This week has been so amazing! I have learned so much and grown in my relationship with the Lord so much! I have just been completely speechless by how much God has been moving over the last week!
We have been learning a bunch of things that will be super useful while away. We have learned about child ministry, and we got to practice giving a skit like we were giving it to the children which I loved! We had a marketplace scenario this week which was really fun because we got fake money and walked around this fake market to buy dinner and the staff were playing roles of people who you might see in markets (party goers, homeless, tourists, etc.) They didn’t tell us to evangelize, but we were supposed to because that’s a part of everyday now. I felt really convicted because I feel like my natural instinct is to just say no and continue on, but that’s not what we’re supposed to do, and that isn’t the mindset that we should have.
We have also learned about useful tools to help remember and teach the gospel. On the 13th, we got to finally put all that we have learned into practice! We went to downtown Gainesville, and we got to go up to people in the square and evangelize to them. We met a ton of amazing people and had some great conversations! It was really scary to go up to people for the first time just trying to tell them about Jesus, but we ended up having some great conversations with a bunch of people. We actually ended up chatting with 2 homeless men for well over an hour. They were very eager to learn what we believed, and wanted to debate the Bible a lot because they have both studied it but don’t believe. We didn’t get them to believe, but we did get to show them the love that Jesus has for them. I also noticed while we were sitting and talking with them the looks of disgust on people’s faces and judgement when they looked at us for talking to them was so horrible. This made me start thinking back to the marketplace scenario and wonder if I subconsciously had a look on my face when people approached me for money. I think God had us cross paths with those two men to really help put that into perspective for me and show me things that I need to work on. It’s so sad that they are treated like that day in and day out. Us just stopping and talking with them had such an impact, and they were so grateful. Overall it was such a good experience, and I feel so much more prepared for going out and doing that for the next 8 1/2 months.
Spiritual take away of the week/testimony:
God wants to move in crazy ways in your life! We have been talking a lot about having a child like faith, and asking for things from God because he wants to show up for you. I have had the song “Open the Eyes of My Heart” stuck in my head all week. I have been feeling also like I haven’t felt God very much this week during worship, prayer, and reading my bible. I felt very distant from God even though I’ve been spending so much time in things that usually make me feel so close to him, which has honestly been pretty discouraging. During a worship night I prayed for God to show up, and I told him that I want to hear from him and know that he is still speaking to me. I asked him to play “Open the Eyes of My Heart”, and not even 30 seconds later the band played that song. My mouth was literally hanging open and I was completely speechless. God wants to show up in all of our lives like this. God is SO good! He has shown up like this so many times over the last 2 weeks and that has me so excited for the next 8 1/2 months!
