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.