40 or 50 orphans here and there in the name of Christ. This ministry is two parts, sanctifying ourselves by seeing the desperation and helplessness in others, and making a real difference in the lives that we possibly can.

It is amazing to think that I am about to complete two full years as a full time missionary here in Colombia… if someone were to ask me what the experience has been like I would have to say it has been the most amazing and exciting experience of my life but also the most tiring and stressful one as well. But amidst all the stress and difficulties and the constant loneliness for family and the comforts of “home” I can still honestly say after two long years (seems like it has been a lot longer haha) I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. Living in Colombia has taught me to be open to change and has forced me to live constantly outside of my comfort zone.

Just the other day I was talking to a fellow United States citizen who has lived for the past two years in Colombia for her husband’s job about how living in different places really gives you a new perspective on life that a lot of people in the U.S can’t even imagine. Basically you don’t know what you don’t know until you experience it. She was telling me about how the things that seemed so important to her when she lived in Texas just seemed not to matter so much anymore when she returned to visit after having lived outside of the United States for several years. I am still quite spoiled unfortunately and I still have to remind myself that things don’t always have to go my way but I am also learning to trust God in all things…. not just in some things… but all things.

For example for anyone who has never tried to get a Visa to live in a another country it may not seem like a very trying task… Let me tell you, I do not know how it is in other countries but let’s just say in Colombia it is no party. I have never had so much stress and trouble with anything in my entire life like trying to have a legal status here in Colombia, but after months of getting the right papers and getting the right signatures on the right dates and having to pay several different fees and what all.

I am now happy to say that I am finally legally married (though we are waiting until our church wedding August 20th to be married in the eyes of God and man and begin married life together) and now I have a steady Visa for the next 3 years. For the first time in two years I can breath and not have to worry that I am going to be taken to jail for not having my Colombian I.D. (the police on the street constantly ask people randomly for their I.D and run it through their system for criminals, if you do not have your I.D on you it normally results in your arrest.) or that I am going to be kicked out of the country again. God has really blessed me this year and even though Oscar and I have had to work really hard He has blessed both of us with many wonderful ministry opportunities and also personal blessings for our future together as husband and wife. This year we have been working on establishing our ministry legally here in Colombia, unfortunately this is a really slow process and must be done absolutely perfectly without error or we could be faced with devastating fines and even possible jail time… yes it is that serious here. But we have finally made huge progress thank God and we should be legally established and have everything in order by the end of this year but just getting this far has required a lot of prayer and faith that if we jump God will catch us.

God has also been teaching me to trust him through Heidy. Heidy was the fist girl that my father and my sister Beverly met and fell in love with many years ago on their first trip ever to Colombia. She has been in our lives and we have supported her for a very long time now. She and two others were actually the young adults who inspired the Shield House dream. Well recently, Heidy (like so many other young girls here in Colombia) went through some really tough times and came out on the other side addicted to drugs and pregnant. God was faithful with her and brought her out of that situation by his mercy and she is now living with me in Rebekah’s old room. We like to say that she is the first of the Shield House girls because the idea for that house is specifically for girls in her situation with nowhere else to go. The baby will be born soon and with her comes a lot more stress and responsibility but I am trying to continue trusting the Lord to provide and take care of us. I have had several opportunities to share my story with her and tell her about God’s love and mercy for those who have wandered away from Him and it was so beautiful to see the fruit of that yesterday when my other Colombian sister Ginary, who has been going through a really rough time and is struggling alone after the loss of her own baby and being abandoned by her boyfriend, came to visit us. Heidy and I listened to her and loved on her and I got to watch Heidy tell her some of the exact same things that I have been praying over Heidy and talking to her about. It is amazing to see how God takes the worst possible pain and turns it into something good. Please help me pray that we will be able to have the finances to provide for this little one and that Heidy will be able to find a safe place to raise her when my apartment contract expires in September but most importantly that God will give me the words to say and that He would work in both of their hearts so that they can come to know Him as their Savior and the love of their lives.

I have also been volunteering at several different Christian foundations here in Bogota that tend to the physical, intellectual and spiritual needs of this city’s precious children. I have enjoyed so much the opportunities that God has given me to share the love of Jesus with these kids through teaching them how to read and write. I remember one day the children asked me why I had not come back for several days during my trip to Guajira and I told them that I was sharing Jesus with the indigenous tribes there. I remember one girl looked at me with wide eyes and asked me “Is THAT why you are here in Colombia? To help people?” I told her yes and I began to explain to her how much God loves the people of Colombia and how he sent me here to show them that love. All the children at my table stopped and listened attentively as I told them about Guajira and what God was doing with the children there. At the end of my story each one told me, “Teacher, I want to be like you when I grow up, I don’t want to be like those people who just chase after money their whole lives, I want to help people like you do.”

All this to say God has given me some great opportunities this year to share His love and also has blessed Oscar and I tremendously. We recently were able to pay off many things for our wedding out of the little work that I have been able to do down here (translating different things from English into Spanish) and Oscar’s continued hard work for different ministries and his own translations. As I am writing this now our new washing machine just arrived ☺ which we were able to pay for mostly with the spare change that we have been accumulating for the past year (we saved about $150 dollars just in coins). God has been good to us and I can’t wait to see what He will do next, we still have many needs and many new expenses soon (diapers, milk, etc.) But God has always been faithful and He always will be.

I am so blessed to be working with my Father God on His mission and I ask those of you that read this to please continue praying for the spiritually and physically starving people of Colombia and that God will use me and many others to bring His light to this place and wake up the sleeping church of this generation to a new passion and crazy love for Him and His people.

“And anyone who welcomes a little child like this on My behalf is welcoming Me.”

Matthew 18:5

Love Brooke

Photos of Brooke’s work in Colombia

Brooke depends entirely on donations for her support and the support of the amazing work she is doing.

If you would like to support Brooke you can mail a check to:

Mission Critical International

301 Pruitt Rd. #1030

Sbring, TX 77380

Give online below.

100% of your tax exempt gift will go to Brooke’s work in Colombia.

I was suddenly jerked awake by the rudeness of the dirt road that seemed to stretch on forever. I rubbed my eyes and looked out the window and to my surprise I saw my home state of New Mexico… Or at least what looked like New Mexico. Somewhere along our 20+ hour bus ride we had gone from beautiful green mountains and breathtaking water falls to cactus, cactus and more dusty cactus. It was so hot that you could see the blur above the ground that is caused by the scorching heat waves, but luckily I was safely tucked in an air-conditioned bus… for the moment. This dry and thirsty desert with nothing but cactus and sand was nothing like the Colombia I was used to so I knew we had to be in Guajira. I was correct we were near a little town called Uribia where half of our team would be staying to work in a Rancheria (a small village literally in the middle of nowhere where little Wayuu communities live).

I looked to my right to see Paola sleeping like a rock in the seat next to me. I felt from the moment that I met Paola that God wanted to show her His love on this trip. Every time she talked about God, she seemed unsure and a bit tired of hearing the same Jesus story. When I “happened” to sit next to her on the bus I thought “What a great opportunity to share the Lord with probably the only unbeliever on the team” but God had other plans. As crazy as it sounds the moment I started talking to Paola I felt the Holy Spirit telling me not to try to “evangelize her” but to show her love through action and not words. So during the rest of the trip I decided I would just love on her and show her through action that everything she has been told a hundred or more times was real. I will come back to her in a bit because the story doesn’t end there ☺. We still had a bit to go before getting to Manaure, which is where I would be serving in another Rancheria called Arroyo de Limon, so I decided to pull out my new book, A love Worth gGiving by Max Lucado. I totally recommend this book to everyone haha. I started to read the first chapter and it talked about how love is patient. Basically in less eloquent words it is about how God is so patient with you that by accepting and remembering that, you can love others by being patient with them. It was exactly what I needed for this long week because if anything else I was going to need a lot of patience.

As we finally pulled into our destination I thought that perhaps we were going to crash into the ditch on the side of the road because all you could see for miles was dirt road with walls of 8-foot tall cactus and brush and we seemed to be heading right for those walls but apparently there was a tiny little trail off to the side of the road that lead to the Rancheria hidden in the desert cactus forest. The moment I stepped out of the bus I was blasted by the 115 degree heat and sand carried by strong gusts of wind that never seem to stop. The first thing I noticed about Arroyo Limon were the houses… the “houses” is what a spoiled girl from the United States would call them (I’m talking about me lol) Their houses are made from sticks and mud plastered together with a tin roof, well sometimes it is tin and others it is just more sticks and mud. Those are the nicer houses; the others are four to six small trees holding up a stick roof and that’s it, no walls or anything just a hammock to sleep in and a little fireplace. We spent the first day, Sunday afternoon, building a shelter and setting up our hammocks. The pastor of the Wayuu church, who is Wayuu himself, came with his family and the other leaders to greet us. Something I find very interesting and awesome about the Wayuu is that they are big on greeting every single person and shaking everyone’s hand individually and it is important for them to make eye contact. We spent the rest of the evening talking to some of the families that lived near by, which was a challenge because only 10% of the children speak Spanish and about half of the adults but as we always say on mission trips “Love is not bound by language or race.”

Monday morning was interesting to say the least. We woke up at 5am and after 20+ hours in a bus and a night sleeping outside all the girls were eager to shower. Being as it is desert, water in Guajira is, as the Wayuu pastor put it, gold. There is no electricity in these Rancherias let alone running water. We were supplied with two giant water tanks that were supposed to last us the rest of the week and in order to “shower” one had to take a bucket, fill it with water, carry it to the outdoor tarp shelter that was our bathroom and hire someone to watch over the door while you dumped little cups of water on your head. The first few times are fun but it requires a lot of patience by the third try. After showers, devotions and breakfast we started our activities with the kiddos. Kids from all over the community (even ones that had to walk quite a bit to get there) came to hear about Jesus through playing games, craft making and theater shows. I spent the first day helping take care of the babies who were too little to participate. The Wayuu are very serious and rarely show emotion so it was a bit difficult in the beginning to connect with the mothers and get them comfortable enough to let us hold the little ones but we finally found a translator and began talking to them about their lives and about Mochilas (handmade purses that they make and sell to earn money, they are beautiful and usually rather expensive in Bogota and other big cities). One of those little cuties passed out in my arms and I held him for a few hours, the Wayuu say that when a baby falls asleep on you they have adopted you as their mom so they were all telling me “Oh you have a new son” haha. When we had finished all the activities we had lunch and rested for a bit before the teenagers arrived. Every morning we spent with the little kids and every evening after lunch we played sports and shared with the teenagers. Playing sports in 115 degree weather can be quite challenging especially if you are used to living in Bogota climate, which is usually chilly and rainy, but we made it through and had a great time jumping rope, playing Chicle (a classic Colombian jump string game) and playing volleyball.

At night all the kids from the neighboring houses show up to play and see what little snacks or things that they could get. This is another time when “Love is patient” was always in my mind. After a long day I was ready to relax when all of a sudden three little heads popped up in the dark beside my hammock. One little girl, who was an artist at getting her way through being cute, kept touching every single thing I had with me and telling me in broken Spanish “This is so nice… give it to me” haha. These cute little kids asked for everything from hats and blankets to even our shoes. But the one thing that they crave above all else is water. I was told by the Wayuu pastor’s niece Monica that their only water supply was a river but that it had dried up three years ago and since then the communities in Manaure had been suffering greatly because of the lack of fresh water. This really broke my heart because normally little kids want toys and candy and soda where as these little kids were literally begging for just a swallow of one of life’s basic necessities, clean water. At all times there were at least 5-10 kids hanging out near the ice cooler that held our only drinking water supply in hopes that whenever someone came for a drink they would be able to beg a swallow or two. It is even harder that most times we had to say no to the crowds and secretly give water to a few because there was just not enough to go around. But thankfully I do believe that each one at some point got a little bit and they received all the extra food and juice packs that we could spare.

The days that followed we continued with our activities and sports with the help of a few Wayuu translators. One in particular was a 14-year-old girl named Lina. She was very serious and seemed to be at least 17-18 but she loved volunteering and was an amazing help during the Jesus skits and the worship time. We began to build relationships with the people and exchange items from our different cultures and I have to say despite the cold windy nights, the bucket showers and the constant wind covering everybody in hot sand, I really felt the love of the Lord in that place and I could see Him in the faces of these hardened people who live in these harsh conditions everyday. I could see Him when the children would clap for Maneiwa (the Wayuu word for God) during worship. I could see Him in the kitchen where the women worked tirelessly to cook for us and prepare our meals without complaint of the suffocating heat from the wood fire and were always ready to greet us and serve us with a smile. I could see Him during the Wayuu church service that was held outside every night as the people would raise their hands and sing to Maneiwa with tears in their eyes and a song in their hearts. I could see Him during one of our morning devotions when Paola (from the beginning of the story) told us that she had never felt the love of the Lord like she was feeling from us and that she saw such a wonderful example of him shining through each of the people there and that it strengthened her faith in Him.

I could see Him in Lina as she and I played together on our “day off” by the beach and ran and laughed together. She told me the next day before we left that she had never had so much fun in her life and was going to miss me very much as she cried on my shoulder and I on hers. I could also see Jesus the night before we left when all the people came up to us and cried tears of sorrow and joy… They never cry… but they cried for us and told us that God had brought their communities together for the first time through us and thanked us a hundred times for sharing Jesus with them and their children. I saw Jesus as they gathered together with us to dance and worship Maneiwa with the whole group until 1:00 a.m. in the morning. I saw Jesus in the faces of the most needy and poverty stricken indigenous community in Colombia who opened their doors and their hearts to us and I will never in my life forget what that looks like. We always think that we are going to serve and to love and to receive. But it never ceases to amaze me that no matter how many mission trips I go on or how many hotel hells that I visit or how many orphanages I serve in, it is always me who gets served and loved and receives more that I could ever give.

Thank you to everyone who has supported me during this trip and during my time here in Colombia. It has been such a blessing to see Christ in the nations and to be able to receive his love in even the driest and most desolate places in the world. Please, please pray for Guajira and all the precious people who are starving for food and water but most importantly the love of Jesus. I am planning to go back to Guajira as often as I can and see what else God has for me there. There are so many other things I could tell that cannot fit in a blog but I hope to be able to share this blessing with others who may also come with me to see for themselves someday.

“A psalm of David, regarding a time when David was in the wilderness of Judah. O God, you are my God; I earnestly search for you. My soul thirsts for you; my whole body longs for you in this parched and weary land where there is no water.” Psalm 63:1

Love Brooke

Photos of Brooke’s work in Colombia

Brooke depends entirely on donations from caring people for her support and the support of the amazing work she is doing.

If you would like to support Brooke you can mail a check to:

Mission Critical International

301 Pruitt Rd. #1030

Sbring, TX 77380

Give online below.

100% of your tax exempt gift will go to Brooke’s work in Colombia.

“Rebekah, will you go and work with me in Liberia?” asked my sister Mercy. For you to understand why this was a miraculous answer to my and my family’s many prayers, I must tell you the whole story.

Mercy came to us through an email in 2008 asking us to help a 13-year-old orphan girl from Liberia, Africa who weighed 48 lbs., was dying, and needed a life-saving surgery. Three years before when she was 10-years-old Mercy had accidentally ingested lye, a colorless, odorless chemical also called caustic soda which is used to process rubber from the rubber trees on the plantation where Mercy grew up. Her esophagus was destroyed and she had lain in a hospital and eventually an orphanage for 3 years begging God and her caretakers to let her die.

Over the next several months we helped Mercy through the surgery and recovery and eventually the people who brought her from Africa came and on July 3, 2008 literally dropped her on our doorstep.

Because of the things she suffered living through the Liberian civil war and growing up without a mother or father, she rejected our love. Mercy thought that by rejecting us, she would save herself the pain of (in her mind) our inevitable rejection of her. Mercy wanted to go back to her home and every thing she knew before she came to the US. So after almost two years in our home she ran away from our home and we thought we had lost her for ever. One Christmas without her I remember wanting to be happy that our family was together but feeling the awful pain of not having Mercy there. I remember it felt like my entire being was crying out to God; asking Him to please bring my sister back to our family.

One day after more than a year of not hearing from her or knowing where she was, Mercy called my dad out of the blue. I don’t think there was ever more excitement in my heart than when I saw her the first time after that. We’ve had our ups and downs since then but we are now family.

So to shorten the rest of the story. Last year a pastor from Liberia called my dad out of the blue to ask him to preach a crusade last October. Through more miracles and crazy stories, Mercy was able to go with my dad to Liberia for the first time since her adoption. She had a very tearful reunion with her biological family and her heart was renewed with a desire to help the people of Liberia.

After they retuned my dad was able to raise enough money to buy land for an orphanage and school to support the children of Liberia. We have chosen the name Mercy’s House because of the miracle she is and we are praying to be a vehicle for God to preform miracles in the lives of many other children.

After they retuned my dad was able to raise enough money to buy land for an orphanage and school to support the children of Liberia. We have chosen the name Mercy’s House because of the miracle she is and we are praying to be a vehicle for God to preform miracles in the lives of many other children.

 
[quote] “You have shown me the way of life. In Your presence is fulness of JOY and at Your right hand is pleasure evermore.” Psalm 16:11[/quote]
 

Love, Rebekah Bullen

At Large Missionary

Mission Critical International

Photos of Rebekah’s Ministry

Rebekah depends on the donations of big-hearted people like you to continue the amazing work she is doing around the world.

If you would like to help Rebekah you can mail a check to:

Mission Critical International

301 Pruitt Rd #1030

Spring, TX 77380

or give online below.

100% of your gift will go to support Rebekah’s missionary work around the world.

Life has been very active for Oscar and me since I arrived back in Bogota on February 1, after spending a month with my family in the U.S., and I must say I love it. I reconnected with a friend of mine, a missionary from Canada, whom Rebekah and I were working with last year supporting passion for changing the lives of children on a long-term scale through education. Basically they have started their own “homeschool” program where kids come to the foundation after and before school to get help with homework, discipleship and basic learning. I love working with Anita and Janet, the two who founded this program called “The Bridge” and work tirelessly everyday teaching and loving around 36 kids. They are a huge blessing to these kids and I wish I could work with them more but for now I volunteer helping 2 days a week. Please pray that God would continue changing the lives and futures of these kids who are mostly very behind in school or have never studied at all.

That is a small update of some of the things that God has been using me to do but what I really wanted to share in this blog is about a place here in Colombia called Guajira. The first time I heard of Guajira was a day last year when Oscar was pouring his heart out to me concerning a desire to see his home, the nation of Colombia, change. He was telling me about all of the corruption and poverty and how heartbreaking it is to know that children die of starvation and lack of clean water everyday in Guajira. In that moment I felt the Holy Spirit touch my heart and I was suddenly filled with not only a devastating compassion but also a relentless desire to go. I remember asking Oscar why there was not more help in Guajira and he told me because of the civil war it had become almost impossible to get to that part of Colombia safely. I remember those words echoing in my mind… Almost impossible. So from that night on Oscar and I began to pray for a way to get to Guajira and for God to work a miracle in that area.

Colombia’s civil war has been going on for somewhere close to 60 years and because of the Guerrilla groups entrance into different parts of Colombia has been, as I said before, almost impossible, especially for foreigners, but as God always seems to work with me He never gives me a passion without also providing a way. Recently after so many years of war the government of Colombia has finally began a peace process with one of the biggest and most notorious Guerrilla groups here in Colombia and they are planning to sign the peace process contract in May of this year.

This peace process has made it a lot safer (right on time) to travel to places like Guajira and after months of praying and trying different avenues and possibilities with no success Oscar finally told me that a group of people from a church that Mission Critical has worked with in the past were looking for volunteers to go on a mission trip/health brigade to Manaure, Guajira. I cannot express my excitement to be going to this town of around 70,000 people (as recorded in 2005) to serve these people in the middle of the desert and bring the love of Jesus to the Wayuu Indian tribe and many others. I will be leaving on the 19th and returning on the 26th of March.

God worked a miracle to pay my way to go through my brother Luke and his wife Misti but there are still some things I need to be able to go on this trip. Please pray for provision and protection but mostly for the Holy Spirit to come upon us and give us the grace to be Jesus to these precious people. Thank you to all my readers and supporters as always you are a part of what God does through me here in Colombia. If you would like to learn more about Manaure, Guajira here is the link to Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manaure,_La_Guajira.

“You called me out upon the water, the great unknown where feet may fail. And there I find you in the mystery in oceans deep my faith will stand” – Oceans Hillsong

This is my command be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid or discouraged for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go! Joshua 1:9

Love Brooke

Photos of Brooke’s work in Colombia

Brooke depends entirely on donations from caring people for her support and the support of the amazing work she is doing.

If you would like to support Brooke you can mail a check to:

Mission Critical International

301 Pruitt Rd. #1030

Sbring, TX 77380

Give online below.

100% of your tax exempt gift will go to Brooke’s work in Colombia.

“Fire is the chosen symbol of heaven for moral passion. It is emotion aflame. God is love. God is fire… It is by a holy passion kindled in the soul that we live the life of God.” – Samuel Chadwick

Read the beginning of the series HERE

Rebekah and I arrived back in Houston that Sunday and our feet were hardly touching the ground. We had spent five amazing days in the presence of Jesus and loving on His lambs and we were full up to the brim. Three days later, as the Lord would have it, I was to speak at a three day men’s retreat called Tres Dias. Ironically, this is the same ministry where I first heard my friend Allen talk about orphan ministry and God got ahold of my heart. I was so excited that I was going into this set of weekends, (the men’s weekend followed by speaking at the women’s the very next weekend.) so full of the Holy Spirit. I felt as if I was floating on a cloud as I arrived at the camp that Thursday. I was oozing joy and excitement and everyone around me could feel it. I was to speak twice that weekend, once on The Means of Grace, and once on The Life in Grace. What better subjects to talk about after just spending a week under the waterfall of Grace in Colombia. I preached my heart out both times and showed a video of the pictures from our trip with a song playing in the background by Steven Curtis Chapman called “What Now” The first line of the song says, “I saw the face of Jesus in a little orphan girl.” The presence of the Lord was powerfully present and I knew lives were being changed. After I showed the video it was time for lunch. As I walked into the lunchroom a man walked up to me with tears in his eyes and said, “My name is Luis Escobar. I am from Bogota, Colombia. I speak both languages fluently. I know the city, the government, the culture. I have experienced the grace of God today, I know God spoke to me today, and I am at your service.” I couldn’t believe it and yet I could. I hugged him and said, “I have been praying for you for six months.” We began then to plan the next trip and we set out to pray about whom the Lord would have come with us. Luis did end up going on that trip and became a huge blessing to me over the years.

We also immediately started working on adoption paperwork for Heidy and Ginary to become our daughters. During this time, someone mentioned to me, “Hey have you heard about National Orphan Sunday, November 8, 2009?” So I started checking into it and found that Chrisitan Alliance for Orphans and Steven Curtis Chapman’s ministry and others had organized a national day to recognize the plight of the orphan and were encouraging churches across the country to have a special emphasis that day. We quickly began to plan and promote Orphan Sunday at Heritage Church where I was pastoring at the time. When the day came the church was filled with people and there were dozens of former orphans from all over the world who had been adopted. Someone commented that it looked like a miniature United Nations that day. It was one of the best days of my life.

There were many other amazing providences that led up to this trip as well. One that especially sticks out in my mind was a prayer meeting that David Richardson, Allen Pate and myself had in my study. We had all been feeling the pressure and the spiritual warfare leading up to this trip and we agreed to meet at my place and get on our faces before God and seek His help and power. Before we began to pray, David mentioned some men that the Lord had laid on his heart regarding orphan ministry. We wrote down three names and prayed for them and for God’s leading. One of the men’s names was Chris Dinkler, a brother that we had met at Tres Dias. It was a powerful prayer meeting and afterward we dried our eyes and hugged each other goodbye. About twenty minutes later, my phone rang and it was David and his voice was shaking and he told me that just after he and Allen left my house, his phone rang and it was Chris Dinkler calling to say that for “some reason” he and his wife couldn’t quit thinking about Colombia and the orphans and that he wanted to get more information about going with us. Chris did go with us on the January trip and I’ll never forget as long as I live the words he said as we were leaving the last orphanage on the last night headed to the airport. We were standing outside the gate of the orphanage on a dirt road in this inner-city slum and with tears rolling down his face Chris said, “The next time someone tells me they want to see Jesus I’m going to tell them, ‘I can give you the street address where He lives’.”

This time my daughter Brooke as well as Rebekah and Beverly made sure I knew they wanted to go. It was a total stretching of our faith because at this time I had been out of work for about 18 months and money was really tight. For just me to go in January would require a huge miracle. We set about to pray for people and pray for money and God answered big. My co-pastor and best friend, Chuck Carpenter, also expressed interest in going but he too had no idea where the money would come from. I began to walk the streets of my neighborhood every night crying out to God to pay our bills and somehow get us all to Colombia in January. One morning my phone rang and a dear friend from a previous church I had pastored said, “I hear you want to take 5 or 6 people with you to Colombia and I want to pay for them! Wow! So all of us including Chuck, Luis, Chris, and several others were going to Colombia!

We had a wonderful trip and I have written about it HERE.

Things were going really well and miracles abounded but something happened just before we left that would prove to be a catalyst for the most difficult period of spiritual warfare we have ever experienced.

Aflame For God 20 – All Out War

Why do I love the fact that we are calling the safe house for street girls God is giving us in Colombia “Shield”? Why does this name mean so much to me? Why does it seem so right?

 
[quote]”You are my refuge and my shield; Your word is my source of hope.” Psalm 119:114[/quote]
 

When I think of what God has done for me or is for me what comes to mind? Sometimes I think of The Lord as my Salvation, my God, my Redeemer, or maybe my Comforter. But I rarely think of or praise The Lord for being my Portion, my Shield, or my Stronghold and yet these names are how David frequently referred to The Lord and worshiped Him for being so in his life.

 
[quote]”The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my savior; my God is my rock, in whom I find protection. He is my shield, the power that saves me, and my place of safety.” Psalm 18:2 [/quote]
 

So what does The Lord being my Shield or Fortress mean in my life?

Well, you see, I grew up a very scared little girl. I was painfully shy to the point of even at the age of 12 I still would not talk to anyone outside of my family. I hated going to church or parties because people would be there. At the age of 17 I would cry when my dad made me speak to ladies at church.

I remember being in a Target store one day and almost wetting my pants because I was too afraid to ask the checkout lady where the bathroom was. So for me, knowing The Lord is my Shield and Rock means I don’t have to be afraid anymore. He will protect me and as long as He is on my side I have nothing to fear. He is my place of safety and I don’t need anyone but Him.

 
[quote] “O Lord, oppose those who oppose me. Fight those who fight against me. Put on Your armor, and take up Your shield. Prepare for battle, and come to my aid.” Psalm 35:1-2 [/quote]
 

My hope is to show other little girls the safety I have found in Him. He can be their Shield also and in His presence they can let go of all their fears as well. I pray our Shield House will be a refuge for hundreds of beautiful souls who need a shelter from the hurts and fears of this evil world. May these verses I have come to love be true for all the girls God gives us in Colombia.

 
[quote] “For You, Lord, bless the righteous one; You surround him with favor like a shield.” 
Psalm 5:12[/quote]
 
[quote] “My shield is with God, who saves the upright in heart.” Psalm 7:10[/quote]
 
[quote]“We put our hope in the Lord. He is our help and our shield.” Psalm 33:20[/quote]
 
[quote]“But You, O Lord, are a shield around me; You are my glory, the One who holds my head high. Psalm 3:3[/quote]
 

Today, at 27-year-old, I am serving the Lord all over the world, even in some places that people consider dangerous because I know He is my SHIELD…
 

Love, Rebekah Bullen

At Large Missionary

Mission Critical International

 

Photos of Rebekah’s Ministry

 

Rebekah depends on the donations of big-hearted people like you to continue the amazing work she is doing around the world.

 

If you would like to help Rebekah you can mail a check to:

 

Mission Critical International

301 Pruitt Rd #1030

Spring, TX 77380

 

or give online below.

100% of your gift will go to support Rebekah’s missionary work around the world.

Spent the whole day teaching kids at a new foundation I have been volunteering at… They are all way behind in school so they come there everyday after school to learn the basics and get help with homework… Was so awesome… One boy is about 12 and has never studied in school.. He recommended the foundation to his mom for his nephew and cousin but would not come himself because he was embarrassed cause he doesn’t know anything about school and works with some relatives recycling all the plastic out of the huuuuge trash yard right next to where the foundation is.

Anyway… He was standing on a huge pile of trash (that reached to our second story window) and curiously watched us today for a long time… We talked to him and smiled at him and finally invited him to com inside… You should have seen his face when he started playing with the other kids… So precious and happy… Hopefully he will start attending and we can give him lessons.

There are about 30 kids and only three of us to work with them haha so its been rough but so fulfilling. 

Central Africa Schedule July 2016

Pastor Martin’s family

My Brief Life Story

             I am Pastor Martin V. Paye Sr. born unto the union of Mr. and Mrs. Koyomo Paye on May 15^th, 1968 in Bellema Town, Panta, Bong County, central Liberia. I am married to a beautiful woman (my wife), Maitha K. Paye, who is my youthful wife, a class mate, and an answer of my faithful prayer. We both have five living children namely: Benetha B. Paye, Mariam Paye, Lorena F. Paye, Martina G. Paye, and Martin V. Paye Jr. I hold a BSC in Christians Education, while my wife holds “B” certification in education (This is not a matter to us, but the Lord’s mission).

A Brief Narrative of my Salvation

             I was a sickly child. My poor mother, Yammah suffered to have me saved from death. She never gave up because she was encouraged by her pastor that I will not die/was not going to die but live to serve God. My beloved, late mother, believed this prophecy from her pastor, pastor John; the only name given to me. This word was fulfilled in my life as seen in the record of my rebirth. 

             On April 5^th, 1992 I visited a little church about the size of 14 feet by 20 feet in Fare-East, Gbarnga, Bong county. This day the pastor, James T. Korboi, preached from Luke 23 on the theme, “The Three Crosses of Calvary” the cross of Rejection, the cross of Repentance, and the cross of Redemption. This message broke my heart and led me to cry, something that I do not easily do. (I mean, it is not just easy for me to cry). I saw myself on the cross of Calvary, specifically on the cross of Rejection. I felt that I had rejected God in my life. I felt that I was against God. This day the Pastor knew that I needed salvation. He led me to the cross of Redemption. This very day was my turning point. I chose to follow Christ.

             Something I remember before my salvation was God led me to take into my house some Christians who ran from persecution, from the town called Garmue in Panta, Bong county. The brethren were persecuted by traditional Zoes or traditional devil. I really did not know what I was doing. I never knew that God had chosen me in accord to what bro/pastor John said to my mother at my early age. I kept these brethren up until the morning and led them through the bush for the fear of the traditional Zoes. This happened nine years before I got saved.

The Calling

             On January 1, 1993 I had my second encounter with the Lord in my house as proof to the Word of God that came through the pastor, pastor John. At about 9:00 pm, my friend Emmanuel Malequayah and I decided to attend a Watch Night service at the Church of God Ministry in my hometown. This was actually my first time to visit this church. It took me by surprise when the pastor who did not know my spiritual ability asked me to deliver the Watch Night sermon. I asked if he was not making a mistake by asking me to preach before such a large crowd. He replied, “The Lord had led me to ask you to preach tonight.” I had no option, but to accept the request since indeed it was from God. I walked out of the church and went at the back. I bowed down in the grass and asked God for direction if indeed He was the one who led Pastor Nelson Hayadawelee of the Church of God Ministry to have chosen me. I closed my eyes in the darkness and asked God for the second time to lead me to the book He wants me to preach from. While my eyes were closed, I told God if you are the one, then lead me, and direct me to the book where my sermon will come. I opened the Bible in Ezekiel chapter 14 and kept the page opened until I entered the church. Under the light, I read God’s message. He gave me a message entitled, “When a Nation Sins Against Me.”

             By this time of the year Liberia was divided by a civil war. The country was into two parts, Greater Liberia which covered 14 counties and some parts of Montsterrado county which was considered Smaller Liberia (the main land). Greater Liberia was ruled by former president Charles G. Taylor and smaller part was ruled by Dr. Amos Sayer, with the presence of the Peace Keepers. There were a lot of jet bombers showering rockets at the greater part of Liberia. For example, January 2, 1993 was one of the fearful days in my home, Bellemu where I lived back then. The jet bombers, called Dudu-Boy by Liberians were flying everywhere. Everyone was running into the bushes for survival.

             God was using me to warn my own people and His children in Bellemu. This town (Bellemu) of my birth has been a place of traditional practices. The true Word of God had been rejected here like Garmue where the children of whom I kept were persecuted. Everyone who clamed to be Christians were of no different from the traditional people. They all did or practiced the same thing.

             I realized that this was the call of God upon me. For the fact, after I preached His given message, I left and went to my house. I went to bed with my friend Emmanuel. I felt the heavy anointing and the presence of the Lord. He asked me to go throughout the town and preach His word. I said, “God it is dark, I cannot go, I am afraid.” He said, “Emmanuel will go with you and he shall be your mouth piece.” Indeed, the Lord led Emmanuel to go with me. He led us to a blind family; I call them blind family because three members of the family are blind. The mother and her two children are blind; everyone knows them in our home. The Lord said, these blinds were going to hear the word and were going to travel with you throughout the town. I insisted and told God, but these people cannot see how will they go with me? He said, “I gave them eyes, they will see tonight and will lead you, and after this they will never see again until they return.” This truly happened! It was like these blinds were waiting for me. As soon as I got to the door with a large crowd of people, they quickly opened the door and got outside. In that darkness, the Lord told me to ask them to identify colors, and they did! This proved to the crowd of people (nearly the entire town) that God was leading us. These blinds and all the people followed us up until the next morning. Just as the Lord said, these people returned to their former condition. The question could be why did this happen? The Lord told me that it was because of they resisted Him, for which they will remain blind and return. They are blind to this day.

            In February of the same year (1993), I returned to Gbarnga. One night, there was a revival at the Philidiaph church conducted by Rev. Michael Johnson, a Ghanain Liberian. I decided to attend the revival with y two friends, Emmanuel and Musu. During this revival, the Lord also affirmed this word to me. Rev. Johnson called into the crowd, “You! You!” we were all looking around to see who he was talking to. He said, “You with the red shirt come up.” That night I had on a red shirt, but I was trying to slip away. He walked up to me and said, “The Lord has chosen you, and had tested you in your own town, if you will obey, he will use you greatly.” He then left me and continued with his message. My friend, Emmanuel who knew the entire story turned to me and said, “My man, you have taken trouble with God.” I said no word to him because I remembered what pastor John had said to my mother.

            From that day I decided to serve the Lord, but I had two battle-nicks.

1. I had so many girls claiming to be my lovers including Maitha who is with me to this day.

2. I had an accident in 1982, which broke two of my lower teeth, but never fell out from the accident. I noticed them shaking.

             This was a complete attack from Satan who had fought me from childhood. With these two problems that the devil kept reminding me of, I found a solution of one. Among the girls I was looting after, I had love for one, Maitha who is my wife. I was forced to love Nancy because my mother used to like her only because she helped my mother with her farm work. I decided to make a choice between the two because I was converted, and I realized that it was wrong to have two girl friends or to even have any without marriage. With the help of pastor James T. Korboi, I prayed for a complete six months in order for God to chose either Maitha or Nancy. In my prayer I asked for a woman who will join me to serve Him, I needed a woman to serve Him. Indeed the Lord answered me; the Lord has never failed me. He gave unto me Maitha who is my strength and helper to this day.

             My mother did not understand what the Lord was doing in my life, when Nancy decided to leave me and return my engagement. Because she was my Mother’s choice, she encouraged me to engage her. When she decided to back out, my mother invited Nancy’s friends and family members for settlement. On two occasions she made the attempt, there were always some problems in our hometown. The first time she made the attempt, there was missing gun issue in town and many rebel commanders were there for investigation. The second attempt were also some group of rebel soldiers carrying on harassments against the citizens. The third time that Nancy’s family came they did so to return the engagement. In this condition, I told my parents to receive the token for settlement in the future; they agreed through the advise from other friends of my mother.

             From this point, the year is still 1993, I invited my pastor and other leadership to join me and engage Maitha Konisear. This was done in a joyous mood, every friends who attended were well pleased of my decision. I decided to start taking full responsibility of Maitha since indeed I took this decision. Both of us left for Gbarnga in order for me to attend the Living Water Bible Training School at Gboveh Junior High School. At certain times the school was interrupted by some attacks from Taylor’s enemy forces and jet bombers.

Beginnings of the Persecution

             We decided to return to Bellemu for safety. Here, I founded the Panta Youths for Christ; this was welcomed by many friends from the entire district Panta. When we grew up in large numbers, teaching the youths sound doctrine; then came persecution from the elders, Zoes and traditional leaders. They accused us of rebelling against their traditions, that we were teaching their children some strange doctrines, and that our teaching was causing their children not to follow their traditional beliefs. After some time they started a persecution on us, they had many meetings to kill us. In one of their meetings, my late Aunty’s husband’s old man, J. P. Flomo boycotted the meeting on grounds that war was already killing lots of the people of Liberia, he could not see us dying for something that was not of any benefit. The plan was that I be killed first, Josephus Flomo next (no relation to J.P. Flomo, Flomo is a traditional name that can be given to anyone who goes into the traditional bush), and the late Otis Cooper follow. There were people who advised us to leave our home for the fear of these people; something that we refused to do. Because of this threat, fifteen traditional Zoes were arrested by a rebel commander; Col. Timothy (The only name that I can remember). The rebel commander had asked them to sign a document for our lives for fifteen years, if anything should happen to us over the next 15 years they would be held responsible; but we refused this decision because we believe that our security was in God’s hands. Indeed He kept us safe until we left.

             The only unfortunate situation is the death of our dear friend, Otis Cooper who according to him he was preaching and an insect went into his throat, which troubled him until he died. This happened after he returned.

After this I later took my family to the Republic of Guinea at the Thuo refugee camp.

*There is a recording that will continue the story of what happened in Guinea then the rest of the story after Guinea up to the point of meeting Matt Bullen will be uploaded as a part 2.*

*This story was hand written by pastor Martin, then typed out, slightly edited, and uploaded by Levi Bullen with pastor Martin’s permission and guidance*

Continued HERE