Power In Weakness

I was asked to write a short devotional for our Go Missions Teams that are being sent out this year, so I thought I would share it with you:

It was another hot day in Mexico, and I could feel that dull ache behind my eyes that comes from being on a mountain at a 7,000 foot elevation in the sky, and from traveling for 14 hours in order to get there. I was still feeling a little traumatized and homesick after giving up my full-time job and leaving all of my friends and family to spend ten weeks in Mexico doing heaven knows what.

We had made our way to the church first thing in the morning, and I still had that queasy feeling you get in your stomach from being up way too late and getting up way too early. All I wanted to do was to go somewhere and hide for a little while, until I could get my bearings so to speak, and to get my feet under me. But before I could get lost in the woodwork, the pastor of the church came up to me and said “Kellie, I would like you to come and pray for a young lady who is battling with depression and suicide.” My first thought was “Oh God, I am not ready to deal with this. I don’t have what it takes to help this woman right now.” As Pastor Ted would say, I felt about as spiritual as a peanut!

Have you ever felt this way? Have you ever felt physically or emotionally worn out, and totally inadequate for the challenge that God has placed before you? Chances are if you are involved in a mission trip, and are reading this devotion right now, then you will know exactly what I am talking about. But let me tell you that you are in one of the most powerful positions you could ever be in. Bill Johnson says: “Everyone needs to know what it is like to minister out of weakness. Everyone needs to know what it is like to write a spiritual cheque that you don’t think you have the reserve of strength to back it up. It’s a big deal to step beyond what you don’t think you have the grace for, and see how God shows up and does a miracle.”

You know what, I put my hands on that young lady and I began to pray, and after a while I stopped, and the pastor said “She doesn’t really feel anything is happening, we need to pray again.” So I did, and I felt the power of God begin to flow through me. Finally, she began to smile and she said “I feel as if something has been pulled up through me and right out of the top of my head. It’s gone! I can feel it, it’s gone!” I watched the transformation come over her face as God set her free from the oppression that the devil had her under, and I watched her come to church every Sunday for the ten weeks that I was in Mexico. Not bad for someone who was suffering from jet lag and homesickness, and believe me, God can do the same with you, no matter how you are feeling. Just trust Him, get out your spiritual pen, and get ready to write that cheque from God’s million dollar bank account!

The Heartbeat of Worship

Tuesday, June 12th around 12 noon,

I´m just trying to catch my breath from hiking to my favorite spot at the top of the hill (we are at 10,000 feet, which is about two miles up.) I am sitting here looking out over the mountains, with the white clouds just skimming over the top of them, listening to the breeze sighing through the pine trees, and breathing in their delicious scent.

The sun has come out in full for the first time today, and it is absolutely beautiful. The birds are singing, and the breeze is nice and cool, which makes the temperature just perfect. When the sun is shining here you feel that you are only about two miles away from heaven, but when one of those big clouds roll in and you can only see for a few feet in front of you, you think that maybe you´ve been forgotten at the end of the earth.

I am just watching a little lizard that is about an inch and a half long sun himself on a rock. (I am hoping quite fervently that I don´t run into any snakes!) There is a big pile of rock not far from where I am sitting that Lorenzo says is a border marker between here and the next state. He also says the witch doctors have gathered around these rocks before and tried to put curses on the church and the bible school that he was starting. Lorenzo says that when they first started to clear the land for the church, that there were snakes and scorpions everywhere, but that there are hardly any now. Thank God!

I have to say that one of the things that touches me the most is the little prayer meeting that they have here at seven o´clock every morning. They ring a big bell and the people walk from all around the area to this little building with a tin roof and no heat, and they will sing worship songs in Spanish, with no music, maybe sometimes a guitar, and then they will break off into the song of the Lord, which sometimes may be in several different keys, but to me, I think it must be the most beautiful sound that heaven has ever heard. I just keep thinking, Lord, you hear these people, way up in these mountains that most of the world doesn´t even know about, bringing, to me, what a true sacrifice of praise is. I am sure that all of heaven goes silent just to hear it. It absolutely breaks me, and all I can do is weep when I hear it. I would fly for 12 hours and drive for 7 more just to hear that worship again.

Four of the guys from our team left this morning (including Tim, and he´d better make it back so he can drive us home!) to hike 9 hours through the mountains to a small Huichol Indian village that Lorenzo has made contact with. They will have to stay overnight, and hike for 12 hours tomorrow to get back. I knew that it was going to be a hard trip, but I did not fully understand the danger until Lorenzo had us pray for them this morning, and he warned them that they had to be very careful how they conducted themselves around these people. He said that a reporter had gone out there one time and taken some pictures of one of the little children. The men from the Huichol tribe chased him down and killed him. I thought to myself, this is the real deal. There are people right here in North America that have never been reached, that these men may be risking their lives to reach out to. My prayers for them and this trip have taken on a whole new dimension.

It is now 12:45 and I am supposed to go in and start preparing lunch, but I don´t want to! I could sit out here on this mountain the whole day.

God's Provision

It is May 22nd, my job is finished and I‘m home visiting with my family for a few days because in less than two weeks I am leaving for Mexico! I can hardly believe it. I can hardly believe what has happened in my life over the last few months.

I can remember saying to my sister, Brenda, after one of my trips to Mexico that sometimes I felt like I could just give it all up and totally go for this missions thing. Wow! Be careful what you let come out of your mouth! Or sometimes have a real good listen to what is coming out of your mouth because you could be prophesying your own future—good or bad.

I have to say that since I made the decision at the first of the year to jump off the cliff and chase the lion, I have experienced the most miraculous confirmations to this decision that I have ever seen in my life. God has spoken to me over and over again through dreams, prophetic words and prayers, scriptures, and most of all, miraculous provision, beyond anything I could have imagined.

To those of you who have helped me, I am tempted to say that you will never know how much it means to me, but I hope that you will know, and that God will bless you beyond your wildest imagination. You have made a Kingdom investment that will pay dividends for many, many years to come.

There is a verse in Matthew 19:29, that talks about anyone who leaves their home or family for His name’s sake will receive a hundred times more. I can honestly say that I have experienced this verse and I haven’t even left the country yet! There is no one who can pay you back any better than God!

A Taste Of Mexico- Missions Festival

Our church, Rock Church, recently held a Missions Festival, it's featured theme was "Tastes From Around The World." I had the fun of creating a booth representing Mexico. I had a great team, and it didn't take long for the food to disapear!

My team mates, starting from the left, Gwen McNeil, Me, Wendy Lee & Ashley Abbott

Mexican Journey

“What makes you come alive?” was a life-changing question that was asked of me by a very wise and dear friend about three years ago when I was in the midst of a job search and looking at a possible career change.

I had been sharing with her that I wasn’t really sure what direction to go in, and just didn’t know what I wanted to do. The question provoked me somehow, and when she asked it I thought “you know, I really have no idea what it is that I love to do, and what makes me feel alive when I do it.”

Later on that year I had the opportunity to return to Mexico on a short-term missions trip with a team from my church. I say return because 20 years earlier I had a somewhat disastrous experience as a short-term missionary in Mexico, and I have to say that as I returned this time I was absolutely paralyzed with fear that my experience was going to be a repeat of my first journey to Mexico. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I remember the moment exactly, and it is still as clear and vivid in my mind today as it was then – it was our third day in Mexico, and we had gone into a neighborhood to go door to door inviting people to come to the church for some groceries and a meal. We were walking down dirt roads, with dogs barking at us from everywhere (including the rooftops!) There were little boys driving cars down the roads, and we were struggling to communicate with people who were wondering who these foreigners were that were knocking on their door.

As I was walking down one of those roads, suddenly it hit me – this is it! I am in the middle of a dirt road in Mexico and I have never felt so alive in all my life! I was amazed, and continued to be throughout the rest of the week at how different my experience was from the first time, and how I fell in love all over again with these beautiful, resilient people of Mexico.

I have returned to Mexico three times since that first trip three years ago, and am now getting ready to leave my job and go to Mexico for a ten week mission term this summer. You may ask how I arrived at this point in my life; well, that story is too long to tell in one sitting. You will have to come back again and I will share a bit more of my journey. Hasta luego!