Adiós Miami :(

Sadly, Miami has been over for a little more than a week now, but it feels like just yesterday I was there. I just wanted to wrap up the summer with one last post. First I wanted to thank everyone who supported me this summer.  It meant so much to me to have all of your support. Without all your prayers, encouragement, and financial support, my summer would not have been so successful.

We had 3 missions this summer: to grow in our walk with God, to become equipped to reach the world with the truth of Jesus, and to then go out and share with others how Jesus changed our lives and how to know God personally. And each one was accomplished! God showed up this summer in BIG ways and many BIG prayers were answered.

I still can't get over that I got to live in Miami for 10 weeks, what a blessing! Miami really should be considered another country. Most people there speak English only as their second language, and some didn't know it at all. It also blew my mind that there are still people in America who had never heard the name Jesus. Also in Miami, it is very common for people to go to the steps of the court house and kill animals as sacrifices to their gods to help their family members in court. This type of culture, I was not expecting. I thought how can there be people in America who still have not heard about Jesus, but there are.

Then there were some people that we talked to who had maybe grew up going to church, and said they were Christians because it was part of their family culture, but didn’t actually know god personally. These people especially gave me a heart for the lost. For both of these situations, people who never heard of Jesus or people who didn't know him personally, I now feel 100% more prepared to share the gospel with.

Here are some stats about the summer: My group was able to see 37 people give their life to Christ. Praise the Lord! We also had 1400 conversations where we shared the gospel. Even though they did not accept Christ at the moment, seeds were planted.

A cool story happened to my friend Jonathan this summer. His boss told him that when he was 19 years old someone from Cru evangelized to him on the beach. At the time he rejected them and Jesus, but 10 years later he gave his life to Christ and he said he would never forget those Cru people.
SO you may never know how you sharing the gospel with someone could change their eternity.

2 Corinthians 5: 14-15 -For the love of Christ controls us, because we have
concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.

This was our verse of the summer. We are trying to live our life not for our self, but for Christ. One way we can do that is by sharing our faith with others. One of the things I learned this summer is that I may never feel qualified to share my faith, but God doesn’t call the qualified, he qualifies the called.

So thank you again for supporting me this summer because now I feel 100% more confident in sharing my faith and am even more in love with our savior Jesus.

The Life of an Art Teacher

 

Here are some photos of the kids creating art and their projects! Teaching them has been so rewarding this summer. Although there has been challenges, I would not have picked another job. I have grown so much in disciplining children, loving children, and helping children. I'm going to miss their smiling faces and pure joy as they show off each piece of art that they made. I'm going to miss when they hand me a creation and say they made it just for me! Most of all I'm going to miss the hugs of three children at once as I'm trying to walk out the door. I'm so thankful for this summer and the gift it has been to be an Art Teacher for Hope for Miami!

"Can I show God my art?"

God has been teaching me so many things this summer. These are only some of the most recent ones.

1) After being an art teacher for 5 weeks, I have more appreciation for teachers. Kids throw crayons, stab other kids with scissors, spill water, fight, etc, and I am now very aware that I am not gifted at working with many kids at once. Not all of them are horrible though, and it is the good ones that make it all worth it. The other day I had a adorable little girl ask, "Can I show God my art?" I immediately smiled and said, "He sees it and loves it". She smiled and said, "God is really nice." I replied, "Yes he is! And he loves you." She then said, "I know. God loves everyone!" The cute little girl skipped away with a smile on her face proudly holding her art. She doesn't know how much she made my day. In the midst of the chaos of kids fighting over crayons, God sent me this cute little girl to make me smile. Thank you God!

2) Another thing God is teaching me is about prayer. I've learned that the size of your prayers show the size of your God. The bigger the prayers we pray, the more faith we have in our God. My friend Annelise prayed that on Monday 100 people would hear the gospel during our weekly evangelizing on campuses. She prayed, knowing that 100 was twice the amount as the week before, and 106 people heard about Jesus that day. We should never limit God's power. Join Annelise and I as we pray for 200 people to hear about Jesus this next Monday!

3) While sharing our faith on the University of Miami on Monday I got to talk with a girl from Germany. She had some very interesting theology. She thought that Jesus was married and had children. Thankfully I was able to share with her who Jesus really is and debunk her thoughts. It is crazy how different people's thoughts are about Jesus across the world. Then I went through the gospel with her and shared how Jesus was the only way for us to be with God. It was the coolest thing to hear her say that makes sense and to see the click in her eyes. At the end of the conversation she said that this will probably be one of those conversations she will never forget. I had prayed that day that I could have an impacting conversation with someone, and God answered my prayer!

God is doing so many things in Miami! I can not praise Him or thank Him enough!

My Story

Here is my story of how my life changed because I made the choice to surrender my life to Christ.

In high school I began a search for happiness. If you would have known me in high school you would have known I longed for what I called Ultimate Bliss. This was another way to say complete happiness or joy.  I was a happy person, but I just felt like there had so be something more.

I began looking for happiness  in many things -> relationships with friends, boyfriends, weight loss, acceptance, but they were never enough.  At this point in my life I knew who God was and I knew some things about him, but I did not know he desired a personal relationship with me.

Then, I entered college with the mind set of how can I find fulfillment. I searched, but I never found it.

Finally, I realized that nothing on this earth could fill that void in my heart. Nothing. After many nights of heart ache and asking if this was all there was, I began to read the bible for the first time. I began to finally understand that only through a personal relationship with Jesus could I find complete satisfaction.

After realizing this, I learned that God loves me and has a wonderful plan for my life. I learned that I was broken and searching, but God was perfect and holy. God desires to be with us, but in between us stood a wall of all my sins, my past, and my failures. Since God wanted so badly for us to be together in a relationship he sent his son Jesus down to be a bridge over our sin.

Before college I knew about God, and I knew Jesus was there, but not until college did I make the individual choice to walk across the bridge of Jesus and leave my old self behind. It was only then when I made the decision to walk across that bridge and begin a personal relationship with God that I could experience pure joy.

I am continuing to learn and process what this all means. But I do know that since crossing that bridge, I have experienced more ultimate bliss than ever before.

Some days I still struggle with thinking other things will give me joy, but I remind myself of how those things took joy away from me, while Jesus continues to give me joy.

New Leadership!

Last night we had a banquet to celebrate the staff. We all gave toasts for our leaders and hugged them goodbye. This means that project is already halfway over and now is when the students take over. Every role that the staff had will now be filled by a student. Our leadership will be tested and grown as we complete all our responsibilities.

For me, I have 2 jobs. I'm pretty excited about these jobs. I will be leading my small group of girls. This means that every week I will write up the questions for our bible study and facilitate discussion. I also get a chance to meet one on one with each girl in the group and go share our faith together and just get to grow close to each other and to Christ. This is a semi new experience for me, because I have led a bible study for 3 semesters, but this one is different. There is no material, or pre-written questions. I am just told what chapter from the bible to go over each week and I create the rest from there. I'm very excited for this role!

My second role is to write a devotional for every Sunday. On Sundays we have a 2 hour extended quiet time with God. It is a great time to just relax with God and reflect on what He has shown you during the week. I'm also so excited about this role because writing is something I am becoming more and more passionate about.

Here are some photos from the banquet:

Sharing Your Story

One cool thing they train us here in Miami is how to tell your story- aka your testimony of how you have come to know Christ and how He has changed you. The challenge is to be able to tell it in 3 minutes because when sharing with others that is the amount of time people will normally listen to you.

Here are the 5 parts to your story:
1. You need a theme. -> How you connected to Christ.
     - Some examples could be love, acceptance, approval, or any way that Christ changed your life. This will be your theme throughout the whole 3 minutes.

2. Who were you before Christ?
     -Describe who you were as a person.

3. How have you come to have a personal relationship with Christ?
     -What changed in your life? This could be a gradual collection of events, or one main event that made you realize how broken and sinful you were and how much you needed and wanted to surrender your life to Christ.

4. Describe your life after giving your heart to Christ.
    -How has your theme been affected through Christ.
    -This is also a great time to throw in the 4 key points of the gospel from one of my previous posts.

5. Close with a take away point. Talk about how even after becoming a Christian you still have struggles, but how God helps you get through them. Remember you are still just a broken as whoever you are sharing your story with, so do not try to act like you are above them.



I challenge you if you haven't written out your story to do so today. It is a great tool to use when sharing your faith. I'm hoping to video mine and post it on here by the end of the summer =]

Beauty = Value

In Miami, beauty is pursued at all costs for oneself or else one does not have value.

A lot of people, but especially Miami-ans, find their value in wealth and appearance. If they have these two things they think they are satisfied. This could be compared to sitting down for a big dinner and being served chips, candy, pop, and other junk foods. Although the foods look good, and taste good, they will not leave you full for long or satisfied. Still, people think this junk food will be enough for them. In reality, the only thing that will satisfy the needs of every persons soul is the gospel.

What is interesting about Miami is there are a lot of people who have heard of Jesus before, and some actually call themselves Christians. For these people, they think they have the gospel, yet they are still consuming junk food.

In training, they taught us the gospel in 4 simple points as a way to easily teach it to others.

• God loves you and offers a wonderful plan for your life.
• All of us sin and our sin has separated us from God.
• Jesus Christ is God's only provision for our sin. Through Him we can know and experience God's love and plan for our life.
• We must individually receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord; then we can know and experience God's love and plan for our lives.

 

If you would like to experience God personally, want to experience the fullness that he will bring you, or if you are sick of feeling empty by junk food-> call, message, or text me and I would love to talk to you about how God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. <3 Joy

 

This article explains how to have a personal relationship with God. We use this to help others in Miami come to know Christ.  ->    http://www.cru.org/how-to-know-god/would-you-like-to-know-god-personally/index.htm