Ideally, I would love to sit down with each of you individually and tell you stories, and I'm hoping to talk to as many of you in person as possible, but I know that with me only being home for such a short time it would be very difficult to do that, so here are some of the highlights and if you would like to hear more I'd be MORE than happy to share! (Also I really would love to know what's going on in your life :) Also for the safety of the long term missionaries working in the places I went to, I can only share certain details privately, so definitely contact me for that.
Part One of Outreach-The Middle East
So I can't post publicly where I was specifically here, but our main purpose for this 3 week portion of the trip was to be out in community; making friends and building trust among this closed nation. One of our main purposes (as a first step to introducing them to the love of Jesus) was to put a "good taste" in their mouths of American's, which to them translates to "Christians". Much like in their nation they assume since you live in the Middle East you are Muslim, they assume that since we are Americans we follow the teachings of "the Injil" which is the Arabic word for the Bible.
I have two memories that really stand out, the first being that me and a few of my team members went out one night and made a few friends at a coffee shop, we exchanged WhatsApp's and planned to hang out the following Monday night. We had planned to go to the beach but when the day came it ended up raining so my new friend Burnda (not her real name) asked us to come to her house, so we all shoved into a taxi and headed to our first home visit! When we got there they showed us some music they were writing and asked us to write with them (most of us that went were in the Worship Track in school back in Florida). So of course we said yes! I prayed and asked God to give me words to sing and out came "Lead me into everlasting, everlasting with you. Because I don't want to leave your side." And my friend Sarah wrote "You say I'm beautiful and You love me so, so I say You're beautiful and I love You so. Our new friends loved the lyrics to our new "love song" and had us record it with them and they added a rap to it. It was such a crazy experience and I prayed that those words would wash over their hearts and Jesus would lead them into Everlasting with Him. I still keep in contact with those friends I made and will continue to love on them.
Another amazing experience I had in the Middle East was when we were eating at a waffle shop and our server had a pretty severe limp. My friend Sarah and I asked her about it and she said it was swollen and she had sprained it, so I told her (through a translator app on her phone) that I believed that Isa (the Arabic word for Jesus) was a healer and if I could ask Him to heal her ankle. She nodded yes and Sarah and I prayed over her and told the swelling to go down in Jesus name. I then asked her to walk on it and her face exploded with joy. She was immediately healed and began jumping up and down and typed in her translator "how??". I was almost in tears at this point and I replied simply with shaky hands, Isa (Jesus) is healer and He loves you very much so He healed you." Over the next few days she brought other sick or hurting co-workers to us as we'd stop by to pray for them and we saw several more healing after that. You could feel the Holy Spirit dwelling in that place, and later we realized the name of the waffle shop was called "Ab'bas". I still keep in contact with Lydia (not her real name) and will continue to show her the love Jesus has for her.
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