Time for an update! Between my work schedule and project activities, my free time is very limited. However, my goal is to blog once every week and a half. So here goes…
First off, I love my job!! I guess I’ve always assumed that Texas/southern states are the only places where people are actually friendly, but it turns out I was wrong. I have been pleasantly surprised with my coworkers, supervisors, and even the customers. I genuinely look forward to going into work and I’m grateful to work alongside such an awesome group of people. Work actually is fun.
Two Sundays ago was our first outreach. We decided to split up and go to laundromats around town. Our mindset behind that was: what better place to reach out to people than a place where they’re sitting, waiting, and not busy/on-the-go? My action group (my 4 room-mates and our action group leader) isn’t Santa Cruz navigation-savvy, so we couldn’t find the laundromat and decided to head up to UCSC (University of California Santa Cruz) and talk to students on campus. Well that didn’t end up happening either. On our way to the campus, there was a beautiful looking point that we decided to stop at. We were at a pretty high elevation, because the school is up in the mountainy-hills (I still don’t know what to call them), so we had a great view of the coast, the city, and Monterrey Beach and its mountains in the far distance. There just so happened to be a man and a woman who had also stopped to check out the beautiful scenery, so we all started small talk. God had bigger plans for that conversation, and our “random” encounter with Victor and his girlfriend turned into what I like to call a divine appointment. Me and my roommates were able to share with Victor how the three of us came to know the Lord personally and what it meant to us. It was so cool to see him open up and ask question after question. Towards the end of our conversation, he mentioned that we were “good at what we were doing”….my prayer is that he would look back on that conversation and realize that it was Jesus in us, and nothing about ourselves, and that he would come to know the Lord personally too.
This past Tuesday we had our international dinner. We each received a slip of paper on our beds that told us what country we were. I was Europe. We knew nothing about the international dinner other than the time of it and our assigned country. My group didn’t know what to expect other than pasta, bread, and other carb-filled things, so team Europe (there were about 8 of us) was really confused when we were served cold lunch meat, cold green beans, and cold potatoes. America, on the other hand, was having a party in the courtyard, listening to songs about America, eating steak, potatoes, asparagus, and dessert. We were being fed, so we didn’t want to complain, but we didn’t understand why A) we were eating cold ham instead of hot pasta and B) America was already getting asked if they wanted seconds on their steak dinner. The staff came over to Europe’s table and read us a list of rules. One of the rules was that you could only travel to other countries if you had a passport. I was given a white slip of paper that said “passport,” so I went on over to America’s table and asked them what was going on and what their rules were. My friend responded “we don’t have any rules!” Team Europe got together and brainstormed, and decided that the staff was trying to communicate some message to us with the international dinner, we just didn’t know what the message was. We also noticed that the other 40 students were no where to be seen; America and Europe were the only groups outside eating. We went around knocking on doors and found a big group of students sitting on the floor of one bedroom all eating white rice out of the same pan, and they weren’t allowed to talk much (Africa). Now we knew something was going on, so started looking for the other countries around the motel. We found Russia eating bread and potatoes on the ground. We found China sitting on a tarp sharing a small thing of rice and not allowed to talk at all. Meanwhile, America got the news that they were the only ones eating a steak dinner, so they felt bad and wanted to share their extra steaks with the students in other countries. Then the siren went off, and we all gathered in the courtyard and the staff explained to us what the heck was going on:
The meat represented the Gospel: in America it’s abundant, there are churches on what seems like every corner, but the Gospel is often taken for granted. We get so distracted by our own blessings that we fail to realize how spiritually impoverished other countries are. Everything seems okay here, so we assume it’s okay everywhere else. Notice America didn’t have any rules at their dinner table, they were able to enjoy their steak freely. They became so distracted by the staff members asking them if they wanted dessert or if they wanted seconds on their steak, that for a while they failed to realize that other countries had no steak, or no meat at all. In Europe, the meat was cold, distasteful, not appealing. It was just there; no one wanted anything to do with it. Sadly this represents the spiritual climate in Europe today. Christianity exists there, and there are lots of churches, but most people are turned off by it and want nothing to do with it. Now comes the devastating part: all of the other countries had no meat at all. This represented the fact that these areas of the world are desperately in need of the Gospel. These countries are in the 1040 window: a region of the eastern hemisphere located between 10 and 40 degrees north of the equator that has least amount of access to the Gospel out of anywhere on the planet. The Gospel isn’t even allowed to be spoken there; the name of Jesus is banned. During our dinner, there were a few students hiding out on the other side of the motel. They were completely out of our sight; they couldn’t see Americans eating meat, and Americans couldn’t see them “starving” with only water. They had no idea that there was a party in the USA. This really opened my eyes to the fact that there are so many people in the world who are hungry…starving…for the Gospel, and they don’t even know what it is they’re hungry for. If only someone could tell them.
How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!’ Romans 10:14-15
Our second outreach was downtown this past Sunday evening. Downtown has a lot of nice restaurants and shops, so it’s a pretty popular place for locals and tourists. We all went downtown and split up into groups to talk to people. Thankfully, CRU has some awesome resources, such as the “Knowing God Personally” booklet, which my roommate, Kaitlin, and I were able to share with a woman experiencing a lot of brokenness and pain in her life. She was standing alone on the sidewalk, so we walked up to her and introduced ourselves. She seemed very distressed and distracted and she was hard to communicate with, so before we walked off I told her it was nice to meet her and asked her if there was anything I could pray for her about. She immediately broke down in tears and told us her life story. We prayed for her and went through the KGP booklet with her, and she continued to cry and tell us how she’d “never forget this.” One of the coolest parts about our conversation was when she told us about her own encounters with the Lord. She said after losing her father at a young age, she felt Jesus pursuing her in the midst of her pain, so she accepted Him as her savior. So the good news is that she is a believer, but she has been struggling to turn to God in the midst of her hardships. I believe God sat us down next to her that night to remind her that her hope is not anything or anyone in this world; her hope is in the Lord, and that is the one thing that won’t fail her (or you, or me). If one “random” lady we sat down and talked to was experiencing so much hurt and pain in her life, how many more people out there are experiencing the same thing? That night, I developed a deeper sense of urgency to share what I know with this city. “The harvest is plentiful”…let’s pray that the workers wouldn’t be few.
In addition to our community outreaches and serving with Twin Lakes Church, a lot of what we’re doing here is co-worker ministry. We have dinners (really good dinners) 4 nights a week at the Peter Pan, and we invite our coworkers to our dinners. At each dinner someone tells their story about how they came to faith in Christ. Lots of our coworkers have been able to come hang out with us, enjoy a free meal, and hear the Gospel. It’s been awesome to see how much favor God has given us with these people
Our first themed party is this Saturday, so we are anticipating lots of our coworkers to come. Barn themed, baaaby!! Parties at the Pan are a great way for our friends at work to come hang out with us at our summer home and see what we’re all about. I’m looking forward to some southern food and fun!
Lastly, I’m falling more in love with this place every day. And I’m promising myself I’ll learn how to surf before I leave. :)
