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.

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

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

“Why do you want to work with young adults and not children? What is the point of trying to help people who are already almost grown?” I have been asked that question so many times that now answering it almost becomes a routine when talking to people about Mission Critical’s dream to build a home for young adults (beginning with young women) ages 18-23 in inner city Bogota Colombia. Honestly I sometimes have to ask myself the same question…. Is it really worth it? Is this a real necessity here in Bogota? Will it make a difference? These last few months that I have been in Bogota I have felt a deep dissatisfaction with the work that I have been able to do so far, let me explain a bit of what I mean.

The Colombian government is unfortunately a nightmare of nightmares when it comes to paper work especially for ministries and that means that before starting anything there is a long waiting and investigation process that has to take place and the consequences of not doing everything excruciatingly perfect can be devastating including prison time and fines of thousands of dollars. Basically if you want to help people here in Colombia you had better be ready to be patient and wear out your knees from hard-core prayer. All that to say most of the work that Oscar (Mission Critical’s general director in Colombia and my Fiancé) and I have been doing for the last 4 months, other than translations and mission trip organization for different ministries and doing our best to love on individuals, has been talking to various lawyers, ministries, churches and individuals with any knowledge about how to establish a legal ministry here in Colombia.

I have worked hard here in Colombia even to the point of losing a lot of weight and having to stay in bed for a few days because of stress and lack of rest but I can honestly say the hardest part has been these last 4 months. The endless days of waiting on papers and for God to send us the right people to work with and the not knowing where the funds will come from to launch such an endeavor have been merciless and as I said sometimes it is difficult to stay focused and causes one to ask…“is it all really worth it?”

I want to tell you a story about two different girls that I have met and talked with personally here in Bogota… the first one I will call Joanna and the other I will call Keren for their protection. Both of these girls either escaped (because life on the street was better than living there) or were forced to leave the government institutions at the age of 18 years old to fend for themselves with no money, no family and no future. Both girls have told me about how they lived on the street constantly surrounded by prostitution and drugs. Joanna has been my friend for about 7 years and during that time God has used me to help her escape from prostitution 2 different times. I remember as she begged for my help the first time and cried in my arms telling me how she was working as a prostitute and how she didn’t see a way out. Keren and another friend escaped from the government orphanage when she was 14 and they lived alone selling candy on the street for money. By the grace of God Keren was able to avoid the drugs and the “pimps” that constantly surrounded them and just recently she was finally able to reconnect with her family. Her friend however fell into the grip of drug addiction and under-age prostitution and has to this day never been able to break free from that. Every time I think about them and the countless others that I have talked to and known for years that have fallen into sex trafficking at some point in their teenage to young adult lives I say to myself and others YES! it is absolutely worth it and necessary because one of the main causes for this is because they have no other options. More than 800 young adults per year are forced to leave the governmental care systems at the age of 18 in Bogota alone and most of the girls end up in prostitution and the boys become addicts, gang members and pimps or “groomers” themselves. 15% of them will be dead within a year and over 60% will eventually face a fate worse than death in the brothels. My family has worked in these orphanages and we have witnessed the traffickers waiting at the orphanage gate to scoop up these precious little girls.

Mission Critical’s first goal is to give these young men and women that “other option” by starting a prevention program where 18-year-old girls who have ‘aged-out” of institutions can live in a home where they receive their basic needs, counsel, discipleship, help finding a job, training on how to live on their own, the opportunity to study and have a profession/degree and much more until they are emotionally and physically ready to live and be successful on their own. We are one of the only ministries that have this vision to work with young adults here in Colombia, there are countless ministries to children and families but almost nobody is doing what we are working to do. This is the first step of many to come to help break the cycle and help change the lives of young adults in Bogota and other cities in Colombia. That is why we do what we do and that is also why I always ask for prayer for Mission Critical Colombia and for our team on the ground (Oscar and me) especially now that we are hoping to have SHIELD House up and running by the end of 2016. Please, please pray for the long year we have ahead of us and, God willing, for the many years to come of countless souls being reached and changed through God’s love.

Also please ANYONE who reads this take 10 minutes to watch this video and read this article about Medellin Colombia where I spent 11 months earlier this year working with children and street ministry and saw for myself much of what is revealed in this video, http://www.channel4.com/news/colombia-medellin-prostitution-virgins-gangs-pablo-escobar . It is worth the 10 minutes and will shed a lot of light on why this is an emergency and we need all the help we can get to make a difference. Jesus came to set the captives free and He is still doing that today through those who are willing to fight. Just like in the short story of the boy throwing the starfish back into the ocean, we cannot make a difference for all of them… but we can make a difference for the one, the two, and the three that are touched by what we do.

“A soul’s worth, can it be named? What is the price of one reclaimed? We can’t afford to ignore the strife, what will you give for a life?” – A soul’s worth by Matthew Bullen.

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

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

“For the sake of the world burn like a fire in me. Light a flame in my soul for every eye to see. For the sake of the world burn like a fire in me.” – Brian Johnson & Bethel Music

Read the beginning of the series HERE

Beverly and I came home from Colombia absolutely wrecked by the Spirit of God. We tried to go back to our life of pastoring and working wherever God provided work but it was no use. For three months I cried at least once every day. I would sit and look at photos of the children in Colombia and weep. My family started asking me, “Daddy, please don’t look at those photos anymore. We can’t stand to see you so broken up.” I remember one day walking through the grocery store and seeing a little brown skinned girl holding her daddy’s hand and I burst into tears. I stopped right there in the store and called my friend, Allen Pate and asked, “Allen, when does the crying stop?” He replied, “Honestly, I don’t know, it’s been three years for me and I’m still crying.” I knew then I was in deep trouble.

I was so wrecked I could hardly function. My elders and the deacons of my church began to worry about me. I couldn’t eat. When I did sleep I would dream about those precious children so desperate for love. It was the most beautiful pain I had ever experienced. Beverly was in the same lovely agony. We were so glad we at least had each other to commiserate with. I began to realize that I was feeling the heartbeat of Jesus. This must be a tiny bit of what He feels for the world! I would try to preach what I thought my congregation needed from the word for their lives but every sermon ended up being about going to the nations. I was eaten up with it, hopelessly addicted, and the only place I could get a fix was a plane ride away on another continent. Also during this time our oldest daughter Rebekah, who was 20-years-old began to bug me every day about when she could go. She was eaten up with holy envy at the newfound passion and hunger that she saw in Beverly and me and she wanted in on it!

My partners in crime, David and Allen, and I began to formulate a scheme to go back. One day I realized that I hadn’t checked my frequent flier miles in a long time and to my great delight I found that I had enough for 2 plane tickets to Bogota! Though we literally had no money and no earthly business turning around and going back to Colombia just three months after that first trip, we went anyway. Like any addict, nothing else mattered now but getting back there and getting a fresh dose of that Holy Spirit gasoline on our bonfire. Rebekah kept saying, “Dad, I have to go or die” and I knew she wasn’t being dramatic. So Rebekah, David, Allen, and I landed in Bogota in September of 2009 with no plan, no money, nothing but a furious passion that could only have come from God. We only knew we were supposed to go no matter what and God showed up for us in ways we couldn’t have imagined.

The first morning we met with some government officials to begin the process of adopting our daughter Heidy. We had been warned that one particular official was very stern and very tough and that we probably wouldn’t make any progress with her so we were praying like crazy when we walked into her office and sat down. Immediately she began to ask many gruff questions about our intentions and what we planned to do. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Rebekah praying like a mad woman under her breath. Suddenly, we felt a Presence enter the room. It was so obvious Rebekah later told me that she was tempted to reach out her hand and see if she could touch Him. As we continued to explain our hearts for these children, the government official softened and even teared up and she told us that she was thrilled with our intentions and would help us in any way she could. She gave us permission to begin the adoption process and even more shocking she gave us permission to take Heidy and David and Allen’s Goddaughters out of the orphanage for a little supervised vacation while we were there. We left that meeting walking on air. The word miracle was on everyone’s lips. And this was all before noon on the first day!

Next we went a visited a little boys orphanage that would later become one of our favorites and then we went on to Heidy’s orphanage. As we drove through the gate my heart began to pound and tears welled up in my eyes. We stepped out of the van and were instantly surrounded by 80+ smiling, hugging, chattering girls. I was frantically scanning the crowd for my little Heidy. What happened next will be seared into my soul for all eternity. Suddenly, we heard a blood curdling scream and little Heidy came running across the yard, leaped over a hedge, and jumped into my arms. I’m 6′-1″ tall and yet she jumped so high she almost went over my shoulder. I fell back against the van and held her as she continued to squeal and yelp with joy, hugging my neck and kissing me on the cheek. When I introduced her to Rebekah she squeezed her like she would break her in two all the while saying, “mi hermana, mi hermana”. Also that day, Rebekah met a little girl named Hasbleydy Johanna. As often happens, they immediately fell in love with each other and before we left Hasbleydy asked Rebekah if she would adopt her and be her Mama. One look at Rebekah’s face told me that she had been bitten by the same fatal Holy Spirit bug and she would never be the same again, hallelujah. Heidy stared in disbelief when we told her to go pack her things because she was going on a little family vacation with us.

The next morning we had a fun breakfast with the girls and then we had an 8:30am appointment with the regional director for ICBF (Colombian Child Welfare) to talk about someday doing a summer camp in Texas where 20 or so adoptable orphans from Colombia could come to the Houston area for a week and stay in the homes of host families who were interested in adoption or just ministering to the children for that week (which we did two years later and 15 were adopted… but I’m getting ahead of myself again). For the next 5 days we had the most wonderful time imaginable. One of the highlights for me was buying Heidy her first ever milkshake. She was so enthralled. Also, Rebekah was able to meet Juan David when we spent the day at his orphanage as well. We left Heidy at her orphanage with a hug and a kiss and a Spanish Bible with her name embossed on the front and the promise that we would be back soon… even if we had to swim the gulf of Mexico…

Here is a small excerpt from my journal the last night,

 
[quote]Rebekah broke down pretty bad as we drove away. She, of course, wanted to bring the whole orphanage home with us. Well if I don’t get on the plane right now I will have to stay in Colombia… Wait, why would that be a bad thing??? 🙂 Oh yeah, they probably wouldn’t let me live at the girls orphanage anyway so I better go![/quote]
 

As our plane left the runway, I looked over at Rebekah with tears running down her face and I knew that Beverly and I had a new addict on our team.

Aflame For God 19 – Recruiting Jesus Addicts

“Oh that I could do more for Him, oh that I was a flame of pure and holy fire and had a thousand lives to spend in the dear Redeemer’s service.” – George Whitefield

Read the beginning of the series HERE

I was so busy trying to survive and shepherd my flock and family that it wasn’t until the night before we were supposed to leave for Bogota, Colombia that I sat down and looked it up on a map to see where in the world it was located. I had never been outside of the U.S. except childhood visits to Juarez, Mexico and on a cruise ship in the Caribbean. Beverly, who would turn 18 on the trip had never even flown on a plane before. We had no idea what lay in store only a vague lingering sense of God’s hand in all of it. We landed in Bogota, Colombia the evening of June 19, 2009, went to the hotel, and as we got out of the van my dear friend Allen Pate turned to me and said with tears in his eyes, “You are going to love this Matt. This is like Tres Dias on steroids.” And he was not wrong. In truth it was like pouring gasoline on a bonfire.

We were mesmerized by all of the sights and sounds as we drove to the first orphanage the first day. Bevy and I were quite nervous as we walked into Amparo De Ninos orphanage but suddenly 80 smiling little boys surrounded us and took us by the hands to show us their home, a giant, dilapidated monastery on a hill surrounded by stunning views of mountains and farmland. There is no way we could have known that the little 10-year-old boy who first took Beverly’s hand within seconds of our first visit to an orphanage on our first ever mission trip would forever change our lives. He literally never let go of Beverly’s hand the whole two and a half days we were there and it nearly killed her to leave him the last day. She later would say that the supernatural love that she felt in her heart for this little boy made her understand for the first time in her life God’s love for us and she dates her true conversion to Christ from this experience. She was a changed girl from that moment on. An inferno had been ignited in her teenage soul. That little boy’s name is Juan David and today he is our son. But I’m getting ahead of myself…

Each day of the trip and each day of the subsequent 20 trips we have made to Colombia… but I’m getting ahead of myself again… I have written an email journal home and eventually blogs detailing each days events and miracles and below are my journal entries from that first trip.

 
[quote]Day 1 June 20, 2009
We had a wonderful day today! We went out in the country to the boys orphanage “Amparo De Ninos” (Protection of the Boys). We spent the day loving on 80 orphan boys between the ages of 10 & 18. Everyone of these boys is eligible for adoption and is just waiting for a family to come and take them home. First, we were given the grand tour of “their house” a beautiful and very old Catholic monastery now an orphanage. They showed us their bakery and insisted that we try some of their pastries which were delicious. They showed us their laundry room and nurses station and kitchen and their rooms. It was so precious to be surrounded by 10 or 15 boys at once trying to hug you, hold your hand, and talk to you in rapid fire spanish. I was glad I knew how to say “hable mas despacio por favor” which means “please speak more slowly” :-). After the tour we sat around in a huge circle and introduced ourselves. Then I gave a message from Eph. 2:1-10 through a translator and told them how all of us are boys who have ran away from God and been lost “But God” rich in mercy and full of great love provided a way back to Him through the death of Christ on the cross and now He calls us to faith in His son so that we may have a Father (God), a Brother (Jesus), and a family (Christians), and never be alone again. Some boys cried and others smiled and nodded and some fell asleep :-). Then we had lunch and then we split the boys up into 4 teams and gave all the boys on each team a T-shirt. One team was red, one was blue, one was white, and one was gray. Two teams played soccer while two teams played kick ball (which was new to them) all with sports equipment that we had brought to give to the orphanage. They had a marvelous time. When it came time for us to go, they begged us to stay and held onto the van until we drove out of the gates, all the while telling them “Hasta Manana!” (See you tomorrow). One little boy clung to Beverly all day and was really sweet. It was hard for her to leave him. My little friend that held my hand all day was so cute. Tomorrow we will go back there with 200 hot dogs, buns, catsup, mustard, mayonnaise, cokes, and candy and have a feast with them and another man from our group will give a devotion and then we will teach them some new games. Thanks for helping us to get here and for all of the prayers, Pastor Matt[/quote]
 
[quote]Day 2 June 21, 2009
First thing this morning the team had a 2 hour conference with a man who with his wife founded a ministry to orphans here in Bogota call “Alma De Ninos” (Soul of the Children). They founded this ministry right after college and now have 263 orphans ages 10-18 (all eligible for adoption) in 5 different homes that they house and educate. We were very impressed with their work. Tomorrow we will go back to “Amparo De Ninos” (Protection of the Boys) for 1/2 day and then go to one of these “Alma De Ninos” homes that has 160 girls for the remainder of the day. After our meeting this morning we went back to “Amparo De Ninos” again and spent the whole day with the 80 boys there. The first thing we saw when we pulled through the gates this morning was all of the boys in their shirts we gave them playing soccer with the new equipment. It was wonderful to see their smiling faces again. We had a big hot dog cook out with chips and sodas and cookies. The boys never get “seconds” at meals so when we call out that there was seconds for everyone they stampeded. After lunch we played frisbee, dodgeball, and football. Later in the day we went into the old Catholic chapel and had a devotional from one of our team who is in seminary and works for a ministry in Waco. He told the boys that we love them and want to help them but there is only so much that we can do but that Jesus has already borne all of their pain, suffering, and sin on the cross and through faith in His sacrifice they can be healed. We then gave each boy a New Testament in Spanish. I was able to have some deep spiritual conversations with a couple of the boys and pray with them about their fears and struggles. We had many fun conversations as well and Beverly and I both learned a ton of spanish. Beverly is making a list of all the little boys she wants to bring home, boys with names like Anderes Philip, Juan David, Alexander, Diego, and Ramido. I keep reminding her that we still have two girls orphanages to visit yet this week :-). Once again, thank you for making this possible and for all of the prayers, Pastor Matt[/quote]
 
[quote]Day 3 June 22, 2009 was a marvelous day of blessings and much emotion. Today was Beverly’s 18th birthday and I’m sure one that she will remember forever. At breakfast the whole team stood around her table and sang happy birthday and then presented her with a pretty tote bag with her name embroidered on the side. After breakfast we went back to “Amparo De Ninos” for the last time this trip. When we arrived there were no boys to be seen. As we walked into the orphanage they were lined up in the hall and as Beverly entered they sang happy birthday in broken english and clapped and wished her “Feliz Cupleano” (happy birthday). It was beautiful. We took a tour of the grounds this time and were able to see their farming and dairy operation which helps with their needs and they also sell the milk to help with their costs. After some more soccer, we met in the chapel for a final devotion and to say our goodbyes. The young people on our team (Beverly (18), Sarah (18), brothers Matthew (20) and John (17), and Eric (24)) got up and gave testimony to what Christ is doing in their lives and why they came and what a blessing it has been and how they love and will miss the boys. Then I was able to share from John 14 about eternity and how short this troubled life is in comparison. I shared with them that though we may be separated in this life, if we believe in Jesus and turn from our sin, our own way, and cry out to Him, resting solely on His mercy and grace for our salvation, then we will be together in eternity with our Lord. I told them about repentance and faith. After the devotion, 25 boys acknowledged their need for Christ and I was able to pray with them. Then 3 of the older boys got up and thanked us in the most precious manner you can imagine. They thanked us for the love of Jesus that they had seen in our faces and in our actions. They said that though the time we were able to spend with them probably seemed short to us it was like a lifetime to them because it is so rare that they get to experience anything like that. They said that few people in the world would come so far to spend their time with a bunch of orphans and they loved us for it and would remember it the rest of their life. Our sweet interpreter broke down several times and had a hard time translating all that they had to say to us. There was no shortage of tears among us all. We left at lunch with many tears and hugs and sweet goodbyes and promises to come back next year. One little boy who had stayed right with Beverly and I all week asked if I could be his “Padrino” (Godfather) and if Beverly could be his “Madrina” (Godmother). That was hard. We are bringing back information on each boy and have promised them that we will work to help connect them with families who wish to adopt. In the afternoon we went to a new orphanage called “Ciudad De La Nina” (City of the Girl) where their are 160 girls between the ages of 7 and 18. This is one of the orphanages of the man that we met with yesterday morning from “Alma De Ninos” (Soul of the Child). They had an assembly and the girls all sang to us and chanted out a welcome. We introduced ourselves and I just happened to mention to them that it was Beverly’s “Cupleano Hoy” (Birthday today) :-). So 160 girls sang happy birthday in spanish, and beat on the tables, and clapped and Beverly blushed intensely and then proceeded to walk over and give me a well deserved punch in the kidney :-). We handed out a stuffed toy to each girl and told them that we would be back tomorrow to have an American cook out and spend the whole day with them. More chanting, clapping, and beating on the tables ensued. Many of the girls came up to thank us and give us each a big “abrazo” (hug). Five beautiful little girls surrounded me and asked if I had any daughters. I told them that I had 4 daughters including Beverly and then they asked me if I would like some more daughters because each of them are waiting for a family to adopt them. That was hard. We left there and went to dinner at the home of the lady who works from this end to help the “Here I Am Orphan Ministry” (our team) to work in these orphanages and acts as the guide on the trips. We had a wonderful Colombian dinner and rich Colombian coffee and then she pulled out a beautifully decorated chocolate cake and we all sang happy birthday to Beverly one more time. As she blew out the candle, Beverly wished out loud that we will be able to help some of these children, perhaps through adoption ourselves, in the future. We sang some worship songs and went back to our hotel asking God for strength and courage to once again be the hands and feet and arms of Jesus to the 160 girls at “Ciudad De La Nina” tomorrow. Once again, from the bottom of my heart, I thank you for supporting us in this work and for the many prayers. Many Blessings, Pastor Matt[/quote]
 

That night when we got back to the hotel we tried to Skype with the family back home so they could sing happy birthday to Bevy but all she and I could do was cry and blubber about what we had seen and felt. Our family on the other side of the computer screen couldn’t figure out what was going on with us… but soon they would… but I’m getting ahead of myself again..

 
[quote]Day 4 June 23, 2009 Today was another amazing day. We went back to “Ciudad De La Nina” (City of the Girl) to spend the whole day. This is the orphanage with 160 of the cutest girls ever seen that we visited briefly yesterday. We spent the morning talking with the girls (by now our spanish is getting pretty good) and laughing and teasing while they asked us zillions of questions which we later realized were all directed at whether we would make good adoptive parents or not. They asked us important questions like how many shoes we owned and how much land and how many animals we owned and stuff like that :-). We then had a grand cook out and fed them hot dogs and chips and ice cream with all of the toppings which took hours, literally. They thanked us dozens of times. It was a very happy, happy time. We then moved into the cafeteria and a group of the girls dressed in traditional Colombian dress did several dances for us. It was really beautiful. Next, it was time for the devotion. I shared with them about my family and how that all of my adult life my passion has been to be a good father. I told them how I love my children and how I desire to give good things to them and how I would even die for them. But then I shared with them that the Bible says that if earthly fathers who are sinners give good gifts to their children how much more does the Heavenly Father. I then proceeded to share with them the wonderful news of a Heavenly Father who loves them and who sent His son to die for them and how that by faith they can have this Father for their own and He will never leave them, He will never let them down. We then gave out a pair of brand new tennis shoes to each girl and a New Testament in Spanish. Then it was time for us to go. However, some of the girls got the idea of having each of us sign their Bible for them. So we spent the next 30 minutes with crowds of girls around each of us signing Bibles as fast as we could write our names. It was unspeakably precious. We had to tell them goodbye for this trip and words cannot express the feeling in our hearts as we left those girls, many with tears, promising to do what we can to help them in the days ahead and asking God to watch over them. It was especially hard for me to leave 3 little girls named Jaime, Brenda, and Wendy who had held my hands all day and called me Papa. Tomorrow we go to “Ampara De Ninas” (Protection of the Girls) here in the city which is one of the main reasons for the trip and we will spend the rest of our week there. I can only imagine how hard it will be to leave our new little friends there after we spend the next three days with them but I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it. I have a new appreciation for my Savior who once said, “suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not for of such is the kingdom of heaven.” Love and Prayers, Pastor Matt[/quote]
 

Little did I know that the next day, June 24, 2009 would change my life forever. This is the day that Beverly and I met my Colombian daughter, Heidy, and I fell ridiculously, insanely, supernaturally, head over heels in love.

 
[quote]Day 5 June 24, 2009 Today was another example of God’s hand mightily at work among us. We arrived at “Amparo De Ninas” at about 10:00am. There are 76 girls in this orphanage. They were all ready to go to the big city park “just down the road” so we set out walking to the park. An hour and 5 or 6 miles later we arrived at the park. It was a lovely walk in the 70 degree weather with each of us surrounded by girls holding our hands or walking arm in arm and asking question after question. It was wonderful. The park is a gigantic, beautiful, lush, park with two lakes. If walking “to” the park wasn’t enough we also had to walk all around the park and see all of the sites 🙂 which gave us lots of opportunity to talk about the Lord, America, food, music, and so on. The nuns cooked in huge kettles over an open fire right in the park a wonderful “soup” full of beef ribs, chicken leg quarters, bananas, plantain, potatoes, rice and so on. It was delicious and hearty. We played volleyball, soccer, earth ball, ladder ball and shot marshmallow guns at each other. At about 3:00pm the rain came and we had to head back to the orphanage. By the time we got back the rain had stopped so we dragged chairs out into the courtyard and sat around and visited until time to go. My heart was pierced again and again as were the rest of the team as we got to know these beautiful girls and see their personalities and know that if they don’t get adopted the statistics tell us that most of them will be dead within two years of leaving the orphanage. One little girl in particular, named Heidy, followed Beverly around all day and tried really hard to communicate with her. At one point she began to play piano scales with her fingers on Beverly’s arm and suddenly they realized that they knew a universal language, music. This little girl plays the piano, flute, and drums. I had seen her with Beverly all day but I was monopolized by several other sweet girls and didn’t get to meet her until we were almost ready to leave. Someone said that she could sing and so we coerced her into singing for us. When she started to sing I thought that heaven had opened up and an angel was singing to us. We were stunned. As I write this there are chills going down my spine and tears filling my eyes. I know that God has a plan for this girl and I am so grateful that on this day I was able to love on her and make her laugh several times and let her know that she has friends from Texas. Tomorrow we go back to have a big hot dog cookout with these girls and then Friday we will be with them all day as well. I can’t wait to get back there and see all of my little friends. I don’t know what the future holds but I know, God willing, that we are going to have a wonderful time in the Lord while we can. Love and Prayers, Pastor Matt[/quote]
 
[quote]Day 6 June 25, 2009 Today was a happy day! We rested some and saw some sites this morning and then went back to “Amparo De Ninas” this afternoon. It was such a happy day because we had made friends with these girls yesterday and they know that we aren’t leaving until Saturday so they don’t have to be sad yet and so we were able to just be comfortable with each other and really loosen up and have some fun. When I walked into the courtyard I saw that the girls had taken colored chalk and in huge fancy letters written on the asphalt “Mateo, Te Queremos Mucho” (Matthew, We Love You Very Much). The little girl (Heidy) that I told about who was such a singer and musician had drawn a large picture of a girl with a smaller girl with her head on her shoulder and under the larger girl was the name Beverly and under the smaller girl was her name with hearts all around the picture. It was beautiful. We played basketball, volleyball, and sat around and talked a lot. For dinner we had our big hot dog cook out and then made popcorn and roasted marshmallows over the charcoal. Someone brought out a stereo and then it got crazy. In case you ever wondered if Latin girls can dance, I am here to tell you positively that they can and that they are determined when trying to teach us “Americanos” how to as well. I’ve never had more fun in my life. We laughed and we made them laugh. We danced and took crazy pictures of each other until our camera batteries were gone. We talked and played until the sun was way down and it was time to go. Some of the girls made woven bracelets and Beverly knew how to start them so there was literally a line of girls waiting for Beverly to help them get theirs started. Heidy brought her bracelet when completed and put it on my arm. I tried to give it back and tell her it was for her but she would have none of it. All day yesterday and today I kept trying to get her picture but she wouldn’t let me or anyone else. Apparently she is infamous for hating to have her picture taken. Once when I surprised her with a shot she begged me to delete it and so I did. She did allow a picture of her and Beverly with her drawing though and right before we left she came up and said “Una photo de tu y yo” (One photo of you and me) so I was able to get her picture after all. My friend Allen took the shot and I can’t wait to get it from him. I knew that it was a huge gesture of friendship for her to permit it and I will cherish that picture. It reminded me of summer camp when I was a boy and making new friends and having fun and giving yourself to the moment knowing that the week will end but for the moment this is all there is in the universe. I know God put Beverly and I on this wonderful team of people and appointed us for this trip and I can gratefully say that I have soaked up every minute. I came here to show the love of Jesus to these children but what I didn’t expect was to see His love for me through them. Love and Prayers, Pastor Matt[/quote]
 
[quote]Day 7 June 26, 2009 Our final day here in Bogota was very sweet and very sad as was expected. We went back to “Amparo De Ninas” today. The girls were all gathered and Beverly, David, Sarah, and I sang “Here I Am To Worship” for them and then I gave our last devotional from Romans 15:13 Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. I shared with them how the God of hope loves them and has a plan for them. And when they believe the Holy Spirit comes and fills them with hope, joy, and peace. They can search for those things in the world, in things, in human relationships, but they are only to be found in God through His Son Jesus Christ. Several girls prayed with me after acknowledging their need for and total dependance on Jesus Christ for their eternal salvation. After the devotion, the team gave each girl a New Testament in Spanish and a brand new pair of shoes and a stuffed bunny. I should mention here that our team, Here I Am Orphan Ministry, (www.orphanministries.com) bought 361 pairs of shoes this week for girls and boys in every orphanage we visited plus 4 other orphanages that we were not able to visit this time. Then it was lunch time and we enjoyed eating and visiting together. Two girls wrote me sweet notes thanking me for opening my heart to them and for the love that they felt. I have so many little sisters now. Instead of trying to celebrate each girls birthday when it comes around they have two big parties a year, one in June for the January through June birthdays and one at the end of the year for the rest. Today was the big birthday party for the first 1/2 of the year so after lunch our buddies from “Amparo De Ninos” that we visited earlier in the week showed up and the party began. There were cakes and we brought ice cream and toppings and there was a DJ and lots of dancing :-). The kids look forward to this for 6 months and they were extra delighted that we were going to be there to share it with them. It was a happy time. As the day began to come to a close the girls started bringing me their email addresses on scraps of paper and eliciting promises of staying in touch and promises to return and see them when we can. When it actually came time to leave, we gathered in a big circle and held hands and I prayed. I asked God to watch over our friends, to draw them close to Himself, to let them know that we love them and it is because He first loved us, and to hold our hearts in His hand until we see each other again. After the prayer, some of the girls got up and thanked us. Heidy, the little girl that captured Beverly and my heart and with whom we had much fun today, got up and said, “Thank you for coming to show us love. Believe me, your riches in heaven will be great. You have given 365 days worth of love in 3 days. God bless you.” Then it was time to go and girls rushed to kiss us on the cheek and give us hugs. Many were crying as were we. They thanked us over and over again. Finally, before some of the team dragged me into the van and closed the door, I gave Heidy the last of many tearful hugs and we said our sweet goodbyes. I don’t have the words to say what we all felt as we drove away but there was much sobbing and many determined oaths to redouble our efforts to “Vindicate the weak and fatherless and do justice to the afflicted and destitute.” Psalm 82:3 Love and Prayers, Pastor Matt [/quote]
 

As little Heidy and I were giving each other our last tearful goodbyes and hugs and kisses and she was whispering in my ear “I love you, I’ll be praying for you” my friends David and Allen grabbed me by the back of my leather jacket and literally dragged me into the van and slammed the door because we were going to miss our flight. As the door closed and we drove away from Amparo De Ninas, I sat frozen for a moment and then I turned to David and quietly said, “If I have to swim the gulf of Mexico, I’m going to help that little girl.” Then I fell into his arms and sobbed like a baby all the way to the airport.

Here is an excerpt from Beverly’s journal from that trip…

 
[quote]“The summer that I graduated high school I read, “Don’t waste your life” by John Piper. When I read that book God put a fervent desire in my heart to give my life wholly and completely over to God to do with as He would. He stirred a passion in me to do something meaningful something that would impact the kingdom of God for His glory. That same summer God brought a young orphan girl into our life named Mercy. She needed a home and a loving forever family. I knew right away that God wanted me to make a ministry of this precious new sister. And so I spent that year pouring into her the love of God. And then one day my dad walks into the office and tells me about an opportunity he was given to go on a mission trip to Bogota, Colombia and I was reminded of what God had stirred in me the summer before. I had no idea what to expect and sometimes wondered what in the world were we getting ourselves into. The first day we visited a boy’s orphanage. It was very awkward and I did not know what to do with myself. And then one sweet shy little boy kept taking my hand every chance he got and started showing me around. He showed me everything but when he took me to one of the rooms where they sleep and showed me his bed and his little backpack that held all the little toys he owned I wanted to cry. That first day he hardly ever left my side soaking in all the love and affection he could. But after that he began to pull away and I realized it was because he knew we were going to leave and wanted to make it as least painful as he could by staying away. It broke my heart. That night I couldn’t stop thinking of all the little things in life I take for granted. Things like a hug or a shelf full of stuffed animals or a pantry full of food or just family. Over the next few days we visited two girls orphanages. I marveled at how selfless and loving these children were and at how even though we had gifts and food and things to give them what they wanted the most was our love. All they wanted was to hold your hand to make you laugh to hug you to see you smile. That baffled me the most. We were there to serve them and give them love and they were so eager to do just that for us. Telling these precious children goodbye on that last day was the hardest thing I have ever done. God stirred a passion in me when I read, “Don’t waste your life” to do something of worth and value for the kingdom of God. And I have to say I am certain I have found that something. And that something is to take God’s love and the gospel to Orphans and God willing bring some home to teach and train in the ways of the Lord.” [/quote]
 

Beverly and I sat quietly on the plane with copious tears flowing down both of our cheeks. Suddenly she reached over and squeezed my hand so hard it hurt. “Dad, promise me that we will never be the same again! Promise me! Promise me that we won’t forget what we saw, what we felt, and we will go home and do something about it!” All I could choke out was, “Beverly, I promise if we have to swim the gulf of Mexico, we are going to help those kids.”

Aflame For God 18 – Swimming The Gulf of Mexico

“Take care of giving up your first zeal; beware of cooling in the least degree. Ye were hot and earnest once; be hot and earnest still, and let the fire which once burnt within you still animate you.” – Charles Spurgeon

Read the beginning of the series HERE

It quickly became obvious to us that the forces of darkness were not happy about God sending us a new daughter. My sons and I worked building high-rise buildings while we were planting churches and three weeks after Mercy came through our door all three of us were laid off from our jobs on the same day. I was unexpectedly laid off from a six figure income job that day and was consequently out of work for almost a year and financially we have never recovered. But the three of us getting laid off was not to be the height of the spiritual warfare for that day. We came home, gave the bad news to the girls and mom, and decided to go to dinner and forget our fears and worries. On the way home from dinner an old man who was off his medication tried to run my wife off the road in our little, safe, gated community where we lived. She pulled over and the boys and I got out to see what was going on and he accelerated to about 30 miles an hour and just missed me and hit my oldest son Luke sending him smashing head first into the man’s windshield and then he flew over the car and landed on the pavement as the man sped away. Immediately Lisa took off and caught up to the man and blocked his car with hers and brought him to a stop. My heart sank to my feet as I watched all of this just a few feet from me. But God! Even though the man’s bumper, fender, mirror and windshield were dented and shattered Luke jumped up off the ground and we discovered he had no broken bones or internal injuries and only a small scratch on his head. The EMTs who arrived shortly after and saw the damage to the car could not believe that Luke had even survived much less was unharmed. That day we knew we were in a war.

Over the next several months our entire family’s lives were wrapped up in ministering to Mercy and the spiritual warfare continued on every front. We couldn’t believe the persecution we began to receive from people, even our own extended family, who didn’t think it was right that we had adopted a black girl. We were stunned. Surely no one who named the name of Christ and knew the Bible could feel that way. Families left our church over it even. Friends whom we counted among our dearest quit speaking to us. And Mercy deep down was very angry. She was all alone in another country, didn’t understand the language, didn’t understand these crazy white people and their rules, and we quickly realized just how far out of our depth we were to help this precious girl. It was very difficult for Mercy and our whole family but continually God showed up in stunning ways to show us that He was the author of this and we were on His mission.

Many days I held Mercy in my arms while she wet the front of my shirt weeping out her anger and pain and confusion. Like the Grinch in the animated Christmas special, I felt like my heart was growing ten times its normal size. Many nights my girls sat up with her and worked with her. Day after day Lisa worked trying to help her learn English, get caught up in school (she had missed several years of school due to the Liberian civil war) and adjust to her new culture. All the while we were still writing, speaking, pastoring, and doing odd jobs trying to keep afloat financially. We made more mistakes than we care to remember now but God was expanding our hearts and minds at a blinding pace and we were learning to see, feel, and act like Jesus to the least of these.

When Mercy was dropped on our doorstep we simply took her in. At the time we didn’t even consider what to do legally not to mention with preaching and pastoring and speaking, we simply had no time to even think about it. But after a year my daughter Beverly came to me (she had just graduated high school at 16) and said, “Dad, put me to work in the ministry. Give me something to do.” So I asked her to hire a lawyer, hire a social worker, do the research, and figure out what it would take to adopt Mercy legally. And she did just that. Once in awhile she would show up with some papers for Lisa and I to sign or she would tell us we all needed to go to the doctor on such and such a day to get physicals for the adoption. Finally the date was set for our home study and the lawyer and the social worker called me (I had not yet spoken to them) and said, “Mister Bullen, we were getting worried that we hadn’t heard from you or your wife in all this time and the only person we have dealt with is your 16-year-old daughter. But we looked you up online and read some of your writings and realized that you are training Beverly to be a leader and a world impactor and not just being irresponsible with your adoption and we want you to know we think its awesome.” Whew! I hadn’t even considered how it might appear! Finally the day arrived and we went to court and signed all of the papers and Mercy was now a real Bullen. Oh happy day.

Within a year of Mercy’s arrival we had experienced a total financial collapse and were on our way to losing everything. The financial meltdown of 2008 – 2009 was in full swing and we were hanging by a thread. But God was working in us in ways we hadn’t previously known was possible and our faith and our determination were growing leaps and bounds. We began to experience, “Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in His wonderful face and the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace” in a whole new way.

About this time a Tres Dias brother, David Richardson, emailed me to say that he was going on a trip to Colombia, South America with Allen Pate (the guy who broke my heart for orphan ministry) and they felt strongly that God wanted me to go with them. I told him that we were weeks away from being on the street and had our hands full with pastoring and Mercy and there was just no way I could go visit orphanages in Colombia with him. Four more times over the next several weeks he reached out to me insisting that “he knew” this was from God and that I was supposed to be on this trip. Time after time I told him no. Three weeks before the trip was supposed to leave I finally found a job back in construction with some dear Christian friends that was going to put us back on top financially. “Yes!” I thought, “God has answered our prayers. Good thing I didn’t take David up on that crazy idea to go visit orphans in Colombia.” I called David on the phone and told him that I had just been hired at this company and there was absolutely no way I could go to Colombia. I’ll never forget his response. “Well, ok brother, but I just know you are supposed to be there. Don’t be mad at me but I’m going to keep praying that you will go.” “Fair enough,” I replied, and that was it. The next morning I walked in to my new job and my friend/new boss’s face was white as a sheet. “Matt, I’m so sorry but the contract we hired you for was canceled this morning and we can’t use you now.” I assured him that it was ok and walked out the door but as I stepped across the threshold leaving that place of business I was reaching for my phone, hands shaking. “Hello, David? This is Matt. I think I’m supposed to be on that trip to Colombia with you. I don’t know where I will get the money but count me in.” I went home and told my family what had happened expecting them to be upset, especially my wife, but quite the opposite was true. They had just been watching a movie called Faith Like Potatoes and they insisted I sit down and watch it. I didn’t feel like it but agreed. The story in that movie touched me to the very deepest catacombs of my soul. To this day I can’t watch it without crying. At one point in the movie (which is a true story) the lead character Angus Buchan says, “The condition for a miracle is difficulty. The condition for a great miracle is impossibility.” That exploded in my heart because I was sitting in an absolutely impossible situation and yet I knew we were on the edge of something crazy amazing and I felt the Holy Spirit’s peace waft over me and then my wife said, “You know, Beverly will turn 18 while you are on the trip to Colombia…” “Oh!” I said, Then I shouldn’t go?” “No,” Lisa said, “What I meant was you should take her with you. What better way to spend her 18th birthday than loving on orphans in Colombia with her dad?” “But we don’t even have the money for me to go”, I replied. “Well if God can send one, He can send two,” she said. And then she finished with, “The condition for a great miracle is impossibility!”

Three days later a man in our church called me and said, “Pack your bags Pastor Matt. Some of us men are pitching in to pay your way. You and Beverly are going to Colombia.”

And we did…

Aflame For God 17 – Gasoline On A Bonfire

“Get as close as possible to those who are burning for God, and you will be ignited.” – Duke Taber

Read the beginning of the series HERE

We were serving God with everything we had or so we thought. Then two events transpired leading to two prayers that would change our lives forever. The first thing that happened was I was listening to the audio version of John Piper’s book, Desiring God, on my way home one day and this paragraph in chapter nine shook me to my very core…

 
[quote]BECOMING WORLD CHRISTIANS – “I would like to believe that many of you who read this chapter are on the brink of setting a new course of commitment to missions: some a new commitment to go to a frontier people, others a new path of education, others a new use of your vocation in a culture less saturated by the church, others a new lifestyle and a new pattern of giving and praying and reading. I want to push you over the brink. I would like to make the cause of missions so attractive that you will no longer be able to resist its magnetism. Not that I believe everyone will become a missionary, or even should become one. But I pray that every reader of this book might become what David Bryant calls a “World Christian”—that you would reorder your life around God’s global cause.” – John Piper[/quote]
 

The moment I heard those words it flashed across my mind that though I had spent two and a half decades passionately pursuing Jesus and a decade and a half training my family to be warriors for Christ, I had totally missed God’s heartbeat for the nations. All of my focus and energy had been on America, my own country. I thought for a moment that my heart would burst. Hot tears flowed from my eyes and I nearly ran off the road. I began right then to cry out to God to send my family to the nations. Before I got home I had decided I needed to leave my church, sell everything, move into a little apartment, and spend the rest of my life pursuing Jesus on His mission among the nations. Now I just had to convince my wife and children. Shortly after this I also heard another quote from John Piper which wrecked me further.

 
[quote]“How then do you serve God? You posture yourself, and you maneuver your life, and you devote energy and effort and time and creativity to positioning yourself under the waterfall of God’s continual blessing, you find out where the waterfall of God’s blessing is falling and you get under it. When it moves, you follow it so that you stay wet. And usually it takes you overseas…” – John Piper[/quote]
 

This new vision of chasing God’s joy like strategizing to stay under a globe trotting waterfall of heavenly quests blew my mind and elicited the first of the two life changing prayers. I began to pray night and day for God to let me and my family in on the adventure by sending us to the nations.

The second event was shortly after reading Desiring God I was speaking at a men’s Tres Dias retreat and a dear friend, whom I had met on my original Tres Dias, Allen Pate, was also speaking. During Allen’s message on Christian Action, he told the story of how he and his wife Cindy were called to orphan ministry and had adopted two sons from Kazakhstan and recently two daughters from Colombia. As he spoke my heart began to burn once again like it would burst and hot tears rolled down my face. Soon I was weeping uncontrollably. I recognized this feeling as the moving of the Holy Spirit once again in my heart. I had felt it before with life changing results. I literally felt as if I would die if I couldn’t get involved in orphan ministry. At the same time thoughts were running through my mind such as, “I’m a busy pastor, father of five teenagers, author, conference speaker, and I am fighting an incurable disease.” “What business, Lord, do I have getting involved in orphan ministry?” “I don’t have time.” “I don’t have money.” “Surely this is my imagination and not You Lord.” And then I had an idea. A safe prayer that I thought would get me off the hook. I prayed, “Lord, you know my heart. You know that I am willing but I don’t know where to start. If You will drop an orphan on my doorstep, I will take it in.” I gave Allen a big hug after his message and told him how moved I was and asked him to pray for us as we sought how the Lord would have us be involved in missions and especially orphan ministry. I came home and told my wife, Lisa, about my “safe” prayer. She responded, “Great!” “IF GOD DROPS AN ORPHAN ON OUR DOORSTEP… we will take it in.”

Be careful what you pray for… God takes you seriously.

Two weeks later we received an email asking us to help a 13-year-old orphan girl from Liberia, Africa named Mercy (God has a sense of humor). She 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 and literally dropped her on our doorstep. Before sending our family to the nations, God had sent the nations to us.

God had spoken to our family with a megaphone. He wanted us to have a heart for missions and especially the vulnerable children of the world. We took her in, loved her, ministered to her, and eventually adopted her as our own.

We had no idea the incredible spiritual battle that would erupt the moment she walked through our door. It nearly took us out. It certainly drove us to our knees. It was beautiful, miraculous, and excruciatingly painful all at the same time but it was exactly what we needed to go from the regular army to special forces in the kingdom of God.

Today Mercy is a beautiful, healthy, and happy girl. Adopting Mercy has been an incredible trial of faith and at the same time the single greatest miracle of love and transformation that we have ever personally witnessed and experienced.

After God dropped Mercy on our doorstep, we were feeling pretty satisfied that we had discovered the reason for the burning in our hearts for missions that had begun a few years before. I had prayed my “safe” prayer and God had answered immediately and miraculously. Furthermore, He had healed Mercy physically and was in the process of healing her spiritually and emotionally. Surely this was God’s complete plan for us being involved in orphan ministry and discipling the nations… or maybe He was about to go beyond what we could imagine or think…

Having Mercy in our home, hearing her horrible stories of abduction, torture, poverty, famine, disease, danger, and fleeing the civil war in her country, and seeing her tears and her many struggles broke our hearts for the orphans of the world and readied us for the next calling of God on our family.

Aflame For God 16 – The Condition For A Great Miracle

“Preaching is theology coming through a man who is on fire… A man who can speak about these things dispassionately has no right whatsoever to be in a pulpit; and should never be allowed to enter one.” – Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Read the beginning of the series HERE

It was early 2000 and at the invitation of our nearest neighbor, we visited Forest Meadow Baptist Church and immediately fell in love with the church, the people, the pastor and his wife. Very soon after we invited the pastor and his wife over for lunch after church one Sunday. In our usual fashion we visited with them while the children cooked and served and then we sat around and the children shared stories and testimonies and the pastor and his wife were completely blown away. After a beautiful afternoon of fellowship they said goodbye and as they were leaving the pastor pulled me aside and said, “Matt, you have something very very special here in this family that you guys are raising. What God is doing here in your home needs to be exported to the world. You need to export this blessing that God has given you. Can I challenge you in the next year to have as many families from our church over to your home as possible so that they can experience what we experienced today and feel what we felt today and be inspired to raise up a generation of warriors for Christ?” I was stunned. I promised him that we would do exactly that and when I went back in and explained to the family what he had told me we pulled out the church directory and a calendar and began to formulate a plan to have every family in the church over for dinner in the next 12 months. In that one moment of encouragement from that pastor a flame was lit in our hearts to be a catalyst for Christian family renewal and inspiration.

Week after week, chicken dinner after chicken dinner, we began to build relationships with all of the families in the church and God began to do amazing things in us and through us. First, we built some of the greatest friendships of our lives that remain as bulwarks in our family to this day. Second, we began to study even harder than we had before about godly family and marriage so that we could grow ourselves and also counsel and disciple others. We did end up having nearly every family in the church over for dinner in the next two years and we and I would like to think the church were never the same again. We also began to loan out books and tapes from our significant family library and the results were so stunning that we began to buy two and three of everything in our library to give away or lend to our steady stream of hungry souls God was sending to our dinner table.

My health had been dramatically deteriorating for a couple of years and we couldn’t figure it out. I was only 35 years old but was functioning like a 70-year-old man. Finally the doctors told me I had Systemic Lupus and it was incurable. They put me on 11 different medications and within two years I was almost dead. I could barely walk and spent more time in bed than out and that blessed little church and group of friends loved and cared for us amazingly. God only allowed us to enjoy that heavenly mountain valley and church and friends for 3 years and then He moved us to Houston, Texas in a most miraculous way. Even though I was terribly sick, I was still rocketing up in the commercial construction world and eventually caught the attention of the largest construction company in America and through a series of providences that made it clear God was at work I was recruited to build a $220,000,000 Hilton hotel in Houston, Texas to be completed in time for the 2004 Superbowl. So we loaded up and moved to Houston. All the while we felt strongly that God was not primarily moving us here for construction but that it was only the carrot to get us here for some yet unforeseen kingdom plan. And we were not wrong.

Within a few weeks of settling down in Houston we “stumbled” onto a little church plant that was 3 weeks old and immediately fell in love with the people there. Within a week or two we had rolled up our sleeves and dove in. In no time at all the church had 30 families attending regularly and you guessed it, we put into action a plan to have each family over for dinner and love on them and minister to them in any way we could including exposing them to our now mammoth family lending library. We jumped at every chance to do any job in the church no matter how small and we had never been happier. One weekend in the spring of 2004 changed my life forever. As we now had risen to leadership in the church we were sent off to a Christian retreat called Tres Dias as part of our leadership training. I went with an open mind and heart to see what God had for me there but in my wildest dreams I could never have imagined the impact this one weekend would have on me for the rest of my life. I can’t explain exactly what or how but Jesus met me on that weekend so miraculously that I can only say that it was every bit as impactful as that youth camp in the summer of 1982 and I came home a man aflame once again. If you had asked me before that weekend if I was on fire for God I probably would have said yes but time and trouble and illness and the cares of this life had dampened my flame more than I realized but that weekend God blew through my soul with a fresh wind and fanned an inferno that burns brightly to this day. I came home from that weekend with a three part vision. 1. I knew God wanted me to pastor. 2. I knew God wanted me to write a book about godly family. 3. I knew God wanted me to begin speaking at homeschool conferences and challenging parents to raise warriors for Christ.

Shortly after, I became one of the pastors of this booming church of now 300 people, we began to write our book The Blessed Family (now available on Amazon HERE), and I became a regular speaker at the annual Southeast Texas Homeschool Association state conference. Later I would also write a monthly article called Dad’s Corner for The Teaching Pioneer Magazine. I loved preaching more than ever now and like days gone by I enjoyed the Holy Spirit’s power and help but in even stronger ways than when I was a youth. It was thrilling what God was doing all around us. I was still sick much of the time, still building high rise buildings all over Texas, and still ministering to people three and four nights a week in our home but by this time we had an army of precious warriors and best friends in our 5 teenagers who now did all of the work, including our two sons studying theology and working for me building high rises and then God called us to start a church in our living room because we weren’t busy enough! Within 8 weeks that church was running over 100 people and then 300 and then after 3 years we started over with another church in our living room. Through some miraculous circumstances our family was part of a think tank strategizing with the leaders of some of the largest churches in America about how to raise up the next generation of warriors for Christ. Lisa and I were also speaking at Tres Dias weekends twice a year and seeing God work miracle after miracle in the lives of hundreds of people. It was 2008 and we were working as hard for God as we knew how. There are too many crazy God-stories and fierce spiritual battles to tell all of it but suffice it to say we were exporting the blessing in every way we thought possible and swinging our swords at the agents of darkness with all of our might. We were living as radical for God as we could possibly imagine. BUT GOD!… was about to completely blow our minds…

Aflame For God 15 – An Orphan On Our Doorstep

“We who want to witness to the presence of God’s Spirit in the world need to tend the fire within with utmost care… Our first and foremost task is faithfully to care for the inward fire so that when it is really needed it can offer warmth and light to lost travelers.” – Henri J. M. Nouwen

Read the beginning of the series HERE

Though in our hearts we had given up on being “in the ministry” during this period as I worked and Lisa homeschooled our children, God in His goodness began to bring people to our door on a regular basis who were hurting, needed counseling, wanted to be saved, or needed a meal. We quickly began to realize the kingdom of God was much bigger than any institutional church, denomination, or organized ministry. Just when we thought we were “out of the ministry”, real, miraculous, ministry began to happen all around us. Every week our little apartment was full of families that needed discipleship, the lost who needed to be found, teenagers seeking God, and folks that just needed a friend. We began to realize that God could bring the whole world to our dinner table if we were prepared, prayed up, and ready to meet their needs through Jesus. That aspect of our ministry has never left us. Over the years literally thousands have sat at our dinner table and been ministered to. Many people in ministry and serving God in local churches around the world today were saved, encouraged, or counseled in our home. Praise the Lord!

One story in particular still amazes me when I think of those days. I had moved up to being a commercial construction superintendent for a major company in Albuquerque, New Mexico and I had a young foreman named Jeno. As was my habit, I had spied Jeno among my laborers as having leadership potential and I made him my foreman. I took him under my wing and began teaching him to be a future superintendent. Over the years I had done this many times and almost always the mutual respect and affection that grew between us eventually allowed me to share Jesus with these different foremen. I’ll never forget the day that as we were inspecting a trench that was ready for concrete, Jeno asked me what made me different, what made me so loving. I told him my story of how I came to Christ and my passion for following Jesus and right there in that trench Jeno asked me to help him get saved. We prayed right there and then. I went home and told Lisa the exciting news and we prayed for Jeno that night. I was shocked the next morning as Jeno came bounding up glowing and telling me that he had gone home that night and shared with his wife word for word as best as he could remember everything I had told him and that she had given her heart to Jesus as well. I was stunned and thrilled. Jeno and his wife started going to church and before long he was promoted in the company and I didn’t see him on a daily basis as I had before. One night about a year later Jeno called me excited out of his mind. He asked me to get Lisa on the phone and he put his wife on the phone so the four of us could hear. Then Jeno informed me that he and his wife had decided to both quit their jobs and they were leaving the next morning with a Uhaul to head to Bible college and begin their life of ministry together and they wanted to thank us for leading them to Jesus and inspiring them to serve God with their whole life. You are amazing God… Simply amazing…

Another wonderful thing was taking place in our home as we ministered to these myriad of people week in and week out. Our children were observing and listening and learning to serve. When they were a little older we taught them to cook and clean and serve and babysit the small children of the families that came through our door knowing this would give mom and dad more “ministry time” with the parents. Our children took this on as part of their work to impact the kingdom and that servant’s heart is characteristic of them to this day. Little did we realize how God would someday impact the world through the families that he brought to our door and through our children who watched and learned and served.

We continued to struggle as I worked to climb the commercial construction ladder and Lisa poured herself into teaching and training the children. At one point things got so crazy that we were homeless for a little while and we stayed in a pay by the week motel room with 5 children and only two beds in the same room. But we always made it fun. We pretended that we were on a secret mission and we had to keep on the move. The children knew it was all in fun but it was so much better than worrying about our conditions. Eventually, in the summer of 1999 we were blessed through a series of miracles and very hard work to buy 4 acres of land in a beautiful valley in the mountains east of Albuquerque, New Mexico. We camped on the land one whole summer clearing trees and putting in the septic system and pouring footings and that fall we put a big extra double wide mobile home on the land and moved in. It was our first real home after 15 years of marriage. Our oldest was 14 and our youngest was 7. We absolutely loved it! But very soon we realized that we as a family had grown quite accustomed to hospitality and the ministry that regularly happened in our home and now we lived at the end of a dirt road in the middle of nowhere and we were very lonely. It wasn’t long however before God heard our hearts yearning and began once again to beat a path to our door. One day our closest neighbor came by and invited us to a little church in the mountains about 5 miles away called Forest Meadow Baptist Church. We gladly took him up on the invitation not realizing that some of the dearest friends of our lifetime awaited us there as well as a pastor whose one visit to our home a few weeks later would change our lives forever. Aflame For God 14 – Exporting The Blessing

“Nothing but fire kindles fire.” – Phillips Brooks

Read the beginning of the series HERE

We had lain down (temporarily at least) our wild ideas of turning the world upside down. I was working, we had an apartment, and all of our friends, in-laws, and other family were happy that we had “wised up” and were submitting to the status quo of the culture. However, there was still a subversive fire burning in our bones and so we devised a plan for our life. I would work hard at whatever work God sent me during the day and at night Lisa and I would get educated theologically so that we could educate our children to be warriors for Christ. I told Lisa that for every book she read on Christian womanhood, child rearing, women’s ministry, or prayer and wrote a report on the book, I would buy her a new dress. So about two days later I came home from my $5.00 per hour job and she had already read a weighty book and written a beautiful report. I couldn’t believe it! How was I going to buy her a dress? I began, like Laban in the Bible, to change her “wages” seven times but she smilingly assured me that she never intended to take me up on my dress deal. She was as committed to our vision of knowing God and preparing our little family to impact the kingdom as I was and she need no additional incentive but the joy of pursuing God as a family. Within that month she had read 5 books and written reports. I couldn’t keep up with her reading, but I tried hard.

One day when our oldest, Luke, was about to be school age I came home and told Lisa, “I am not sending my kids to these New Mexico schools. The only thing I learned there was self defense. We are going to keep our kids home and teach them ourselves.” We had never heard of homeschooling so you can imagine my wife’s response. I told her that everything man has ever learned is in a book somewhere and all we have to do is teach them to read. She was incredulous but agreed to start teaching them at home. We didn’t have a TV so we spent nearly every evening reading. Every morning she would gather the children around our little table and memorize scripture with them. I bought her a blackboard to put on the wall in our dining nook and when they had mastered a verse by memory she would write the verse on the board. Each day they would review the verses on the board and then begin the process of memorizing a new one. I was working very hard to keep the wolves away from the door and not paying too much attention to the blackboard until one day I stopped and noticed that there were over 40 verses written on that little blackboard. I couldn’t believe it! I asked Lisa, “Do you mean to tell me that you and the children have memorized over 40 verses of scripture?” “Yes”, she replied and quickly to prove her point had the children recite from memory all 43 verses. I was stunned and thrilled. They were 7, 6, 5, and 3-years-old and our 5th baby, Brooke, was an infant. It wasn’t long before they were reciting whole chapters of the Bible from memory.

I had preached at a youth rally in Indianapolis, Indiana and the daughter of an evangelist, Don Boys, was in the crowd and was impacted by the sermon. Somehow I was told that her father was working on a curriculum for something called Home Schooling. He was gathering Christian educators from all around the country to collaborate on it which intrigued me greatly. Later I learned that he had completed it and it was available for purchase. We checked with the laws of our state, New Mexico, learned that homeschooling was illegal, but ordered the curriculum and began home schooling our children nonetheless. We didn’t know another homeschooling family but believed it was God’s plan for our family. Later our kids would tell us that for years they thought we invented home schooling! Later we fought with other home schooling families to make it legal in all 50 states. It didn’t turn out to be the quid pro quo fool proof method of raising warriors for Christ that we had hoped but we are still glad that we educated them ourselves all the way through high school. We eventually built up a library in our home of over 7,000 volumes, many of which our children had read before they graduated from high school. History, theology, biography, Christian living, science, classics, of course some good old fiction kept us captivated day in and day out year upon year and God was deepening us individually and as a family and preparing us for adventures we couldn’t have imagined at the time. Even today though our children are in their 20’s and scattered all over the world, we read a book or two per month together and share our insights, comments, and delights from each book in a secret Facebook group we affectionately call Bullen Book Club.

Many were the months that we didn’t know where the rent would come from but God always provided. There was a large rock outcropping in the mountain foot hills near our apartment complex and I would often go there late at night and cry out to God to provide for my little family. I was working at everything that I could find. Some months the Lord saw fit to let us really be tested. I even spent a night in jail once because our tags were expired on our old ford van that I used for work. But even then I witnessed to the officer that arrested me and everyone in the jail that I was raising 5 warriors for Christ on one laborers income and sometimes buying milk came ahead of renewing my registration. I’m sure we made many mistakes but we were two kids in our mid 20’s with 5 children and a religious conviction against food stamps and welfare and we were doing our best to figure out how to make it all work. God always sent us what we needed when we needed it though and that included encouragement. We lived in a second story apartment and a couple and their 3 teenagers moved in down below us. We began to notice how mature and how sweet and respectful their children were and it wasn’t long before we met them and discovered that they were Christians and that they homeschooled! Wow! Our first encounter with another homeschooling family! They were much farther down the road than us and so John and Kim took us under their wings and mentored us for the rest of the time that we lived there. They were radical! They lived in an apartment so they could use their funds for missions! They were unbelievably wise and encouraging and we owe them an eternal debt of gratitude for letting us know that rather than being crazy, we were actually on the right track. John and Kim and their children are still dear friends today and staunch supporters of our ministry. God is good.

It wasn’t all work though. We had a motto that we worked hard and we played hard. I doubt any young dad ever enjoyed his children more than me. Many were the nights that the water ran down the walls of our apartment as we had water fights. You could always count on getting blasted with a rubber band or cold water dumped on you in the shower or something around our place. Many weekends the older 3 children worked with me on moonlighting construction jobs. I found out later that they would endure the hard hours of labor because I always bought them breakfast burritos on the way to work. We were strict and demanded a lot from our kids but we had tons of fun too and it is the greatest joy of my life that today we are very close and there is deep love and respect in our family and we have the incredible blessing of working together in ministry around the world. But that is later in the story. The other wonderful thing that happened during this time was though we were not in any organized type of ministry, God sent an unending stream of people to our door to be discipled and encouraged… Aflame For God 13 – A Path To Our Door

I used to believe in coincidence… meaning I used to believe that people just happened to be at the right place at the right time… or that you don’t need to pay much attention to uncanny events that seem too good to be true because all in all it was just a happy mishap… a random occurrence.

Thankfully God began to work on my faith and began to open my eyes to see Him and more importantly to consciously recognize His work in action. Now of course, sometimes I still have my doubts and have to ask, “God is this you?” But every once in a while, more and more recently, God puts me right in the middle of something and there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that it is Him… because I can almost literally see His finger prints all over it… God is really cool that way. Just like an artist leaves his special mark on his masterpiece either in a clear signature or a hidden message inside the brush strokes, God loves to leave His fingerprints… His breadcrumbs if you will and just like a spectator gawking at the Mona Lisa, God leaves His children in awe and full of great joy at what He has been up to.

Today I was blessed to be a part of one of those “Aha!” moments. But let me start at the beginning. About 7 years ago my family started working in Colombia on short term mission trips. I remember considering my first trip (I was 16-years-old) more like a chance to explore a new place while still being able to do some good along the way. I had no idea that God was setting up divine appointments that I would not be able to recognize until many years later. I do not have a very vivid memory of what we did or whom we met but there were a select few that I made a strong connection with and will never be able to forget. One of these divine appointments was with a girl named Yesika. Yesika entered the government care system at 13-years-old along with her two younger brothers. She grew up in a catholic orphanage separated from her siblings and parents until she was finally moved to the half-way-house (a home for young adults who age-out of the system) at age 18 and that is where I met her.

I remember taking a special interest in Yesika because she liked to play basketball just like me. I only spent one day with Yesika but I never forgot her and prayed for her often. About two years later I was living for two months in Colombia as a short-term missionary and working at the orphanage where Yesika grew up. On the long bus ride home one day as I was trying to catch a few winks of sleep I suddenly heard a very sweet voice call out my name and of course who else should it be but Yesik1 We had not seen each other in over two years and just happened to run into each other both headed home from work in a city with over 8 million people and thousands of bus routes here we were “at the right place at the right time” to reconnect and re-establish communication. Since that day I have never lost communication with Yesika and we have stayed friends.

When I moved back to Bogota in 2014 as a full-time missionary God put her on my heart one day and so I invited her to ice cream. Little did I know that God was working in Yesika’s heart and had placed in her a passion to help others like herself not only in Bogota but also in many parts of Colombia. As she poured her heart out to me and told me all about her plans I could she the passion burning in her eyes. During my year in Medellin I was barely able to stay in contact with anyone because of the amount of work so I forgot about Yesika and her project until two days ago.

Since coming back to Bogota at the beginning of August I have been praying everyday for God to clearly show me what he wanted me to do next and during my prayer this past Saturday God once again brought Yesika to my mind…. I wasn’t sure what He wanted but I knew I needed to have lunch with her so I immediately shot her a message on Facebook. And of course, wouldn’t you know it, it turns out, in a city of 8 million people, she “happens” to live a few blocks from us. After spending the entire afternoon with my friend Yesika today and hearing all about what God is doing in her heart for Colombia I am more certain than ever that my relationship with her is not an accident or a coincidence. She and I have many of the same dreams and goals and I know that God wants me to help her get this project off the ground. She also found out recently that she might have a cancerous tumor in her throat. Amazing how God sends friends right when He knows you need them most.

To end this blog I just want to say that Yesika’s top need right now is prayer and to legally establish her ministry. She has the willing hands to do the work the only problem is making it all legal. And honestly as always that is a very expensive process. I am asking special prayer for her tomorrow as she has a doctor’s appointment to see whether or not it is cancer so please pray for her. Also if God touches your heart to support Yesika on her mission in Colombia then you can send a special donation to Mission Critical and we will coordinate with her to get the legal papers she needs to start this wonderful work. Thank you all for helping make this possible.

Love Brooke

Photos of Brooke’s work in Colombia

Like many missionaries, Brooke has no source of income other than love gifts from home.

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

Mission Critical International

11743 Northpointe Blvd #1025

Tomball, TX 77377

Give online below.

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

Love Brooke

Photos of Brooke’s work in Colombia

Like many missionaries, Brooke has no source of income other than love gifts from home.

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

Mission Critical International

11743 Northpointe Blvd #1025

Tomball, TX 77377

Give online below.

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

In John 4 the disciples return from a food run. They had left their Master hungry and exhausted sitting next to a well but now they return to find Him speaking with a Samaritan woman, which was totally taboo, but they don’t have the nerve to ask Him, “What are you doing Jesus?” and then when she leaves strangely He doesn’t even seem anxious to eat the food they have brought Him. They urge Him to eat and His timeless reply is

John 4:32 “I have a kind of food you know nothing about.”

Jesus had just shared a tender moment with a lost daughter of Eve and her life would never be the same again and the joy of that encounter and of fulfilling His Father’s mission was better than earthly food.

John 4:34 Then Jesus explained: “My nourishment comes from doing the will of God, who sent me, and from finishing his work.”

I think about this passage all the time. When I look at my own life and ministry I can honestly say that the fuel for pressing harder and harder into the harvest comes from the joy of those tender moments where Jesus shows up, touches someone through me, and changes their life. Having a taste of that “kind of food” becomes a holy addiction that I wouldn’t trade for anything in this world. I woke this morning thinking of and praising God for the almost countless “Jacob’s well” experiences that He has blessed me with in just the last few months and for the immense joy and motivation they bring to my life.

I think of the discouraged pastor in his 50’s who hugged me weeping after I preached at a pastor’s conference in Bogota, Colombia and said, “I love you. I came today under a heavy burden and the Holy Spirit has refreshed me through you.” Wow! Praise you Jesus!

I think of the young woman and her baby that I prayed for at the altar after preaching in a church in Medellin, Colombia who when I laid my hands on her and her baby she collapsed to the floor as I caught the baby and she gave her heart to Jesus. I later learned that she had never been in a church service before and had never heard the gospel before. She had gone to borrow some clothes from a neighbor and they had asked her to come with them to church and hear the American preacher… Only God…

I think of the woman that I “randomly” sat next to at a ministry meeting whom I had never met before who weeping promptly began to share with me her whole story of horrible abuse and neglect as she kept saying, “I don’t know why I am telling you all of this.” I knew. Jesus wanted to hear her story and give her living water because that’s what He does…

I think of the 16 year old boy accompanying me on a mission trip who broke down and fell into my arms weeping as he watched the Holy Spirit sweep across a church service in Colombia. That young man will never be the same.

I think of the discouraged pastor in his 30’s who wept out his hunger for God as I laid hands on him and prayed over him as he knelt on the board floor of a little church on stilts in a slum in Belize.

I think of the father of a missionary girl in Colombia who wet the front of my suit with his tears as he hugged me and wouldn’t let me go after a sermon I preached in Bogota, Colombia on missions.

I think of the drunk man with the big black eye who wet the front of my shirt with his tears as I held him and shared Jesus with him on the side of a road in Belize.

I think of the young man who hugged me and wouldn’t let me go at the end of a sermon I preached in one of the most violent prisons in the world in Medellin, Colombia. The tears on his glowing face evidence that he had tasted living water.

I think of the precious 20 year old pastor’s daughter in Sibate’, Colombia who after a miraculous night of ministry when her father asked her to join him in praying over me and my ministry broke down weeping and held onto me as she choked out her prayer between great sobs asking God to continue anointing me so that souls continue to be healed through my ministry as she had seen that night. How do you compare anything this world offers with that?

To His praise and glory alone and by His grace alone I could literally tell of dozens more of these tender moments in the presence of Jesus as He transforms, heals, loves, encourages, and restores lives that I have experienced and enjoyed just in the last few months… no drug, no sin, no bank account, no toy, no vacation, no fame, no fortune, nothing can compete with that. It’s a “kind of food” that the world doesn’t know about and the greatest prayer of my life is “Oh God give me more! Live your life through me! Quench their thirst!” This is what keeps me desperate for God. It’s a holy addiction I can’t live without… and neither could Jesus…

Matt Bullen

Executive Director

Mission Critical International

Mission Critical International is passionately pursuing Jesus on His mission among the nations and mobilizing others to join us in this holy adventure.

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

Mission Critical International

11743 Northpointe Blvd #1025

Tomball, TX 77377

or give online below.

Mission Critical staff receive no income from the ministry but rather work and pray down their personal needs and travel expenses so 100% of your gift will go directly to support our missionary work around the world.

Sermon preached by Matt Bullen on June 11, 2015 in Ambergris Caye, Belize.

I have never been to a prison in my life… let alone a prison known to be one of the most violent prisons in the world (inmates once played soccer there with a severed human head). Here we were just a little group of five Mission Critical International missionaries against this Goliath of 7,000 inmates. To say we were a bit nervous is a gross understatement but we marched in unsure of what we would find but confident that God was already there, waiting for us.

As we walked through I saw dozens and dozens of men… some were sitting, some playing basketball and various games, and some just stood in groups and stared at us. My dad Matt Bullen (Executive Director of Mission Critical) had been invited to preach and minister to the men in their weekly, inner prison church service. I was expecting to see a group of 20-30 men quiet, grave and uninterested in what we had to say. I expected them to solely be attending to get early release and for the service to be rough and spiritually dry. Being completely wrong has never given me more joy.

As we walked up the stairs to the chapel we could hear a great crowd praising God. I could hardly believe my eyes when I walked into a room filled with more than one hundred men worshiping in a way that I cannot even try to explain in words. These men were so full of love for God, it was written all over their faces. Some raised their hands, some were on their knees, and others were even jumping up and down filled with joy. I have never before experienced a worship service like this one. The Holy Spirit was heavy in the room as each man listened intently to Matt Bullen preach about Grace, Salvation and God’s heart for each of us. They clapped, shouted, cried, and praised God.

When the service ended each man came and shook our hands and some hugged us and thanked us earnestly for coming to visit them. Honestly I felt more at home in that little chapel in an infamous Colombian prison than in most Christian Churches I have attended in my life. The love they had for their Savior inspired me and even shamed me a bit. Most of these men came to Christ inside the prison but I have known Jesus for years and yet at times do not crave His presence like they do. I think we thought we were there to minister but in the end it turned out that we were the ones being ministered to.

Later we were informed that what we saw in the chapel was only 10 percent of the Christian community inside the prison that in total there were about 1,000 men that profess faith and participate in the weekly services throughout the prison’s 16 sections. I will never forget when one of the church leaders who himself is an inmate and former police officer told us “I used to be in the police force, but now I am a soldier in God’s army”. God touched all of our hearts that day and we left with smiles on our faces. It reminded me of the story in Luke 7 where the woman comes and washes Jesus’ feet in Simon’s house. As I saw the love of these wonderful sons of God and their joyful hearts I could not get out of my mind what Jesus said in verse 47… “I tell you, her sins–and they are many–have been forgiven, so she has shown me much love. But a person who is forgiven little shows only little love.”

I hope to return soon and see more of what God is doing there, also to visit the women’s prison here and see what Jesus is up to there.

“Who here among us has not been broken? Who here among us is without guilt or pain? So oft abandoned by our transgressions. If such a thing as grace exists then grace was made for lives like this. There are no strangers, there are no outcasts, there are no orphans of God” -Orphans of God by Avalon

Love Brooke

Photos of Brooke’s work in Colombia

Like many missionaries, Brooke has no source of income other than love gifts from home.

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

Mission Critical International

11743 Northpointe Blvd #1025

Tomball, TX 77377

Give online below.

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

I was honestly scared to death as I stepped out of the crowded taxi and immediately smelled the stench of drugs, urine, trash and a lot of people who have not bathed in only God knows how long. Rosita (the head honcho of the street ministry and a very sweet friend), Alex , Omar, Karen, Carolina (all young adults who are part of the 50 kids we care for day in and day out) and I were back once again on the streets of Medellin hunting souls and meeting needs. But as always it is not a fairy tale setting, nor is it filled with beautiful people who just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and need saving. No, as we began unloading the boxes of sandwiches, hot chocolate, personal hygiene items and rice I couldn’t help but feel very nervous being literally surrounded by men, women and young teenagers who had obviously been living in the street for a very long time and who simply stared at us. Some eyes reflected curiosity, others contemplating the possibility of valuables to steal and still others held pure distain for the “do gooders” who were back again.

Our mission tonight was not exactly the streets but a “hotel”, if you can call it that, actually it was more like a cramped, wet, smoke filled, roach infested community drug house where over 150+ men, women and children live their lives day in and day out spending a very little amount to live there 24/7 and sometimes just pay for their children to live there alone and uncared for. Try to imagine the worst motel you have ever been in and then times that by 4.

The fear continued to grip my heart as I made my way to the staircase but soon vanished as I was met by three tiny brown faces smiling and yelling “Chocolate! Chocolate!” One little boy wrapped his arms around my neck and used me as a ride up the stairs. I am glad he knew how to hang on because I had a 20 gallon jug of hot chocolate in one hand and a 15 pound bag of rice in the other plus this little boy around my neck and walking upstairs, lets just say my physical strength was really being tested. As soon as we entered the door a flood of little 1-4 year old kids jumping up and down and asking to be held met us. Let me tell you a bit about these beautiful little kids. None of them were completely dressed. The majority only had some old dirty sweats on and no shoes, socks or shirts and the others were completely naked from head to toe. Every one was dirty and in serious need of a tissue. They were malnourished and had their faces, legs, and arms painted with Indian cultural markings and bleached hair. I will never forget the moment when Nancy (a little 2 year old girl) stood on her toes and stretched her arms up to me wanting me to hold her. I picked her up and was immediately sickened by the fact that her little sweats were completely soaked by her own urine. But at the same I was so happy and touched to see her little face smiling at me. She followed me around the rest of the night and I never was able to find out to whom she belonged.

We took some time to go room to room inviting everyone to come to the main patio (where they all individually cook over a “hole in the concrete” stove with wood and fire) to receive the gospel and food. We started with the kids by sharing “The shepherd who left the 99 to look for the one” Bible story and giving them chips, sandwiches, candy and hot chocolate. I had to hand feed the sandwich to a little one-year-old who weighed no more than 10 pounds tops (I am not exaggerating). She was tiny and was not able to feed herself. Afterwards we shared the gospel with the adults who behaved a lot worse than the children. The adults were fighting, arguing, yelling and cursing us but we were able to feed them as well.

All in all it was a very eye opening experience and I can’t wait to go back. It is not easy, especially seeing people live that way, and what is worse seeing children live that life. But instead of letting that damage my faith and cause me to complain to God about why He would allow those things to happen, it fuels my faith even more and my passion to pursue the broken and realize that God in His great love and mercy is using me to help these people and to help bring them to Himself. Of course we don’t always see the fruit of our labor right away or maybe never in this life, but I know God used us that night to plant a seed in their hearts and He is in charge of growing that seed, all we have to do is go where He leads us and love whomever He puts in front of us.

“Where You go I go, What You say I say, What You pray I pray, What You pray I pray. Jesus only did what He saw You do, He would only say what he heard You speak, He would only move when He felt You lead following Your heart, following Your spirit. How could I expect to walk without You when every move that Jesus made was in surrender I will not begin to live without You, for You only are worthy, You are always good. You are always good. Though the world sees and soon forgets, we will not forget who you are and what you’ve done for us, what you’ve done for us.” “Where you go I go”- Jesus Culture

Love Brooke

Photos of Brooke’s work in Colombia

Like many missionaries, Brooke has no source of income other than love gifts from home.

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

Mission Critical International

11743 Northpointe Blvd #1025

Tomball, TX 77377

Give online below.

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

I have not been able to write for quite a while but today I just wanted to shout out to all who read this and say thank you again for your support. It has more effect than you could ever imagine and I just wanted to say that God is working like crazy here in Medellin Colombia. Currently we are working on several different projects including starting a fish farm in the coast so that the ministry (Jucum-YWAM) can be self-sustaining as far as feeding our 48 kids. The land for the fish farm is super expensive but God is providing and we are hoping that we will be able to get it up and running in a couple of months so that we no longer have the problems we have had in the past of running out of food, God in His awesomeness provided every time and always does but this is one way that we can work to insure that the kids have a constant food supply. We are still currently praying for support and consistent provision for the STAFF meals, there are about 25 people that eat their meals here at the house everyday and sometimes there is no food for us either, for example today there was no lunch or dinner but one thing I LOVE about this ministry is that whenever something is lacking the first place we all go is to our knees. God is our #1 provider and He is always looking out for us and as always He provided lunch for all of us today. The director of the ministry is leaving today for the coast were they are building a school for over 30 children who have never gotten any kind of education before now, she hopes to finalize the work there so that the children can begin attending school and learning. After they finish working there in Ure (the town where the school is) they will be going to different parts of the coast to encourage pastors who have been persecuted for their faith. I truly wanted to be a part of this trip but unfortunately it is very unsafe for Colombians let alone a U.S citizen to go there. But I know that no danger can stop the power of prayer and I really ask that all my readers would join me in praying for our two directors Enith and Silia who will be spending the next week with these pastors in the coast.

Another Praise is that God is really opening the doors for me to be a part of other mission trips and ministry going on not only in Colombia but also possibly in Cuba.
This year I am praying for the funds to be a part of the next Mission Critical Mission trips in April and May in different parts of Colombia, I am not only praying for the funds but also because I will be gone almost the entire month of May. Jucum in Medellin is struggling with the lack of personnel to do all the daily work required here. I am hoping to find at least a replacement for me so that I will not leave them hanging without any help. One of the biggest needs here are willing hands and feet. If there are any young people who are interested in serving in ministry for a month, two months or even a year with children much more please feel free to message Mission Critical through our contact page and I will be glad to send them more information about all that we do here.

Also another possible Mission opportunity that I am currently praying about is a mission trip to Cuba in December, I am praying because when I heard about it I felt compelled to pray and seek god about the possibility of being a part of the team that will be going to Cuba to encourage and support Persecuted churches, pastors and Christians that are currently suffering greatly. I am going to look deeper into this and pray more about it to see what God has for me, Also I have more information about it if anyone else is interested.

And last but not least I am praising God for all the amazing work He is currently doing in Mission Critical, this year we have the opportunity to travel and minister in several different parts of the world and carrying Jesus’ love to the lost and also encourage the needy. On my part specifically we are praying that when I end my time here in Medellin at the end of July I will be heading back to Bogota Colombia and begin the first building blocks of the dream that has been in the heart of Mission Critical for the past 5 years, starting our own house for young adults who are ineligible to live in government institutions and are in need of a safe place to live, work, study but most importantly live and grow in a relationship with Jesus Christ and fulfill His plans for their lives …. Their personal Mission Critical.

Thank you all again and as always PRAYER is worth more than gold, Mission Critical is a ministry completely sustained by prayer and that is what we crave the most. Love Brooke

Photos of Brooke’s work in Colombia

Like many missionaries, Brooke has no source of income other than love gifts from home.

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

Mission Critical International

11743 Northpointe Blvd #1025

Tomball, TX 77377

Give online below.

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

Mission Critical International is proud to introduce Pastor Ndagijimana Jean de Dieu as the new Director General of Mission Critical Rwanda

Here is his testimony and vision…

I was born on April 2nd 1971, in Rwanda, Africa.

Both of my parents were non-believers. I’m the second born of 9 children.

But presently 4 of us are living (2 sons and 2 daughters.)

Getting saved wasn’t that easy for me because of my parents’ non-belief

I thank God for the crusade that took place in our neighborhood back in 1984. They taught me the words found in “John 3:16.” So after learning about God’s love and Christ as a savior and that He died for my sins, I decided to give my life to Him and live for Him. But wow! It wasn’t good for me when I got home because my parents kicked me out of the house and from there I started a life of struggle for a few days and then I went back home and my parents allowed me to remain in the family but like a stranger. A few months later I was baptized. In 1985 I began to sing in a choir from the Pentecostal church in Rwanda, and in 1988 I evangelized my parents and my mom got saved. So hence I wasn’t called stranger anymore because my mom was like me too and a few months later my grandma got saved too.

In 1990 I got married to my beautiful wife Gaudance and we have six children (a daughter and 5 sons.)

In 1992 I joined seminary in DR Congo and learned more about evangelism. I then became a pastor in 1994, and then in 1995-2000 I went on an advanced course at the seminary back in Congo still. Right after graduation I came back to Rwanda in August 2000.

Then I started a ministry in evangelism and church planting in Rwanda, Burundi and DR Congo.

Nowadays, I am a senior pastor of a young church two years and six months old. The church has about 245 members now.

MY DREAM FOR MISSION CRITICAL RWANDA:

1. To expand this ministry country-wide and to see many people change their heart and accept Jesus Christ as Savior.

2. To share the word of God to the orphans and vulnerable children and show them God’s grace.

2014 was an amazing year. One of the best in my personal life. A year of redemption, new passion and dreams for the future. This year God brought me back and gave me a chance to start doing what it is He put me on this earth to do. After running away as hard as I could for two years God intervened and would not allow me to run anymore. I could no longer run from the knowledge that God was calling me to a higher purpose. As Christians we are called to what the modern church calls “The Great Commission” Matthew 28:19 and for years Christians heroes have been going through the whole world sharing the gospel with boldness no matter what the cost even if that cost is their lives. Unfortunately Christianity has turned into a comfortable religion instead of a way of life. “Most churches and ministries are working in the Commission but not the Great commission” – Enith Diaz. Having grown up my whole life in church I can say with authority that the modern idea of what it is to be a Christian is down right tragic.

Something I read recently struck my heart, it said “Some Christians haven’t even thought about whether they would die for Christ because they haven’t really been living for Him” Jesus Freaks, DC Talk. I will tell you that really made me rethink my life, my roll as a Christ follower and my idea of what it is to be a part of the Great commission. Thanks to God he opened my eyes just a tiny bit more this year. When God finally broke my pride and brought me back to Colombia in April I had no idea I was gonna spend the rest of my life here, but you know, there is absolutely no place I would rather be and nothing I would rather be doing than giving everything I have for the one who gave His everything for me. I am now living the life I was called to. And I would encourage everyone reading this DO NOT run from whatever it is He has put in your heart to do. WE ARE ALL called as followers of Christ, as His kids, as part of His family to go and spread that love and spirit to everybody we possibly can. THAT is what it means to live. We are of another world, this is only our temporary home and nobody is promised tomorrow. Choose to obey now.

My personal dream and my hope for all of you is that we can come to our end the same way Paul did and be able to say “As for me, my life has already been poured out as an offering to God. The time of my death is near. 7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, and I have remained faithful. 8 And now the prize awaits me—the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me on the day of his return. And the prize is not just for me but for all who eagerly look forward to his appearing.” 2 Timothy 4:6-8.

So blessed to be here, so blessed to be doing what I was born to do… Who is it that God is using you to speak to? who is it that God put in your life that needs Him? What is it that God put in your heart to do with your life? Just something to think about. As always, A HUGE thank you to all you who support us in prayer and financially. It means so much more than you can ever imagine. I could not do this without all of you.

“Don’t let your light go down, don’t let your fire burn out cause somewhere somebody needs a reason to believe, why don’t you rise up now? Don’t be afraid to stand out… Thats how the lost get found” Britt Nicole-Lost get found

To see what God did in 2014 and where He is taking Mission Critical in 2015 please watch the video below.

Love Brooke

Photos of Brooke’s work in Colombia

Like many missionaries, Brooke has no source of income other than love gifts from home.

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

Mission Critical International

11743 Northpointe Blvd #1025

Tomball, TX 77377

Give online below.

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

I grew up in church… a good PK and as such I had one simple job to do.. be perfect, sweet, and make sure to set a flawless example for all the church to see. My main goal was to grow up leading Bible studies with all the young “maidens in waiting” of the church body because “youth group” was out of the question and one day marry a perfect young man who would become a pastor when he was 16 years old and spend the majority of his time locked away in his library studiously pouring over theology books while I made baked goods in the kitchen of our town house with the whitewashed picket fence and watched our ten children play with their Atlas and puzzles. Lets just say I was the ultimate teenage bigot. But sadly when you live under a mountain of self-inflicted expectation and constant failure to accomplish it eventually causes you to hate yourself and anyone else who does not live up to the impossible standards that you yourself are drowning in. I remember growing up hearing about grace and about how “nothing you could ever do would make God love you any less”.. now I am not here to preach theology to anyone.. trust me I know how much I still need to learn but lets just say grace was for weak christians who couldn’t “keep it together” in my opinion and I refused to be one of “those people”.

Anyway to save on paper and to not put my readers to sleep I will skip ahead a couple of years. At 19 the once perfect saint was now a tattooed, pierced, smoker who wouldn’t dare step foot onto a church’s front lawn let alone attend. A girl who once believed being a christian meant being better than everyone else now spent her days working, smoking, and crying herself to sleep every night. I won’t go into all the details of those horrible days but I can write this with a smile on my face because God did not let that little girl stay there. Through many hard lessons she was finally able to learn and understand what Jesus was saying in Mark 2:17 “When Jesus heard this, he told them, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor–sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.” and it was my greatest joy last Friday night to share that with over 100 or so young men and women in a city park with some paper and colors.

Six of us went out to what is, in my opinion, one of the scariest parks in Boston Medellin. Lets just say its where all the gangs, addicts and hustlers like to hang out day and night. And I could feel the nervousness of every one of my companions as we sat down to play some music and sing right in the middle of it all. We brought with us pens, paper, paint, and all kinds of markers and our strategy was to break the ice by inviting anyone who wanted to “express themselves” by drawing or writing whatever they wanted. To my amazement it worked! I don’t know if it was the influence of the alcohol or weed but these kids LOVED the idea and in less than 30 minutes we had a huge group drawing, singing, playing instruments and listening to us share the gospel with them. One girl in particular I remember was Viviana, she was a beautiful 22 year old girl who was so touched by what we were doing that she asked me and another friend if we would sit down with her. I could feel her pain as she cried on my shoulder and poured her heart out to us. She wanted to know Jesus, she wanted to change and I know that God did something in her heart that night the same way He did it in mine. He is so amazing and we were able to share His story and His love with so many young people that night. I saved the papers with all the drawings and notes they wrote so that I will never forget that night, that experience and never again forget why and for WHOM Jesus came and died.

So blessed to be here, so blessed to be doing what I was born to do… Who is it that God is using you to speak to? who is it that God put in your life that needs Him? What is it that God put in your heart to do with your life? Just something to think about. As always, A HUGE thank you to all you who support us in prayer and financially. It means so much more than you can ever imagine. I could not do this without all of you.

“Wash my heart and make it clean, open up my eyes to things unseen, show me how to love like You have loved me” Hosanna, Hillsong

Love Brooke

Photos of Brooke’s work in Colombia

Like many missionaries, Brooke has no source of income other than love gifts from home.

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

Mission Critical International

11743 Northpointe Blvd #1025

Tomball, TX 77377

Give online below.

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

The lump in my throat was growing bigger as I fought to keep the tears from pouring down my face. Hearing the story of this beautiful 20 year old girl’s life of prostitution and seeing how she scarfed down the little food that we had to give was almost too hard to bear. God completely opened my eyes to see and feel His heart for the countless beautiful women young and old who spend their lives on the streets selling themselves to feed themselves and their children. But let me start from the beginning…

When I first met Enith, coordinator of Jucum Medellin, I fell in love with her and the amazing ministry that she founded here helping support and care for the children of desperately poor families who have no way of supporting themselves let alone their kids. But then I later learned that caring for the children is only one branch of the unbelievable ministry that they do here. Another branch is the “chocolate y pan” street program which ministers physically and spiritually to the homeless that eat, sleep and live their lives on the street corners of Medellin Colombia. I had been eagerly waiting for my chance to serve and be a part of what God was doing in the lives of these people through a simple cup of hot chocolate and a sandwich and finally the day came. I received a call from Rosita (coordinator of the street ministry) last Wednesday telling me that they were going out that night and I was invited. I was ecstatic, but of course, as it always goes, suddenly a whole laundry list of things I still had to do came flooding into my mind, “Laundry needs to be taken off the drying line and put away and the rest washed and hung up, Wednesday is my day to make dinner for the staff house, gotta make the dinner, serve it and then clean the kitchen all before 7:30…” A bit of a panic set in as I rushed to finish all my responsibilities before heading out. But still I was excited to finally be a part of something I had heard about all my life and finally here was my chance. But of course with all dreams comes the fear factor… I was definitely feeling it as I was rushing to prepare dinner for everyone. I was stressing and hurrying to make the sandwiches that were already late because of some complications with the purchase of the food. I was thinking about how long it would take to get it on the table and to clean the kitchen with people constantly coming in and out. While all this was passing through my mind another little demon decided to try and rob me of my joy and excitement. “What am I gonna say to these people? It’s super dangerous… what if something bad happens? your Spanish is still growing… what if you can’t speak what God wants you to say? How can you possibly help other people when your own heart isn’t feeling up to par? It’s a waste of time… nobody is going to be truly touched by this.. better to just stay home and get some extra sleep” I have to admit as I was drying the last of the losa (dishes) and putting them in their place a bit of discouragement was trying desperately to creep into my soul. I put my rag down on the counter and looked at the ceiling… now we all know that God does not live in the ceiling but still I felt I was looking at Him, I simply prayed softly for God to give me the right heart, to take away the fear and to not send me if He was not coming with me. (Exodus 33:15)

Well, as He always does God came through in a miraculous way, we gave away over 150 ham sandwiches and 60+ gallons of hot chocolate to the 13-50 year old women who stand outside the casinos and motels trying to earn money by selling their bodies to put food on the table. As we walked down the streets offering food, a listening ear, prayer and the gospel to anyone who would listen I couldn’t help but think of my two Colombian sisters Heidy and Ginary. I was so grateful that they were safe and protected from a life like this, that God had brought them into our lives and provided the funds to support them and put them through school. But as I was thinking these things I felt God softly say to me, “All of these people are somebodies sister, mother, brother, son or daughter and above all they are Mine.” God broke my heart that night as we stood in little prayer circles and interceded on behalf of these beautiful people. God has put a new passion in my heart for exploited women and children.

Matthew 5:3 “God blesses those who are poor and realize their need for him, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs”.

“I will proclaim good news to the lost, protect at any cost the weak, abused and storm tossed for I have been called to spread His name abroad, stripping down the chipped facade give my life for the cross.. so help me God” Jana Bullen – Purchased.

Love Brooke

Photos of Brooke’s work in Colombia

Like many missionaries, Brooke has no source of income other than love gifts from home.

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

Mission Critical International

11743 Northpointe Blvd #1025

Tomball, TX 77377

Give online below.

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

Sitting across the breakfast table from me she looked as if she could not figure me out. Sipping her coffee, she seemed to be studying me pretty intently. I must admit I felt a bit uncomfortable, ha ha. I had only been living in Medellin for about a week and was still getting used to the new group of people I was going to work with and live with. A group of us all live together in a sort of college dorm theme. We all eat together and have our different duties to help with the house up keep and cooking. Anyway, Vivianna, after a long staring contest, finally asked me if I was going to go with them to the “Brigade”… I was like… what is that? She laughed a bit and then told me “The health brigade, we go to little villages and share the gospel and help people” I was like…. YOU BETTER KNOW that I am FOR SURE going!

After a ton of planning and packing and waiting and working and praying and… you get the idea, we were finally on the road to Santa Rosita, a tiny little village out in the middle of nowhere where the closest store, let alone hospital, is an hour drive by car away. The people who live there are both physically and spiritually starving. Clean water is non-existent and food is difficult to come by, especially when every family has at least 4 children per household. We were in the bus for 10 hours before we finally pulled up on this tiny village full of excited, beautiful faces and so started the next four days of serving and sharing God’s love and story with His precious creations.

Below is a video I made from the trip. Our team of professionals were able to provide every type of medical exam and medication including psychological health. Our evangelistic group went from house to house telling families about Jesus and sharing the word with them, many were lead to Christ through these visits, one man after accepting Christ came to me and another lady and sang us a beautiful song about Jesus, he had an amazing voice and I was completely blown away, after singing for us he continued praising God as he walked through the little village.

As you can see from the pictures I was the favorite entertainment for over 100 kids and spent the entire 3 days playing, singing, doing puppet shows, dancing and playing goalie for the soccer team… my poor ribs LOL. It was an AMAZING time, check out the video to get a glimpse of what God was up to recently in Colombia. Blessings AS ALWAYS PLEASE PRAY!!!! and to all those who have given financially, thank you so much for making all this possible.

Love Brooke

Photos of Brooke’s work in Colombia

Like many missionaries, Brooke has no source of income other than love gifts from home.

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

Mission Critical International

11743 Northpointe Blvd #1025

Tomball, TX 77377

Give online below.

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