Snapshots from El, Inc.

Spring Break!!

Aight. Here's my very first snapshot post.
What comes to your mind whenever you hear the words "Spring Break" and "college students" in the same breath?
*hold that thought*
I had a BLAST during Spring Break last week. I had the awesome opportunity to go on a mission trip with 7 other amazing lovers of Jesus. In the picture below, it was (clockwise from Me) Amy Johnson, Tom Evans, Lisa Mercer, Sam Kim, Ps. Mike Sawyer, Christy Edwards, and Jessica Parsley. 8 of us in total.

Lessee...what we did there, in Arlington, Texas, was room in an apartment church and work with Mission Arlington, an organization committed to bring church to the churchless. Mornings were filled with various projects (including sorting clothes, toys, and various other donations at the Mission Resource Center), while we did a children's program called Rainbow Express with kids in an apartment complex in the afternoons.
I learnt and grew so much that week. God stretched my view of him yet again. I caught the vision of house-churches - how simple it was in the book of Acts! Church was simply a bunch of believers gathering together to eat, pray, study the Word, and encourage each other. That was it! No fancy lights, worship teams, programs...and God worked like crazy!
Anyways, God stretched me and caused me to see how He could pretty much work through anything. And I mean anything. I got to pray with one kid to accept Christ - he was listening to me share the gospel message in our small group of 4-6 older boys (8-12 years) throwing wood-chips at each other (yeah, we met outside in a playground). Plus, most of the kids we worked with were almost exclusively Spanish-speaking, and we only had Sam who was a Spanish speaker. God blessed us with bilingual kids willing to say yes when we asked them puedes tralusia por mi (can you translate for me)?
More than ever before I felt such a bond with God's people and such a passion to share Christ and His love in small and practical ways in my everyday life.
Simply put, it was a High week. I'm still riding off that high, though the emotions and all that are fading away...the imprint of His hand still remains. My life has forever changed. I can no longer look at God the same way. May I never limit Him by what I think is the "right" way that He should work.
As that popular song we sang with the kids all week goes, "My God is so BIG, so strong and so mighty, there's nothing my God cannot do!"
Amen!

posted by Joel Chan @ 5:48 PM