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  “I want them to be where I am.”

 
Last Sunday, all of us Novas got together and “did church.” All of us were feeling weird. Comfortable. Restless. Apathetic. Needless to say, none of us were really happy with where we were at mentally or spiritually. All of us speaking up about this really started the ball rolling. That week we were planning on learning about Simplicity. Living simply. On Monday night, Jesse (one of the leaders) gave a lesson about the cost of discipleship. Novas translates to “new way” and this trip is designed for us to find a new way. Adventures in Missions strives to help develop radically committed disciples. Us being at a spot where we are tired of doing ministry in Mexico, wanting to leave for our outreach countries, and not getting any closer with the Father is not a place you want to find yourself. So, some things really changed. First, I want to go into what the lesson Jesse gave us was about. This is pretty much going to be a discipleship checklist (at least, that’s how I thought about it) and it is going to be straight scripture.

“Any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.”- Luke 14:33

“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters- yes, even his own life- he cannot be my disciple. And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” -Luke 14:26-27

 
 
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” -Matthew 22:37

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” -John 13:34

In your hearts, set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect. -1 Peter 3:15

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit;apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.”- John 15:5-8

“If anyone is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when He comes in his glory of the Father and of the holy angels.” -Luke 9:26

“If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.”-Luke 9:23-24

 
 
“If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples.” -John 8:31

 
 
“When Christ calls a man, he bids him, “come and die.”

 

The morning after we had this lesson, we were woken up at 5:00 am by the leaders and were told to dress warm and that we had 5 minutes before we left for the day. This morning was the start to something very special, and life changing. Instead of learning about simplicity by sitting down in a circle in a cement room and discussing it, we lived it out. We lived like Jesus. Not just the kind of living like Jesus where you ask yourself, constantly, “What Would Jesus Do?”, but the kind of living where you live by what Jesus did in the gospels. We literally picked things out of the gospels, and applied it to how we spent our days.

Jesus got up very early and prayed……..”go into to the towns and preach”…”Do not waste a thing”…”you give them something to eat”…when you have a banquet invite the poor, those who cannot pay you back…

A passage that myself, and quite a few other people, possibly every Novas student, lived off of during that week was found in 2 Corinthians 12:9-10.
“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
 
We took this in a literal sense. We were very weak. We were skipping meals. Eating severely reduced portions at meals. Going to bed very late at night. Waking up while it was still dark out. Waking up in the middle of the night to pray with a small group of people. By the end of it, we all were living out “my power is made perfect in weakness” and “When I am weak, then I am strong.” God made us strong. There is no way we should have been able to do the ministry that we were able to do, but God had grace on us and supplied us with that energy.

I started to write in detail the awesome things that God did over the week…but it would be impossible to put it into words, and even if I tried, it would be so long that no one would want to read it! (Actually, I began to write about the first day, and it took up a page! So I deleted it and am summarizing everything for you!) Now, I am going to just list here some of the highlights. Things that changed my attitude. My behavior. The way I see God.

  • While doing ministry in an all Spanish speaking community, God provided for my little speaking Spanish team. He supplied us with a translator…out of no where! This guy just walked up to us, bible in hand, and said he he was going to translate for us!

  • One afternoon I was feeling really discouraged with me and my team’s small Spanish vocabulary. I was frustrated that we couldn’t hold a decent conversation with the family that graciously let us into their home. As this discouragement was really hitting me, hundreds of little monarch butterflies flew overhead. As they were flying over top of me and my team, the thought that was popping into my mind was, “I love you. I am everywhere. I am going to be there with you, and for you, always.” This was a paradigm shift for me.

  • One night, we were heading out into the city to do an ATL and give out food to hungry people. Someone felt like we should go into the plaza in Matamoros, so the South Africa, Swaziland, and Uganda 1 team headed there. We arrived at the plaza and prayed for God to guide us and be with us throughout the night, and right after we lifted our heads and unlinked our hands, this man walks by. This guy is holding a poster with little pictures of scientists and pictures of evolution. He said he was trying to figure out where we came from, and other intellectual things. We invited him to hang out with us the rest of the night and see what we are about. Turns out his parents are Jehovah Witnesses, and problems linking to that is why he doesn’t agree with religion. He said the church is so corrupt, and doesn’t see why he should be a part of it. We went into that more, and he asked so many questions! But by the end of the night, he had written down everyone’s names that had come into the plaza to give out food on the poster of how the world works, one of the girls who came with that night gave him a bible and he asked us to pray for him that he would run into more Christians like us.

  • Earlier that night, before we left the gateway to do ATL’s and give out food, Garrett (a guy on my team) went into his room to get his backpack and something really strange happened. When he walked into his room, he was suddenly obsessed with his speakers. And after pondering this for a good while, the Lord put it on his heart to bring the speakers with him. When we got into the plaza where we were going to be ministering, his eyes went straight to the middle of the park. There is this place in the middle of it with stairs that holds a lot of events. The same guy that Garrett had been break dancing with the Friday before was sitting there. We went up to him and started chatting, and asked him if he would dance for us. He said he didn’t have speakers with him. So, we pulled out the speakers that the Lord knew we would need and played music and him and another boy danced around. This guy ended up eating with us, taking pictures with us, and spending the whole night with us, even though none of us knew fluent Spanish.

  • That same night, some of the girls met a guy named Kevin. He was a very interesting character. I’m not sure how much of what I talked to him about was true or not, because he lied about a lot of things, but that’s beside the point. When I went over to talk to him, some girls cautioned me because he said the reason he was in Mexico was because he killed the man his wife was cheating on him with. He fled the country. I was somehow intrigued by that. Not because I am trying to put myself in danger, but because I’d never really had a conversation with someone like that. And I wanted to know that I loved everyone…even people who took other people’s lives. I learned that I do love those people! I could see that other people were having trouble hanging out with him because some of the things he said were “crazy,” but I stayed with him because I wanted to bring Jesus into the conversation. I talked with him for at least an hour about everything. I was able to bring the conversation back when a huge cockroach crawled by. He was saying how old they were and how they evolved from these other kinds of insects. FINALLY! My bridge to talking about Jesus was formed! We talked for a long time about creation, Jesus, the bible, and the church. In fact, we never finished talking because we had to leave. I do believe that we planted a seed in his heart, and that talking to him really made my heart grow to a new unimaginable size.

Those are 5 of the biggest things that happened in chronological order. Those testimonies took place over 2 days. There were so many other things that happened during those 2 days, and so many other great things that happened during the rest of the week. God really taught me so many things, and He really grew in my eyes. I don’t think I’ll ever go back to the life I had before, not living like Jesus. It just feels too great to be living like this, and I’m closer to Jesus than I ever have been in my whole life.

You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. -Jeremiah 29:13