(Picture from here.)
Tijuana, Mexico. That is the extent of my worldly travels. Pretty pathetic, huh? I know I need to explore the world and get outside of my bubble. I think it scares me to do because I will realize just how much I want that I don’t need. I also think it would be good for me.
You might be wondering what has brought about this train of thought. Last week, I had the chance to see one of my best friends from high school. She lives in Mexico right now teaching at a school there so I don’t get to see her often enough. She and her fiancé also recently went on trip to India, and they were talking about it at a church near my city. I was so excited to get to see her and hear about her experience.
We’re going to call my awesome friend K. So K and D (her fiancé) were part of a team made up of Mexican pastors and English translators. The Mexican church is growing and has realized that they are also told by God to go and make disciples so they planned this trip to India. However, they needed people who can translate their Mexican teachings into English so that an Indian minister could translate the English into Hindi or some other dialect. It was amazing to here the way they experienced God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit over there. They saw miracles happen and demons banished.
Sometimes I think in America we miss the miracles of God. I know I do. When talking with K after her presentation, we were trying to figure out why God chooses to reveal Himself more blatantly (for lack of better word) or even why Satan manifests himself in different ways in other places of the world. I don’t often encounter demon-possessed people or witness the instant growth of a limb that was too short. I believe it can happen and does happen, but maybe in America we try to explain it away as something else. Maybe it is also because we have been a Christian nation (and I believe we have been although, sadly, I do think that is changing). I really don’t know, and honestly, the Holy Spirit still confounds me.
One other thing they mentioned that made a lot of sense to me was that they think the doors in the world are closing for American missionaries. I think I agree. Due to the media and how America is viewed by other nations, I think it is very challenging for an American to form true, deep relations with non-believers in a different culture. I’m not saying it never happens anymore or can’t, but I do feel like I have heard more and more of people that were initially reached by American missionaries going over to other countries to spread the Gospel – the good news! I think that is just unbelievable – in a good way. Hearing these experiences just helps me remember that God is not just an American or only English-speaking, but He is above ALL of it. Doesn’t that just hit you? He finds a way to break the hearts of people and then restore them to new. That just gives me hope and peace in a chaotic world.
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