9/24-10/15

What’s up guys! Here’s another update from the past 3 weeks or so!

So about the whole strept throat going around, we haven’t had a case with it for like 2 weeks now, which is such an answer to prayer. Thank you so much for praying for this situation as the Lord healed all of us and knocked it out of our camp!!

The week of 9/24

We started focusing on more evangelism and we got to go out and tell people about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. One of the days we went out into downtown gainsville Georgia and walked around and ATL’d (ask the Lord) it. We went to this one gas station and there was a homeless person there. So we walked up to him and started talking to him. Dom, a friend, got into an awesome conversation with him and just talked about his life and the homeless life, but than we eventually got into a more deeper conversation with him and told him about Jesus! We talked to him for about an hour and bought him food and showed the Love of Christ through us. We ended with prayer and encouraged him to press into the Lord and to rely on God for his daily bread/needs. Next we went to the square and talked with another homeless guy. I went to buy food for him while my teammates stayed and talked with him. But when i got back there was another homeless guys there who was preaching to us. The joke was made around camp that “we went out to preach the gospel to the homeless but we got the gospel preached to us through the homeless.” This guy really inspired me because he knew the Word of God so good and could spit out scripture and where it was found. I was deeply encouraged by this and desire to memorize more. When we got done talking and praying with him we went and got ice cream which was so good cause we haven’t had anything sweet like that around camp. I say a lot of this because I think homeless people are so lonely and most of them just want to talk to someone. And in that we can also share Jesus with them. My encouragement for you is if you see someone that looks like there hurting, homeless, etc, go talk to them. Tell them the best news they have ever heard, that there is someone bigger than all there problems and that He Loves them and He wants to talk to them and He wants you to talk to Him as well. It reminds me of something i learned out in Colorado at Ellerslie. God is Agape (unconditional Love, the highest and most pure form of Love. Not only does he Agape us, but he also has a love with us called Phileo (brotherly/friend love,). He wants to be with us and wants to really just hang out with us and be bestest of friends.

Also during that week we went to a Lady’s house that used to worked for adventures in missions and we cleaned up her yard and did some manual labor for the first time in a while, which was really nice. Later that week we went to a little town called Helen to do some more ATL. Nothing to crazy happened here, it was a cool town with some cool people.

The week of 10/1

On Sunday we headed up to mayfield Kentucky to help out (SP) Samaritans Purse with rebuilding of houses that were destroyed in a tornado in 2021. We left at 930 in the morning and got there at like 7, it took way longer than it should’ve, but it was a different car ride because I didn’t really get tired of it because we had such good conversations and we stopped a lot, like bass pro and chick-fil-a and other places. When we got there we got a little tour of the church that SP was staying at and got to sleep on beds for the first time in a month! Monday we headed to the job site and did insulation all day on one of the houses. Then the rest of the week we went to a development and worked on windows and lots of trim and a little paint. Also a big plus for working with SP was they had such good food for breakfast and supper and all you could eat, there was always leftovers. We met some really awesome people there and they encouraged us so much. It’s so cool to see that we all have different callings whether it be building houses for people, preaching, teaching, and going out on missions. On Friday we headed home. On the way home, we stopped at a Taco Bell, i didnt really want to eat there but we did anyhow. I’m glad we did because there a Lady there, who just was not having a good day. She had a broken ankle and got stopped by a cop and her booking for a hotel got canceled. So you can imagine she wasn’t in the best mood. As I wasn’t eating I kept hearing her mumble under her breath that people are so ruthless and people just dont care about her and everybody sucks. In my head, i was like challenge accepted. I’m going to show her love that she has not experienced in a long time. So she started getting up and me and nick went over to her and her asked her if we could help her. Her face changed and it was so beautiful to watch. She didnt understand why we wanted to help her, but i knew that we have been giving much so we wanted to give. We started walking out to her car and i asked her if she had eaten supper yet. And she turned and looked at me and was like “what?” Than i asked her again and she said no so i told her to order food and ill pay. She started crying and asked why i said its because its not my money but the Lords. While we were waiting for her food, i got this feeling that she was going to be healed if we pray for her. It was the same feeling i got when my teammate Noah got healed. Anyhow we went and prayed for her, but I forgot and wish I would of asked her how her ankle felt. I truly believe Jesus healed her, whether it was physically or spiritually. Well than we encouraged her to talk to God and he wants to spend time with her. Anyhow that was so cool and than we headed home.

Than on Saturday we went to like a family fun zone. It was so much fun to kinda act like a kid again, we rode go karts and played mini golf, but more importantly we talked to a worker there and we encouraged him and told him about the race and maybe he’ll be here next year.

Week of 10/8 (debrief week)

Debrief week is a week where we debrief everything we learned and reminisce what the Lord did it the past weeks. We have this after every country. We got to meet our coaches, which they are so awesome. (So we have 6 teams on our squad. We have a team leader which is an experienced racer and they lead their team. Then we have a squad leader, Bill and Katie, they are in charger of the whole squad and they are going with us. Then we have coaches which are kinda like mentors, but they also just want to hang out with us. They come to the debriefs, but they don’t travel with us.) We all were to have one-on-ones with them and it was so good for me and just got so much wisdom from they because they lived life more than i have. We also had one-on-ones with team leaders, which was cool to know more about them and hang out with them.

It was a really relaxing week and we just hung out with each other.

Saturday, when we were supposed to leave. So our ideal plan was to leave Saturday but Guatemala just had an election and there was just a lot of tension and roadblocks down there so we post-phoned our travel day to Wednesday. As much as i wish that i could be down in Guatemala right now i know that God is planning something better for us over the next couple days. I know that he has a plan and we just gotta trust Him. Saturday afternoon i went to one of my friends grandparents house and slept there. We watched some football and then went to a racetrack after that. We stayed there for a couple hours and met my leader, banks, there. We ate some good food again and and later that night slept in a bed again and slept SO good.

Sunday we went to their church and went out for lunch and now I’m writing, thanks for reading and hope it finds you well.

Please pray for safety as we plan to travel to Guatemala on Wednesday and pray that the hearts of people we talk to would be open to hear God News.

The Harvest is ready, we have to go

Thank you for your prayers.