This has been a busy and fruitful week! There was a group of around 60 teenagers, leaders, and translators that joined us for a week of missions. The group built two houses, visited the hospital, jail, Youth Detention Center, and did street ministry. We were able to join them in these ministries. Let me tell you, I learned so much!

            Looking back it was a joy to work with this team, although it didn't always feel like it. I learned important lessons about leadership, about short term missions, and especially about the power of prayer. It is amazing; the relationships that were built in one week, the number of people that heard of God's love, and the affect that the week had on the youth.

            Leading this showed me a side of missions I have never seen. I have always been on the doing end, rather than the setting up end of missions. It also made me think back to my first Mexico mission trip in high school and how that changed the direction of  my life. It was that trip that made me fall in love with Latinos and began the desire in me to be able to communicate the gospel to Latinos and everyone else in the world.

            Like I mentioned earlier, I learned the power of prayer. You see, I always knew that God answers prayers but for some reason I hesitate to take the small things to Him. This week I realized that that is foolish. God wants to know about the small and big things, but more importantly He just wants to hear from us. Now I am focusing on going to God with everything, big or small.