Even the Stork in the Sky knows her Seasons: La Selva

Our destinations for the 3 month outreach have been announced. There are only 2 groups; one group will be taking a bus from Pichilemu up to the north of Argentina where they will be ministering in churches in the colonial old country, after spending some time there they’ll be traveling east to the countryside on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, and after this area they’ll no doubt be drinking fancy Argentinean yerba mate from beautifully hand crafted bombillas while busing it down to the beautiful south of Chile near the majestic Patagonia Andes where YWAM contacts will receive them for more work before returning back up north to Pichilemu. The other team will be flying from Santiago to Ecuador where after a brief stint in the capital city of Quito they’ll be spending the majority of their time in the humid sweltering heat of the tropical Ecuadorian rain forest with who I can only guess are various tribal churches… and they’ll be spending twice as much money to do it. Can you guess which group I’m in?

It’s true that while Argentina was my first choice for outreaches, I trust our directors and after having a little time to think about it I’m getting excited about Ecuador and I made a list of Pros that the country has over Argentina and Chile:

The Spanish that is spoken in Ecuador is more correct and slower than Chilean Spanish, which will help me learn the language faster than if I went to Argentina.

The weather (while unpredictable) will most definitely be nicer. Ecuador is on the equator so I’ll finally have a chance to wear all the t-shirts I packed and since on the outreach during the Latin American autumn months the team going to Argentina/S. of Chile will definitely have to deal with a weeks of rain in a row.

Ecuador’s form of currency is the United States dollar and is the 2nd most inexpensive country in all of Latin America, and boasts some of the best food.

It’s been stressful trying to navigate all of the things that I can’t control about the outreach, the hardest one being that all three of my favorite leaders, the ones that have been the most pastoral and personal with me, are going with the Argentina team. I wouldn’t say that I “dis-like” any of the leaders but the three that I’m basically the least enthusiastic about are the ones that are going to going to Ecuador. However God gave me a verse through one of the pastors concerning this problem.

1st Peter 5:6-7

“Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your anxiety upon Him, because He cares for you.”

The fact is that I’m in the Ecuador group for a reason and I know its going to be an adventure I’ll never forget. Ecuador wasn’t even on my mental map and if it wasn’t for this DTS I’m sure I never would never have considered going there… but I will be, in 3 short weeks.

After coming back from Rancagua I felt myself waiting with anticipation for the announcement of who would be in what group for the main outreach and after it was announced I felt myself just counting the days until we’d leave. Countdowns in general have been to be too important of a theme for me in this DTS. I was counting down the minutes until lunch, the days until the weekend, the weeks until the outreach, and the months until the graduation. Finally I had to stop and ask myself “Why I was doing this all the time?” I felt initially like I just wanted to get this DTS over with. However after spending some time praying about this I decided I don’t want to “get this DTS over with” as much as I wanted what God is going to give me in the next 4 months right now ! The fact is, that it was really easy for me in Santa Cruz to find myself in situations where I knew for sure I wasn’t where I was supposed to be, in fact I found myself in quite a few of these situation in the very months leading up to this DTS. Here I understand just how valuable it is to know for sure you’re where you’re supposed to be; when I think about it, why would I want to get this over with especially when I don’t know what I’m supposed to next?

Before I end this entry I want to leave you guys with an encouraging word I received this week during one of my morning quiet times. I found myself second guessing myself again, “am I really getting ‘words’ from you God or am I just drawing these interesting parallels because I’m a smart guy? Are you really speaking to me?” I’m reading the book of Acts right now (in preparation for my Ecuador trip) and at one point Paul finds himself invited to the Areopagus in Athens preaching to all of the theologians who had erected so many idols around the city they even had one “TO AN UNKNOWN GOD”. The verses that stood out were:

Acts 17:27-28

“That they (the people of Athens) should seek God , if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and exist as even some of your poets have said ‘For we also are His offspring’.”

Here’s the deal, it’s always going to take faith to believe that God is speaking to you, and there may always be an argument against your conviction but the better you get at knowing God the easier it is to see His hand at work. If I live and move and exist in Him (and we ALL do, personal relation with Jesus or not, because if you’re reading this that’s evidence you’re alive) then who’s to say it’s not God connecting the dots in your mind. When you act on those connected dots and “coincidentally” things fall into place for you again and again and again your faith starts getting stronger. So don’t hesitate to give the God the credit for the good because we’re living moving and existing in Him. Oh and P.S. if you’re wondering how you can start to get to know God better, it’s the same answer you’ve always heard, start reading your Bible more (expecting/believing you’ll hear from God). Never read the Bible? Start in book of John, or Psalms.

This last week I was invited to sing on the worship team, yep, just sing. There was this one line in particular that goes "I'll never know how much it costs to see my sins upon that cross!" It gets up in this high falsetto that my voice cracked on every time in practice and before I had to sing it in the church I was just praying to God that I'd hit it and sure enough I hit it all four times in a row. I think that it was important for me because God wanted those words to be seared in my mind.

This is my friend Junior, I'm calling it right here that you'll be hearing a lot more of what Junior and I do in Ecuador. He's determined we'll see some supernatural healing, just saying.