I just got back from Juarez.
I have many stories to share. many.
I realize the following letter is long and that many of you have lives outside of reading my xanga, although I can't imagine a better way for you to spend your time... but if you do find the time, I would love for you to read it. It would make it easier at least for a starting ground and we'll go from there.
peace, love and mr. snow (maybe that's just a waco thing)
p.s. download enter the worship circle's 4th circle, it's good for your health
..unlike mr. snow
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Friends and Family,
I have to admit, I am struggling to begin this letter. Not because nothing particularly great happened in Juarez, instead I have the opposite problem.
First let me begin by saying thank you.
• Thank you for all of your prayers. They were all needed and all heard. The ground that we walked on in Juarez had clearly been prayed over; we could feel it in the atmosphere and in the people that we talked with.
• For those of you that contributed financially, I was completely blown away. My team was more than paid for and we were able to bless other teams as well! Thank you for your generous contributions.
I really wish there was a different way that I could express my thanks for all of your thoughts and prayers. There really is no way to explain how important they were. Hopefully by the end of this letter I will have at least given you a little feel for the fruit that you had a part of bearing.
A typical day for me looked like this:
• 6 a.m.- Wake up, spend an hour with the Lord
• 7 a.m.- Small Team leader meeting
• 8 a.m.- Breakfast
• 9 a.m.-12 p.m.- Corporate Worship (Church)
• 12 p.m.- 2 p.m.- Lunch
• 2 p.m.- 4:30 p.m.- Either Seminars or Service Projects
• 5 p.m.- Outreach
• 9 p.m.- Supper/Debriefing
Church everyday was absolutely incredible. We were staying at a hotel right inside the border of Juarez (in fact, we took up the entire hotel for the week). The building where we ate our meals and had church was across the street. We were just across the border and it was probably the busiest street in Juarez. Needless to say, each crossing was quite an adventure.
I could tell you fun stories and adventures about crossing the street (for example the time that I didn’t notice the gigantic pot hole as we were frantically running)…but I’ll leave that to your imagination. Instead, I would rather tell you how the power of God moved and how my life was once again completely transformed by His grace and mercy.
Our first outreach site was at the Cathedral in downtown Juarez. We were scheduled to be at a different site, but plans change. When we got there I immediately knew that was exactly where we were suppose to be that night because of a series of pictures I had seen as I was praying on the bus ride to our site. I had shared them with the girl sitting next to me and we were both pretty blown away to see the Lord confirming his presence, even in the small things.
An outreach typically starts with the worship team singing a few songs. They are followed by the dance team which usually does a good job of getting people’s attention. Then the drama team performs a drama which portrays the gospel and Jesus’ love for us and then someone preaches the gospel or shares their testimony. After all of this people are usually pretty interested in what it is we have to say. Especially when they realize we have come all the way from Texas to share this “Jesus” with them. Many people had questions the first night and even more gave their life to Christ. We also invited people to come forward if they wanted prayer for healing. I realize this is not always considered a routine or normal practice, but something I’m learning is that I need to trust God’s word and the Holy Spirit more than my own theology based on religious practices and prior knowledge. The bible says Jesus healed people and that His disciples could heal people in His name. I’m a disciple of Christ…so, in Jesus’ name I’ll give it a shot.
A woman came forward who could not move her left arm very much at all. She was elderly and through a translator she told me that because of years of working she lost use of her left arm and had not been able to lift it up to reach for things in years. The girl who was translating and I began to pray for her arm, asking for healing in Jesus name. In the middle of our prayer a woman came up behind us and began to pray in Spanish. A little startled I stopped praying and turned around and saw the most fiery, passionate, woman of God I think I have ever seen. I wasn’t exactly sure what she was saying, but through my broken Spanish I picked up the word God so I figured it was safe to go ahead and agree with her while she prayed. The girl who was praying with me began to translate for me and I kid you not, the power of God was on this woman. She began to ask the elderly woman that we were praying for if she knew Jesus and the woman said no but she wanted to. After talking with her about how dearly she was loved by God and that he loved her so much that he sent His Son to die upon a cross for her, she became overcome with joy and asked if she could pray and know God. The Spanish speaking woman lead her through a prayer and immediately the older woman began crying, “Gloria a Dios!” meaning, “Glory to God!”. She began to wave her left arm all around and moving it up and down while saying “There is no more pain. Glory to God. There is no more pain”. I was pretty blown away and I definitely wanted to know where this Spanish speaking woman came from. We introduced ourselves and in the most polite way tried to ask, “Who exactly are you?” She began crying and told us that earlier that morning when she was praying God told her to come to the Cathedral in Juarez, that there would be young people and she needed to pray with us. About that time her husband walked up behind her and told us the same story and added that he thought she was crazy. They live about 10 minutes outside of Juarez and very rarely come into the city because it is so dangerous. Apparently the Cathedral is not a safe place to be at night but after much persistence he told her they would at least stop by. He said he had watched his wife pray to God every morning for four years but today was the first day that he understood that she was actually speaking with God.
Skipping to our last day in Juarez. Kate came up to me Thursday morning, our last day full day in Juarez, and told me she felt like God wanted to heal someone’s left ear. Then during our team meeting before outreach a guy on our team AJ told our group that he was deaf in his left ear and that this week he really felt like God wanted to heal him. Kate was about to speak up and say something when two other people beat her to it saying that God had told them he wanted to heal a left ear. We decided to pray for him that night after outreach.
I didn’t know AJ very well at the time. There were 68 people on my team and even though I tried to at least learn everyone’s name, I didn’t have their life stories quite memorized. However, I do know him pretty well now, so here is some background information on his ear. AJ was not born deaf. He lost his hearing when he was 1 year old from the chicken-pox. The chicken-pox developed into an infection in his ear and severed the nerve. The doctors said there was nothing they could do. No hearing aid would help and he was told surgery was not an option because of the severity of the damage.
Now for some background on where I was at the night we prayed for AJ. I had just read the end of Matthew 28:
“Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.’"
I kept thinking, “how could they still doubt? Even after he was raised from the dead, how were there still people that doubted?” and then I realized, that was me. I had seen many miracles and experienced God working and yet there was part of me that still doubted. Part of me that still questioned. Was it my pride? The fear of being wrong? What inside of me was holding me back from believing full-heartedly that God created the mountains and he could move them with the flick of this finger and that God created man and could heal him with one simple breath?
That night we prayed for AJ. We prayed for about twenty minutes as a group and then the majority of the team was asked to go back to our rooms. We continued to pray in our rooms and as we went to bed. The next morning I ran into AJ on my way to breakfast and asked him how he was. He was so excited and began to tell me how God had healed so many places inside of him that had held on to bitterness and frustration for so long. He explained the joy that he felt and that he was walking in the presence of God. After going on and on about what the Lord was doing on the inside, AJ finally said, “Oh yea, and He healed my ear!”.
God didn’t heal AJ’s ear to affirm my faith or anyone else’s. He doesn’t need to prove himself, He knows who He is. God healed AJ out of love and through that miracle has blessed so many others.
There is obviously a large gap in the middle, but for sake of time--I think porky the pig said it best, “Th-Th-The-Th-That’s all folks”.
I hope this letter has encouraged you and maybe even challenged you in your faith (in a good way) because that is what spring break in Juarez did for me. The Lord is so, so, good and gives generously to those who seek Him. His heart for you is HUGE. He desires to know you, to spend time with you, to live and walk with you. He created you for His companionship and he wants so badly for you to live with Him in His glory.
The choice is ours.
I choose Love. I choose Jesus.
Katie
