"And when He got into the boat, His disciples followed Him. And behold, there arose a great storm on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but He was asleep. And they went and woke Him, saying, 'Save us, Lord; we are perishing.' And He said to them, 'Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?' Then He rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. And the men marveled, saying, 'What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey Him?'" ~ Matthew 8:23-27
There's something funny about this passage. Did you catch it? Jesus got into a boat and His disciples followed, and then a huge storm appeared. Where did the storm come from? Did it just whip up out of thin air? I doubt it. There were probably signs of bad weather well before the disciples even considered getting in the boat. Yet they still followed Him and got in the boat. Why? Apparently they trusted Him to keep the storm away. But the Lord had something else in mind.
The storm raged all around the boat, "so that the boat was being swamped by the waves." The storm threatened to sink the boat, and what was Jesus doing? Sleeping! The disciples, on the other hand, were freaking out. Just a little while ago they were perfectly willing to follow Jesus despite the signs of the approaching storm, but now they were afraid and beginning to question why they were crazy enough to follow their Teacher to their death. Panicking, they quickly made Jesus aware of the situation He had gotten them into, as if the omniscient Son of God didn't already know.
And how did Jesus respond? He essentially said, "Why are you afraid? Don't you trust Me? I brought you into this! This didn't just happen by coincidence. You followed me into the storm, and I will lead you out." Then He turned to the storm and simply spoke truth into being: the peace that He had in the midst of the storm became physically manifest. The way that the Lord considered the storm—as nothing at all—became reality. Stillness was around them all along; He only had to open His disciples' eyes to recognize it and shut out any fear that the storm instilled in them (2 Kings 6:17). Jesus modeled to His disciples the way that they were to react to any trouble that came their way: by preaching peace and God's promise in Romans 8:28 to themselves and to the storms in their lives. If you look for stillness in a storm, God will give you eyes to find it.
In Psalm 108:1-2, David says, "My heart is steadfast, O God! I will sing and make melody with all my being! Awake, O harp and lyre! I will awake the dawn!" What does that last statement mean? How can a person awake the dawn? Well, I don't think he means it literally, but these two verses seem to give us a glimpse of his plan: to sing praises to God until morning comes—to speed the coming of daylight by worshiping rather than sitting around in the darkness, doing nothing. Psalm 30:5b says, "Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes in the morning." I think David is making a reference to this verse of hope and encouragement in Psalm 108:2. Yes, joy comes in the morning; those who stay up all night waiting for morning will of course be glad when the sun rises over the horizon. But joy can also bring the morning. Just as Jesus had peace and rest in the midst of the storm before He spoke that peace into being for the disciples to see, when we preach peace to ourselves and take joy in knowing that God is working all things for our good, even in the difficult times, we start to not notice the storm around us. And when we stop paying attention to the storm, it seems like everything is like a perfectly still, sunny day, and eventually that will become reality—not that we will respond any differently, because the Lord shows us how to see even darkness as light (Psalm 139:12).
The disciples expected to completely avoid the storm, but Jesus took them straight into it so that He could teach them something. God doesn't promise us perfect circumstances—the prosperity gospel—for the rest of our lives after we make the commitment to follow Christ. He does, however, promise us a mindset to consider every situation as perfect according to His plan. I think it's also interesting to note that the disciples were afraid of dying in the storm as a result of their insanity in following Jesus, but years later, ten of the twelve would willingly die as a result of their unwillingness to forsake their Lord and Savior (minus Judas Iscariot, who committed suicide after betraying Jesus, and John the Beloved, who died of natural causes). By the end of their lives, they had learned to find the "peace of God, which surpasses all understanding" (Philippians 4:7) in every situation, even in death.
So if you're facing a storm in your life right now, God has this message for you: "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid"; "I have told you these things, so that in Me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world" (John 14:27, 16:33). Let the Teacher preach this message to you.
Saturday, April 21, 2012
Sunday, April 8, 2012
"You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain."
Deuteronomy 5:11
I think a lot of us misunderstand what it means to take the Lord's name in vain. Don't you think the warning at the end of this verse seems a little harsh for saying, "Oh, my G**"? I mean, yeah, you are using His holy name as a term of surprise, anger, frustration, excitement—essentially as a curse word—but I don't think that's all God meant when He warned against taking His name in vain.
In Old Testament times, a person's name was more than what people called him. It was his reputation. A person's name was who he was. It defined him. That doesn't mean that "Michael: who is like God" defines me (although that would be great if I could fully live out the identity that comes with my name; I think my name is more of a rhetorical question than a definition of who I am, though, but that's a story for another time). It means that the term "name" actually meant "reputation." Maybe it would make more sense if I put it the other way around: a person's reputation was his name. That's why the Lord's name is such a big deal: I AM. His reputation is that He simply is. He exists everywhere at all times no matter what. He is omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent. He is the Lord God Almighty. He is good. He is loving. He is gracious. He is merciful. He is forgiving. He is just. He is holy, holy, holy. We are because He is.
Have you ever heard a non-Christian, use the Bible against you or another Christian? Have you ever been that person? You know, the ones who say, "If God is so good, why does He let bad things happen to good people?" or "How can a loving God throw people in hell?" (Sometimes Christians ask these questions out of honest curiosity because they are hard things to understand. People don't always use these questions to trap Christians.) Or have you ever heard someone preach the prosperity gospel, the "health and wealth" gospel? These are examples of taking the Lord's name in vain. We assume we know God's whole reputation based on singular attributes of His character, but we fail to recognize the rest of His character. Someone who loves without justice does not truly love. God loves us too much to let us go on hurting ourselves through sin, so He disciplines us. And I would hope that God would know what love is since 1 John 4:8 says that God is Love.
A more common example would be the dreaded issue of judgment. When we judge others for their sins because the Lord is holy and righteous and can have nothing to do with sin, we are guilty of taking His name in vain. Yes, God hates sin, but we can't forget that we were sinners once too, and we still continue to sin even though we have been redeemed. We have no right to look down on others because we are no better than them. Besides, Jesus bore our sins on the cross, and He can do the same for everyone else. He knows how to deal with sin, so let Him handle it instead of judging people yourself.
God's name—His identity, His reputation—is so vast and all encompassing that any time we fixate on a single attribute of His character and ignore the rest of His reputation, we grow dangerously close to taking His name in vain if we haven't stepped over that line already.
One last thing, then I'm done for tonight. Take a close look at the Third Commandment again: "You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain." Do you realize that when we begin to follow Christ, we become identified with His name and we take His reputation upon ourselves? We bear His name wherever we go, and we are to represent Him well in all that we do. When we represent Him poorly, we take His name in vain. In fact, we blaspheme. When we sin, we are pretty much saying that it's okay with God and that He would do it too. We are falsely carrying His reputation. Thank God that He forgives us! No wonder the warning against taking His name in vain is so frightening.
I don't mean for this post to be an accusation against anyone. It's as convicting for me as I hope it is for you. But I only want it to be convicting. Thanks to Christ, we are free from guilt, so if you feel guilty, ask for forgiveness for whatever made you guilty, then rebuke the accuser, Satan, and find peace in knowing that God has forgiven you. "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." I know that I definitely don't always represent the Lord well. I am guilty of taking the Lord's name in vain, in more ways than I want to think about. But there's hope! Yes, we represent God now that we are identified with Christ, but we aren't the ones representing Him. He represents Himself in us and through us. As Paul writes in Galatians 2:19-20, "For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me." So with that in mind, let's give God full reign in our lives and let Him represent Himself well through us.
I think a lot of us misunderstand what it means to take the Lord's name in vain. Don't you think the warning at the end of this verse seems a little harsh for saying, "Oh, my G**"? I mean, yeah, you are using His holy name as a term of surprise, anger, frustration, excitement—essentially as a curse word—but I don't think that's all God meant when He warned against taking His name in vain.
In Old Testament times, a person's name was more than what people called him. It was his reputation. A person's name was who he was. It defined him. That doesn't mean that "Michael: who is like God" defines me (although that would be great if I could fully live out the identity that comes with my name; I think my name is more of a rhetorical question than a definition of who I am, though, but that's a story for another time). It means that the term "name" actually meant "reputation." Maybe it would make more sense if I put it the other way around: a person's reputation was his name. That's why the Lord's name is such a big deal: I AM. His reputation is that He simply is. He exists everywhere at all times no matter what. He is omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent. He is the Lord God Almighty. He is good. He is loving. He is gracious. He is merciful. He is forgiving. He is just. He is holy, holy, holy. We are because He is.
"In Him we live and move and have our being." ~ Acts 17:28If God's reputation is so awesome, it makes a little more sense that He would warn so strongly against taking His name—His reputation—in vain. But what does it mean to take His name in vain?
Have you ever heard a non-Christian, use the Bible against you or another Christian? Have you ever been that person? You know, the ones who say, "If God is so good, why does He let bad things happen to good people?" or "How can a loving God throw people in hell?" (Sometimes Christians ask these questions out of honest curiosity because they are hard things to understand. People don't always use these questions to trap Christians.) Or have you ever heard someone preach the prosperity gospel, the "health and wealth" gospel? These are examples of taking the Lord's name in vain. We assume we know God's whole reputation based on singular attributes of His character, but we fail to recognize the rest of His character. Someone who loves without justice does not truly love. God loves us too much to let us go on hurting ourselves through sin, so He disciplines us. And I would hope that God would know what love is since 1 John 4:8 says that God is Love.
A more common example would be the dreaded issue of judgment. When we judge others for their sins because the Lord is holy and righteous and can have nothing to do with sin, we are guilty of taking His name in vain. Yes, God hates sin, but we can't forget that we were sinners once too, and we still continue to sin even though we have been redeemed. We have no right to look down on others because we are no better than them. Besides, Jesus bore our sins on the cross, and He can do the same for everyone else. He knows how to deal with sin, so let Him handle it instead of judging people yourself.
God's name—His identity, His reputation—is so vast and all encompassing that any time we fixate on a single attribute of His character and ignore the rest of His reputation, we grow dangerously close to taking His name in vain if we haven't stepped over that line already.
One last thing, then I'm done for tonight. Take a close look at the Third Commandment again: "You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain." Do you realize that when we begin to follow Christ, we become identified with His name and we take His reputation upon ourselves? We bear His name wherever we go, and we are to represent Him well in all that we do. When we represent Him poorly, we take His name in vain. In fact, we blaspheme. When we sin, we are pretty much saying that it's okay with God and that He would do it too. We are falsely carrying His reputation. Thank God that He forgives us! No wonder the warning against taking His name in vain is so frightening.
I don't mean for this post to be an accusation against anyone. It's as convicting for me as I hope it is for you. But I only want it to be convicting. Thanks to Christ, we are free from guilt, so if you feel guilty, ask for forgiveness for whatever made you guilty, then rebuke the accuser, Satan, and find peace in knowing that God has forgiven you. "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." I know that I definitely don't always represent the Lord well. I am guilty of taking the Lord's name in vain, in more ways than I want to think about. But there's hope! Yes, we represent God now that we are identified with Christ, but we aren't the ones representing Him. He represents Himself in us and through us. As Paul writes in Galatians 2:19-20, "For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me." So with that in mind, let's give God full reign in our lives and let Him represent Himself well through us.
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Look what the Lord has done! Jamaica 2012: Overview
I just want to take a minute and thank everyone who has been supporting me and praying for me and my team of freshmen, fellow Freshley leaders, and Wesley interns and directors who went to Jamaica for our spring break mission trip. Your prayers are more powerful than you know, and all 58 of us in Port Maria saw God at work through your prayers all week. I love and appreciate all of you, and I can't thank you enough for making this trip possible and for bringing down God's blessings on the trip in abundance.
The Lord did so much over the course of that week, I don't even know where to start. This is probably going to take more than one post, so be prepared to be reading for a solid half hour. Haha. I'll just start with a not-so-quick overview of what we did all week. (I'll follow up on this with another post about all that God taught me during the week.) We arrived at the Hartsfield-Jackson airport in Atlanta around 8:15am on Saturday, March 10th. My small group, being the best (haha, just kidding; all of the groups were great... but seriously), was the first group to have everyone there, so we were the first to get our bags checked in and to go through security. We breezed through security in under an hour, which gave us time to say good-bye to our friends on the Saint Ann's team, who were leaving at 9:30. We had lunch/breakfast/brunch at the airport, and at 12:30, we boarded the plane. I had a window seat, which turned out to be a blessing from God because He used the view to speak to me about the trip and the work He was about to do. I'll get to that later, though, when I go into everything the Lord taught me that week. We got on our way, and we arrived at the airport in Montego Bay around 3:30, where we stood in line to get through customs for over an hour. That was an interesting experience because there was another group from UGA on our flight who had been drinking for most of the flight, and we got to stand in line with them. Anyway, after running into more friends from the MoBay team, being joined by two more people on our team who were on separate flights, and getting through customs, we hopped on a couple buses and made the drive over to the Casa Maria, the hotel we stayed at for the week. I got to talk to Jessica and Sloan, two of the interns, on the way there, which was really cool because I usually have a hard time putting myself out there to get to know people older than me or who seem to be in a higher position than I am. We arrived at the Casa Maria around 7:30 that night, and when I saw that hotel where God made such a powerful move in my life last year, it felt like I was coming home. After a delicious dinner provided by the Casa Maria staff, we had our leadership meeting, where we talked about the day and prepared for our small groups, and then we met with our small groups to debrief, talk about the next day, and just hang out. I'm probably going to be bragging a lot about my small group—they're more like a family to me than a small group now—so just be prepared to hear about them a lot. After small group we had our nightly team meeting in the courtyard in the center of the Casa Maria, where we heard a message and had time for prayer and worship. Afterward, Josh, one of the guys in my small group who I have come to see as a brother, grabbed a few people for a Bible study, which turned into a huge discussion about our fears, doubts, and weaknesses in sharing the gospel and about what we wanted to see come out of the week. We probably had half the team gathered around a small coffee table at one point or another as people came and went. We even had Daniel, one of the Wesley directors, sitting there with us. We probably talked for about an hour (maybe more—time moves in weird ways in Jamaica), and we closed out by praying over one of the guys who was having doubts about being able to build community during the week. As you'll see, God shattered those doubts by the end of the week. Our time of deep spiritual discussion was followed by a time enjoying each others' company in games of Spades, Nertz, Bananagrams, and more. All of this happened just on the first night. To say that we started off the week strong would be an understatement.
The next morning we split up into three groups to visit different Jamaica churches. One group visited Acts Church, a house church just down the road from the Casa Maria; another group took a road trip into the mountains to visit a church run by Pastor Kermit, who we worked with last year; and my group visited the church that Trevor, one of our bus drivers, attends, which is where I went last year. All of the services were amazing, from what I've heard, although they were all longer than the typical American church service. The service at Trevor's church was three hours long, and while it did feel like a long service, it was worth it. The group that went to Pastor Kermit's church, though, was gone for nearly five hours. They got lost in the mountains on the way there, and normally the ride is about 45 minutes. The church service was the same length as the others, so the only difference was the distance the group had to travel to get to the church. Anyway, at Trevor's church, we had worship and random interjections of announcements, the church's dance ministry performance, and a brief message from our own "Brother Bob," the director of Wesley. Like last year, the part that stood out the most to everyone was the warm welcome: unlike in American churches when the pastor says "Stand up and greet your neighbor" and everyone does just that, "Stand up and greet your neighbor" in Jamaica means "Stand up, dance to the music, and greet everyone in the room as we sing, 'Look what the Lord has done!'" The pastor gave a message on 2 Kings 5, which was really good. She made a few comments I had never really thought about before. It was a great way to start off the week before getting to work the next day. We spent the rest of the day just hanging out, getting to know each other. Like the day before, this consisted of several games as well as swimming and sitting around the pool talking. We had our team meeting that night after another awesome small group—family—meeting, and then Jack, the other guy in my small group got a bunch of people together and led a meeting on what he called "identity prayer." I'll go into that more later. And as usual, we finished off the night with games and community building.
Monday. We got up the following morning feeling like we had already been in Jamaica for a week. Everyone had already gotten so close, and we had already learned so much that it was hard to believe it was only our third day there. Needless to say, we were all excited to start working. We had been assigned our work sites Sunday night, so we all boarded our buses right after breakfast. I worked on McGuiver's "farm" that day, which, much like Mr. Eddie and Melanie's farm from last year, was more of a jungle than a typical crops-and-livestock farm. We spent the day on the mountainside pulling and cutting weeds with machetes. After lunch we had about another hour to work until the rain hit. When it didn't let up, we decided to pack up and head over to the infirmary, where there was another group working. Ironically, it stopped raining on the bus ride over there, so we finished off the workday by scraping paint off of the overhang. While I was there, Andrew, our worship leader for the week, was playing his guitar and singing along with some of the residents. I found out later that instead of playing and singing songs for the residents, he was actually coming up with chords to play along with the songs that the residents were already singing. The whole day was interesting because while we were working at the farm, God started speaking to me by interpreting the work we were doing. More on that later. (Sorry to keep giving all these cliffhangers. There's just too much for me to say all at once, and it would get really disorganized if I tried.) When we got back to the Casa Maria, we had the rest of the day to relax until dinner, small group, the prayer and worship session, another night of identity prayer, and more hanging out. The time after identity prayer was a little different that night though (I think it was that night... I don't remember for sure, but it sounds right), because we followed it up with a group conversation about the gift of speaking in tongues. A few of us shared our personal experiences with tongues and how we came to receive the gift, and we had the opportunity to explain tongues to someone who hadn't heard much about it until that point.
The next day I was assigned to go back to the infirmary, and I had a great time. At first I was a little... I don't want to say disappointed, but I wasn't exactly jumping for joy when I found out I was going to the infirmary again, even though I was only there for about an hour the day before. But once the work was under way, I really started to enjoy it. I got to talk to some of the freshmen who were with me on the scaffolding scraping paint, and a couple of us realized we had some mutual friends and other interesting connections we didn't know about before. One of them is good friends with my home church's pastor and his son, and another one has an older sibling that I took a class with when I did dual enrollment at Kennesaw State. Then after lunch, we got to spend time with the residents in the infirmary, including Richard, an amazing man of God that I met last year. Talking to Richard brought joy to everyone who came in contact with him. In fact, two of the freshmen in the infirmary team that day sent a letter to him with Wednesday's team because his love for us and for God encouraged them so much in their own love for God and for Richard. As we were cleaning up, we were told by infirmary staff that we couldn't use their broom that day. So what happened? Richard found a broom for us. But someone (probably one of the employees) took the broom back while Richard wasn't paying attention. When he realized it was gone, he grabbed my hand, and we wandered around the infirmary looking for it. We never found the broom, but he found a broom that we could use. Unfortunately, it was time for us to get ready to leave, so he reassured us that he would sweep up the paint chips for us. Then just like last year, before we left the infirmary, he called a bunch of people together from the team and asked us all to pray for him, and then he prayed for us. Like I said, it was just like last year, but it was just as awe-inspiring as before. Don't miss this: he, Richard, the toothless Jamaican man who has nothing and who has been left to die under the apathetic care of the infirmary, prayed for us, the missionaries from America who have everything in the world to be thankful for yet who live life looking for more. He wanted us to know that we are God's "handmade" and that we had been a blessing to him and that the Lord has blessed him in so many ways in his life. I can't help but feel like he was more of a blessing to us than we were to him, combined. We went back to the hotel filled with joy because of the joy that overflowed from Richard into us. After another awesome family meeting, which we had a full hour for that night, followed by prayer and worship, Jack led another night of identity prayer, where we continued to see breakthrough as God revealed the lies we have believed about ourselves and replaced those lies with His truth. By this point, the days had begun to run together, so I can't remember if this next part happened Tuesday night or Wednesday night, but the point is that it happened: Rebekah, my co-leader, and I were talking about small group, bragging on our freshmen and discussing what we wanted to see in our small group in the days to come. I have come to believe that coincidences don't exist because God works everything, even the smallest and most insignificant details, according to His plan. And "coincidentally," just a few minutes after I mentioned wanting to see a stronger sense of community and a family bond in our small group, three of our freshmen convinced the two of us to join them in a game of Goober for some "small group bonding." Whether this was Tuesday or Wednesday, it happened before identity prayer, so after having sufficiently made fools of ourselves, we joined Jack and the group of identity seekers he had gathered by the pool before going to bed.
Then came Wednesday morning, the last work day. It was hard to believe that the week was already half over, and none of us wanted to think about it. But we braced ourselves and went to work one more time. This time I was working on building a wall at a nearby high school. It was a good day. We started off with a huge display of teamwork, unity, and encouragement as we got into a system of concrete mixing where each person would work their best for short amounts of time before switching out so that we always had fresh mixers able to give it their best, and everyone would call out individual encouragement while they waited for a turn. We had quite an audience as some of the Jamaicans skipped class to watch us work. We got to talk to some of the high schoolers and hang out with them during our short breaks throughout the day, and they were all really cool. Even I, shy as I am, got to talk to one kid for a good half hour as we finished up the wall at the end of the day. Some of the others even got to play a pick-up game of soccer with some of the kids, which looked like a lot of fun. Then some of the kids helped us clean up as we got ready to leave. After taking several photos, we got back on the bus and went back to the Casa Maria. That night was a little different because we had small groups after the team meeting instead of before, which was nice because we had as much time as we needed. Starting Tuesday, we ended family time in different ways each night. On Tuesday Rebekah suggested that instead of closing out in prayer as usual, we should just start with prayer and then read Scripture as our prayer and encouragement for the freshmen at the end. Wednesday was similar, except this time Bess brought it up after we spent some time reflecting on how the Lord has been good to us throughout our lives and especially this past year. So she read Psalm 86 to finish off the night while we listened. Then we went back to even more community building time with Spades, Goober, Speed, and Egyptian Rat Screw. Then instead of the usual identity prayer, we had a night of healing prayer for anyone who was sick or in pain or who just needed healing in general.
The next day the realization started setting in that the week was almost over, but we tried to ignore that fact. After all, we still had two full days left, plus an all-nighter Friday night. So we welcomed the extra sleep when Draper, the director in charge of the PoMo team, announced that breakfast would be half an hour later than the past few days. After breakfast we made the drive over to Trevor's church, where we spent time praying for the people of Jamaica and singing in worship. It was really cool to see so many of the freshmen go up front to pray whatever was on their hearts for Jamaica and for us as we prepared to come back to Athens. God was really moving in our prayers, and He was working powerfully in our worship too as we sang for His glory and sang our prayers for the nations. Then for lunch we went just down the street, where we had the option of trying something called Juici Patties, which are essentially Jamaican empanadas, or we could stay within the comfort zone of American food at KFC. I didn't get to try a Juici Patty last year, and I'm glad I got to try it this year. It was pretty good. A little weird, but good. And the coco bread that came with it was delicious! I probably could have made a meal out of just coco bread without the Juici Patty. We had so many people in line at the the Juici Patties restaurant that a few of us had to eat while we walked down the street to the nearby Anglican church, which one of the Sunday morning groups visited last year, where we had the opportunity to take pictures on the rocks by the ocean. After getting plenty of pictures, including some last minute shots as we were being hurried onto the buses for our last service activity, we split up into three groups to go to the infirmary to finish the mural and some more scraping and painting, to the church to finish up the roof, and to Galina Primary to play with the kids at their field day. Galina Primary was one of our work sites last year, so it was really cool getting to go back this year, even though I didn't see any of the kids I remembered from last year. That evening when all of the groups returned to the Casa Maria, we were able to celebrate the completion of all of our service projects: all of the work we had planned to do throughout the week was accomplished! There was nothing that didn't get finished, even if it did take part of an extra day. Then we had the rest of the day, as usual, to hang out until dinner. I think what followed dinner left the biggest mark on me out of all that happened that week. We went straight from dinner to our team meeting for prayer, worship, and a message, but we ended the meeting in a unique way. At Wednesday night Wesley services at UGA, the interns stand at the front of the room during "ministry time," a time of worship when we reflect on the message, and anyone who wants someone to pray for them can go to the interns. That night in Jamaica was similar in that the interns stood apart from everyone and the students would go to them, but it was slightly different. The theme of the night was inviting the Holy Spirit to fill us and have full reign in our lives, so all of the small group leaders went to the staff and interns, who were standing in the back of the courtyard, and they prayed that the Holy Spirit would fill us with more of Himself. Then we went back to our small groups and got to pray for our freshmen individually. There's something very powerful about personal, individual prayer in group settings, especially from people who have already been pouring into you. Or from people you have been pouring into. Of course, I can't claim that the pouring out was a one-way road in my small group because I learned a lot from my small group that week, but as a small group leader, when Josh turned to me and Rebekah and prayed for us individually after we had finished praying for him, I couldn't help but see him living out Galatians 6:6 and Job 32:8-9: "Anyone who receives instruction in the Word must share all good things with his instructor"; "But it is the Spirit in a man, the breath of the Almighty, that gives him understanding. It is not only the old who are wise, not only the aged who understand what is right." In fact, I think those two passages pretty well characterize my entire small group. After Josh prayed for me, I prayed for him again since I was at his feet while he was laying down when I prayed for him the first time, so God wanted him to hear His encouragement through me this time. We ended up losing track of time as we prayed and just talked about life, and somehow we didn't notice that everyone had left the courtyard and gone to their small groups. So after a good, long man-to-man, brother-to-brother conversation, we got up and went down to the pool where our family was meeting. Honestly, I don't remember a whole lot of what we talked about during all our meetings. I just remember that every night was awesome in new ways. (I probably remember more than I think I do.) I do remember this though: that night I shared a short vision God had given me the day before, and Jack said that, "coincidentally," he had heard almost the exact same vision described by someone who led a conference in Chicago last summer... That blew us all away. We spent the rest of our family time talking about the next day, about leadership—what leadership area everyone is planning on signing up for for next year—and about life after Jamaica and how we didn't want it to come yet. Then Jack closed us in prayer, confirming our collective identity as a family. And then after taking a break from leading identity prayer the night before, Jack was back at it that night.
The next morning we got up for breakfast and then boarded the buses to go to a Jamaican market, where we met up with our friends from the Montego Bay and Saint Ann's teams. We spent the morning souvenir shopping, haggling with the Jamaicans, and catching up with our friends who we hadn't seen in six days. When we were done looking around the market (after they had cleaned out our wallets), we walked across the street for lunch. We had a small variety of choices, but instead of going for more Jamaican food, I went for simple American fast food: Burger King. It was a good choice because I ran into more friends there that I had been looking for and hadn't been able to find all morning. From there we left at 12:30 to go to Dunn's River in Ocho Rios, where we had even more time to spend with our friends from the other teams. We had a great time climbing Dunn's River Falls and just hanging out on the beach. And of course everyone was taking a ton of pictures while we were there. It was sad when we finally had to leave, but the time we had together was great, and we knew that we would be seeing each other again in just a few short days at Freshley on Monday, if not at the airport the next day... but we didn't want to think about that yet. Back at the Casa Maria, the rest of the day was spent preparing for that night's talent show. We had some really good acts. And by really good, I mean really funny. Andrew and Jack played guitar and cajone and sang a hilarious song about mission trip goggles (the condition where a particular person of the opposite sex begins to look especially attractive during the mission trip, and sometimes after the mission trip) called Mission Trip Girl. They were followed up by another mission trip goggles song, this time a variation on Justin Bieber's song, Baby. And in keeping with the theme of mission trip goggles, we had a guy act out a serenade for Paul, who had built up a reputation as the most sought after guy on the trip, while lipsyncing as a very talented girl sang Someone Like You, by Adele. We also had some acts that were more impressive than funny, such as someone licking his own elbow, and two girls not only doing a split, but jumping and landing in a split on the hard floor of the hotel. We also had a lot of people who were easy to impersonate, so a group got up front and, very exaggeratedly, acted out a scene imitating those people. And for the finale, a group of guys did the "five guys skit," which a group did in last year's talent show, and it was just as funny as ever. Oh, and my friend Shelby and I, once again, opened the talent show with the National Anthem, performed on a trumpet mouthpiece and with vocal percussion. Needless to say, it was a very upbeat way to finish off the week. But it wasn't quite over yet. The leaders met with Jessica and Jasmine, our interns, and they gave each of us encouraging notes. I'm not sure "encouraging" quite captures just how great the notes were. All of the leaders, all of the interns, all of the staff, and all of the freshmen were on this trip for a unique reason, and the trip would not have been what it was if any one of us hadn't been there. So thank you again for making this trip possible! But I'm not done yet. After our leadership meeting was when the biggest fight against fatigue began. It was probably around 9pm when we rejoined the freshmen inside the hotel, but it felt like it was at least 11. Several of us had been making plans to pull an all nighter the last night, and I remembered that it was difficult last year, but I had forgotten just how hard it was. After having prayer and worship time and family time until 9 every night, we had gotten used to starting all the games around 9 or 9:30, but we had started close to 8 that night. We had to do whatever we could think of to keep ourselves awake. For me that meant writing notes for my small group like Jessica and Jasmine had done for the leaders. I barely remember what I wrote because I wrote them some time between 11pm and 3am, but as long as my sleep deprivation didn't make me write nonsense or something offensive, I meant every word. Anyway, our internal clocks were at least an hour ahead of schedule, and most of us eventually gave in and went to sleep, if only for an hour and a half. A few people did manage to make it through the whole night, and a couple took a short half-hour nap as morning got closer. But no matter how much sleep everyone got, we were all up to see the incredible Jamaican sunrise around 6:15, just before breakfast. We had had an amazing week with amazing people in Port Maria, and because the Son is risen and we are filled with Spirit, He has sent us back to Athens to love Him, to serve Him, and to live as missionaries wherever we are. We may be back in America, but the impact God had on our lives in Jamaica will last longer than we know. Our job now is to act on what we have learned.
After having our last Jamaican breakfast—at least for this year—we loaded our luggage onto a bus, boarded our own buses, and said good-bye to the Casa Maria as we left for the airport. Most, if not all, of us slept on the way to the airport. We weren't at the airport in Montego Bay for very long. We had about 45 minutes to get lunch and board the plane. Boarding was a little stressful because we almost lost two of our freshmen, but they made it with a few minutes to spare. As we took off and pulled away from the island, clouds could be seen covering the entire island. After some more sleep on the plane, we arrived back in Atlanta around 3:30. Getting through customs was a little frustrating because I was stopped twice to have my luggage inspected, once for my Blue Mountain coffee and once for my trumpet mouthpiece... And when I finally made it out to the front of the airport, a few others and I had to wait even longer for our luggage. But our luggage finally made it through, we said our good-byes, and we all went home. Sunday came and went, and then came Monday, which meant Freshley. Not only did it mean Freshley, but a lot of us realized that Monday also meant classes, which meant that everyone was back in Athens. So of course we had several massive reunions scattered throughout the day leading up to one of the most intense nights of worship I've ever been a part of at Freshley.
As the song goes, "Greater things have yet to come, and greater things are still to be done in this city."
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Andrew made this video to sum up our experience in Jamaica. I'd encourage you to watch it again after I put up my next post about everything God taught me/us over the course of the trip and how He is continuing to build off of everything He taught me/us that week. It'll probably be more meaningful then. Or maybe it'll be just as powerful without the extra post. Who knows? Maybe I'm biased and I love the video because I was there. Regardless, enjoy, and "look what the Lord has done!"
http://www.facebook.com/v/10150763695974880
The Lord did so much over the course of that week, I don't even know where to start. This is probably going to take more than one post, so be prepared to be reading for a solid half hour. Haha. I'll just start with a not-so-quick overview of what we did all week. (I'll follow up on this with another post about all that God taught me during the week.) We arrived at the Hartsfield-Jackson airport in Atlanta around 8:15am on Saturday, March 10th. My small group, being the best (haha, just kidding; all of the groups were great... but seriously), was the first group to have everyone there, so we were the first to get our bags checked in and to go through security. We breezed through security in under an hour, which gave us time to say good-bye to our friends on the Saint Ann's team, who were leaving at 9:30. We had lunch/breakfast/brunch at the airport, and at 12:30, we boarded the plane. I had a window seat, which turned out to be a blessing from God because He used the view to speak to me about the trip and the work He was about to do. I'll get to that later, though, when I go into everything the Lord taught me that week. We got on our way, and we arrived at the airport in Montego Bay around 3:30, where we stood in line to get through customs for over an hour. That was an interesting experience because there was another group from UGA on our flight who had been drinking for most of the flight, and we got to stand in line with them. Anyway, after running into more friends from the MoBay team, being joined by two more people on our team who were on separate flights, and getting through customs, we hopped on a couple buses and made the drive over to the Casa Maria, the hotel we stayed at for the week. I got to talk to Jessica and Sloan, two of the interns, on the way there, which was really cool because I usually have a hard time putting myself out there to get to know people older than me or who seem to be in a higher position than I am. We arrived at the Casa Maria around 7:30 that night, and when I saw that hotel where God made such a powerful move in my life last year, it felt like I was coming home. After a delicious dinner provided by the Casa Maria staff, we had our leadership meeting, where we talked about the day and prepared for our small groups, and then we met with our small groups to debrief, talk about the next day, and just hang out. I'm probably going to be bragging a lot about my small group—they're more like a family to me than a small group now—so just be prepared to hear about them a lot. After small group we had our nightly team meeting in the courtyard in the center of the Casa Maria, where we heard a message and had time for prayer and worship. Afterward, Josh, one of the guys in my small group who I have come to see as a brother, grabbed a few people for a Bible study, which turned into a huge discussion about our fears, doubts, and weaknesses in sharing the gospel and about what we wanted to see come out of the week. We probably had half the team gathered around a small coffee table at one point or another as people came and went. We even had Daniel, one of the Wesley directors, sitting there with us. We probably talked for about an hour (maybe more—time moves in weird ways in Jamaica), and we closed out by praying over one of the guys who was having doubts about being able to build community during the week. As you'll see, God shattered those doubts by the end of the week. Our time of deep spiritual discussion was followed by a time enjoying each others' company in games of Spades, Nertz, Bananagrams, and more. All of this happened just on the first night. To say that we started off the week strong would be an understatement.
The next morning we split up into three groups to visit different Jamaica churches. One group visited Acts Church, a house church just down the road from the Casa Maria; another group took a road trip into the mountains to visit a church run by Pastor Kermit, who we worked with last year; and my group visited the church that Trevor, one of our bus drivers, attends, which is where I went last year. All of the services were amazing, from what I've heard, although they were all longer than the typical American church service. The service at Trevor's church was three hours long, and while it did feel like a long service, it was worth it. The group that went to Pastor Kermit's church, though, was gone for nearly five hours. They got lost in the mountains on the way there, and normally the ride is about 45 minutes. The church service was the same length as the others, so the only difference was the distance the group had to travel to get to the church. Anyway, at Trevor's church, we had worship and random interjections of announcements, the church's dance ministry performance, and a brief message from our own "Brother Bob," the director of Wesley. Like last year, the part that stood out the most to everyone was the warm welcome: unlike in American churches when the pastor says "Stand up and greet your neighbor" and everyone does just that, "Stand up and greet your neighbor" in Jamaica means "Stand up, dance to the music, and greet everyone in the room as we sing, 'Look what the Lord has done!'" The pastor gave a message on 2 Kings 5, which was really good. She made a few comments I had never really thought about before. It was a great way to start off the week before getting to work the next day. We spent the rest of the day just hanging out, getting to know each other. Like the day before, this consisted of several games as well as swimming and sitting around the pool talking. We had our team meeting that night after another awesome small group—family—meeting, and then Jack, the other guy in my small group got a bunch of people together and led a meeting on what he called "identity prayer." I'll go into that more later. And as usual, we finished off the night with games and community building.
Monday. We got up the following morning feeling like we had already been in Jamaica for a week. Everyone had already gotten so close, and we had already learned so much that it was hard to believe it was only our third day there. Needless to say, we were all excited to start working. We had been assigned our work sites Sunday night, so we all boarded our buses right after breakfast. I worked on McGuiver's "farm" that day, which, much like Mr. Eddie and Melanie's farm from last year, was more of a jungle than a typical crops-and-livestock farm. We spent the day on the mountainside pulling and cutting weeds with machetes. After lunch we had about another hour to work until the rain hit. When it didn't let up, we decided to pack up and head over to the infirmary, where there was another group working. Ironically, it stopped raining on the bus ride over there, so we finished off the workday by scraping paint off of the overhang. While I was there, Andrew, our worship leader for the week, was playing his guitar and singing along with some of the residents. I found out later that instead of playing and singing songs for the residents, he was actually coming up with chords to play along with the songs that the residents were already singing. The whole day was interesting because while we were working at the farm, God started speaking to me by interpreting the work we were doing. More on that later. (Sorry to keep giving all these cliffhangers. There's just too much for me to say all at once, and it would get really disorganized if I tried.) When we got back to the Casa Maria, we had the rest of the day to relax until dinner, small group, the prayer and worship session, another night of identity prayer, and more hanging out. The time after identity prayer was a little different that night though (I think it was that night... I don't remember for sure, but it sounds right), because we followed it up with a group conversation about the gift of speaking in tongues. A few of us shared our personal experiences with tongues and how we came to receive the gift, and we had the opportunity to explain tongues to someone who hadn't heard much about it until that point.
The next day I was assigned to go back to the infirmary, and I had a great time. At first I was a little... I don't want to say disappointed, but I wasn't exactly jumping for joy when I found out I was going to the infirmary again, even though I was only there for about an hour the day before. But once the work was under way, I really started to enjoy it. I got to talk to some of the freshmen who were with me on the scaffolding scraping paint, and a couple of us realized we had some mutual friends and other interesting connections we didn't know about before. One of them is good friends with my home church's pastor and his son, and another one has an older sibling that I took a class with when I did dual enrollment at Kennesaw State. Then after lunch, we got to spend time with the residents in the infirmary, including Richard, an amazing man of God that I met last year. Talking to Richard brought joy to everyone who came in contact with him. In fact, two of the freshmen in the infirmary team that day sent a letter to him with Wednesday's team because his love for us and for God encouraged them so much in their own love for God and for Richard. As we were cleaning up, we were told by infirmary staff that we couldn't use their broom that day. So what happened? Richard found a broom for us. But someone (probably one of the employees) took the broom back while Richard wasn't paying attention. When he realized it was gone, he grabbed my hand, and we wandered around the infirmary looking for it. We never found the broom, but he found a broom that we could use. Unfortunately, it was time for us to get ready to leave, so he reassured us that he would sweep up the paint chips for us. Then just like last year, before we left the infirmary, he called a bunch of people together from the team and asked us all to pray for him, and then he prayed for us. Like I said, it was just like last year, but it was just as awe-inspiring as before. Don't miss this: he, Richard, the toothless Jamaican man who has nothing and who has been left to die under the apathetic care of the infirmary, prayed for us, the missionaries from America who have everything in the world to be thankful for yet who live life looking for more. He wanted us to know that we are God's "handmade" and that we had been a blessing to him and that the Lord has blessed him in so many ways in his life. I can't help but feel like he was more of a blessing to us than we were to him, combined. We went back to the hotel filled with joy because of the joy that overflowed from Richard into us. After another awesome family meeting, which we had a full hour for that night, followed by prayer and worship, Jack led another night of identity prayer, where we continued to see breakthrough as God revealed the lies we have believed about ourselves and replaced those lies with His truth. By this point, the days had begun to run together, so I can't remember if this next part happened Tuesday night or Wednesday night, but the point is that it happened: Rebekah, my co-leader, and I were talking about small group, bragging on our freshmen and discussing what we wanted to see in our small group in the days to come. I have come to believe that coincidences don't exist because God works everything, even the smallest and most insignificant details, according to His plan. And "coincidentally," just a few minutes after I mentioned wanting to see a stronger sense of community and a family bond in our small group, three of our freshmen convinced the two of us to join them in a game of Goober for some "small group bonding." Whether this was Tuesday or Wednesday, it happened before identity prayer, so after having sufficiently made fools of ourselves, we joined Jack and the group of identity seekers he had gathered by the pool before going to bed.
Then came Wednesday morning, the last work day. It was hard to believe that the week was already half over, and none of us wanted to think about it. But we braced ourselves and went to work one more time. This time I was working on building a wall at a nearby high school. It was a good day. We started off with a huge display of teamwork, unity, and encouragement as we got into a system of concrete mixing where each person would work their best for short amounts of time before switching out so that we always had fresh mixers able to give it their best, and everyone would call out individual encouragement while they waited for a turn. We had quite an audience as some of the Jamaicans skipped class to watch us work. We got to talk to some of the high schoolers and hang out with them during our short breaks throughout the day, and they were all really cool. Even I, shy as I am, got to talk to one kid for a good half hour as we finished up the wall at the end of the day. Some of the others even got to play a pick-up game of soccer with some of the kids, which looked like a lot of fun. Then some of the kids helped us clean up as we got ready to leave. After taking several photos, we got back on the bus and went back to the Casa Maria. That night was a little different because we had small groups after the team meeting instead of before, which was nice because we had as much time as we needed. Starting Tuesday, we ended family time in different ways each night. On Tuesday Rebekah suggested that instead of closing out in prayer as usual, we should just start with prayer and then read Scripture as our prayer and encouragement for the freshmen at the end. Wednesday was similar, except this time Bess brought it up after we spent some time reflecting on how the Lord has been good to us throughout our lives and especially this past year. So she read Psalm 86 to finish off the night while we listened. Then we went back to even more community building time with Spades, Goober, Speed, and Egyptian Rat Screw. Then instead of the usual identity prayer, we had a night of healing prayer for anyone who was sick or in pain or who just needed healing in general.
The next day the realization started setting in that the week was almost over, but we tried to ignore that fact. After all, we still had two full days left, plus an all-nighter Friday night. So we welcomed the extra sleep when Draper, the director in charge of the PoMo team, announced that breakfast would be half an hour later than the past few days. After breakfast we made the drive over to Trevor's church, where we spent time praying for the people of Jamaica and singing in worship. It was really cool to see so many of the freshmen go up front to pray whatever was on their hearts for Jamaica and for us as we prepared to come back to Athens. God was really moving in our prayers, and He was working powerfully in our worship too as we sang for His glory and sang our prayers for the nations. Then for lunch we went just down the street, where we had the option of trying something called Juici Patties, which are essentially Jamaican empanadas, or we could stay within the comfort zone of American food at KFC. I didn't get to try a Juici Patty last year, and I'm glad I got to try it this year. It was pretty good. A little weird, but good. And the coco bread that came with it was delicious! I probably could have made a meal out of just coco bread without the Juici Patty. We had so many people in line at the the Juici Patties restaurant that a few of us had to eat while we walked down the street to the nearby Anglican church, which one of the Sunday morning groups visited last year, where we had the opportunity to take pictures on the rocks by the ocean. After getting plenty of pictures, including some last minute shots as we were being hurried onto the buses for our last service activity, we split up into three groups to go to the infirmary to finish the mural and some more scraping and painting, to the church to finish up the roof, and to Galina Primary to play with the kids at their field day. Galina Primary was one of our work sites last year, so it was really cool getting to go back this year, even though I didn't see any of the kids I remembered from last year. That evening when all of the groups returned to the Casa Maria, we were able to celebrate the completion of all of our service projects: all of the work we had planned to do throughout the week was accomplished! There was nothing that didn't get finished, even if it did take part of an extra day. Then we had the rest of the day, as usual, to hang out until dinner. I think what followed dinner left the biggest mark on me out of all that happened that week. We went straight from dinner to our team meeting for prayer, worship, and a message, but we ended the meeting in a unique way. At Wednesday night Wesley services at UGA, the interns stand at the front of the room during "ministry time," a time of worship when we reflect on the message, and anyone who wants someone to pray for them can go to the interns. That night in Jamaica was similar in that the interns stood apart from everyone and the students would go to them, but it was slightly different. The theme of the night was inviting the Holy Spirit to fill us and have full reign in our lives, so all of the small group leaders went to the staff and interns, who were standing in the back of the courtyard, and they prayed that the Holy Spirit would fill us with more of Himself. Then we went back to our small groups and got to pray for our freshmen individually. There's something very powerful about personal, individual prayer in group settings, especially from people who have already been pouring into you. Or from people you have been pouring into. Of course, I can't claim that the pouring out was a one-way road in my small group because I learned a lot from my small group that week, but as a small group leader, when Josh turned to me and Rebekah and prayed for us individually after we had finished praying for him, I couldn't help but see him living out Galatians 6:6 and Job 32:8-9: "Anyone who receives instruction in the Word must share all good things with his instructor"; "But it is the Spirit in a man, the breath of the Almighty, that gives him understanding. It is not only the old who are wise, not only the aged who understand what is right." In fact, I think those two passages pretty well characterize my entire small group. After Josh prayed for me, I prayed for him again since I was at his feet while he was laying down when I prayed for him the first time, so God wanted him to hear His encouragement through me this time. We ended up losing track of time as we prayed and just talked about life, and somehow we didn't notice that everyone had left the courtyard and gone to their small groups. So after a good, long man-to-man, brother-to-brother conversation, we got up and went down to the pool where our family was meeting. Honestly, I don't remember a whole lot of what we talked about during all our meetings. I just remember that every night was awesome in new ways. (I probably remember more than I think I do.) I do remember this though: that night I shared a short vision God had given me the day before, and Jack said that, "coincidentally," he had heard almost the exact same vision described by someone who led a conference in Chicago last summer... That blew us all away. We spent the rest of our family time talking about the next day, about leadership—what leadership area everyone is planning on signing up for for next year—and about life after Jamaica and how we didn't want it to come yet. Then Jack closed us in prayer, confirming our collective identity as a family. And then after taking a break from leading identity prayer the night before, Jack was back at it that night.
The next morning we got up for breakfast and then boarded the buses to go to a Jamaican market, where we met up with our friends from the Montego Bay and Saint Ann's teams. We spent the morning souvenir shopping, haggling with the Jamaicans, and catching up with our friends who we hadn't seen in six days. When we were done looking around the market (after they had cleaned out our wallets), we walked across the street for lunch. We had a small variety of choices, but instead of going for more Jamaican food, I went for simple American fast food: Burger King. It was a good choice because I ran into more friends there that I had been looking for and hadn't been able to find all morning. From there we left at 12:30 to go to Dunn's River in Ocho Rios, where we had even more time to spend with our friends from the other teams. We had a great time climbing Dunn's River Falls and just hanging out on the beach. And of course everyone was taking a ton of pictures while we were there. It was sad when we finally had to leave, but the time we had together was great, and we knew that we would be seeing each other again in just a few short days at Freshley on Monday, if not at the airport the next day... but we didn't want to think about that yet. Back at the Casa Maria, the rest of the day was spent preparing for that night's talent show. We had some really good acts. And by really good, I mean really funny. Andrew and Jack played guitar and cajone and sang a hilarious song about mission trip goggles (the condition where a particular person of the opposite sex begins to look especially attractive during the mission trip, and sometimes after the mission trip) called Mission Trip Girl. They were followed up by another mission trip goggles song, this time a variation on Justin Bieber's song, Baby. And in keeping with the theme of mission trip goggles, we had a guy act out a serenade for Paul, who had built up a reputation as the most sought after guy on the trip, while lipsyncing as a very talented girl sang Someone Like You, by Adele. We also had some acts that were more impressive than funny, such as someone licking his own elbow, and two girls not only doing a split, but jumping and landing in a split on the hard floor of the hotel. We also had a lot of people who were easy to impersonate, so a group got up front and, very exaggeratedly, acted out a scene imitating those people. And for the finale, a group of guys did the "five guys skit," which a group did in last year's talent show, and it was just as funny as ever. Oh, and my friend Shelby and I, once again, opened the talent show with the National Anthem, performed on a trumpet mouthpiece and with vocal percussion. Needless to say, it was a very upbeat way to finish off the week. But it wasn't quite over yet. The leaders met with Jessica and Jasmine, our interns, and they gave each of us encouraging notes. I'm not sure "encouraging" quite captures just how great the notes were. All of the leaders, all of the interns, all of the staff, and all of the freshmen were on this trip for a unique reason, and the trip would not have been what it was if any one of us hadn't been there. So thank you again for making this trip possible! But I'm not done yet. After our leadership meeting was when the biggest fight against fatigue began. It was probably around 9pm when we rejoined the freshmen inside the hotel, but it felt like it was at least 11. Several of us had been making plans to pull an all nighter the last night, and I remembered that it was difficult last year, but I had forgotten just how hard it was. After having prayer and worship time and family time until 9 every night, we had gotten used to starting all the games around 9 or 9:30, but we had started close to 8 that night. We had to do whatever we could think of to keep ourselves awake. For me that meant writing notes for my small group like Jessica and Jasmine had done for the leaders. I barely remember what I wrote because I wrote them some time between 11pm and 3am, but as long as my sleep deprivation didn't make me write nonsense or something offensive, I meant every word. Anyway, our internal clocks were at least an hour ahead of schedule, and most of us eventually gave in and went to sleep, if only for an hour and a half. A few people did manage to make it through the whole night, and a couple took a short half-hour nap as morning got closer. But no matter how much sleep everyone got, we were all up to see the incredible Jamaican sunrise around 6:15, just before breakfast. We had had an amazing week with amazing people in Port Maria, and because the Son is risen and we are filled with Spirit, He has sent us back to Athens to love Him, to serve Him, and to live as missionaries wherever we are. We may be back in America, but the impact God had on our lives in Jamaica will last longer than we know. Our job now is to act on what we have learned.
After having our last Jamaican breakfast—at least for this year—we loaded our luggage onto a bus, boarded our own buses, and said good-bye to the Casa Maria as we left for the airport. Most, if not all, of us slept on the way to the airport. We weren't at the airport in Montego Bay for very long. We had about 45 minutes to get lunch and board the plane. Boarding was a little stressful because we almost lost two of our freshmen, but they made it with a few minutes to spare. As we took off and pulled away from the island, clouds could be seen covering the entire island. After some more sleep on the plane, we arrived back in Atlanta around 3:30. Getting through customs was a little frustrating because I was stopped twice to have my luggage inspected, once for my Blue Mountain coffee and once for my trumpet mouthpiece... And when I finally made it out to the front of the airport, a few others and I had to wait even longer for our luggage. But our luggage finally made it through, we said our good-byes, and we all went home. Sunday came and went, and then came Monday, which meant Freshley. Not only did it mean Freshley, but a lot of us realized that Monday also meant classes, which meant that everyone was back in Athens. So of course we had several massive reunions scattered throughout the day leading up to one of the most intense nights of worship I've ever been a part of at Freshley.
As the song goes, "Greater things have yet to come, and greater things are still to be done in this city."
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Andrew made this video to sum up our experience in Jamaica. I'd encourage you to watch it again after I put up my next post about everything God taught me/us over the course of the trip and how He is continuing to build off of everything He taught me/us that week. It'll probably be more meaningful then. Or maybe it'll be just as powerful without the extra post. Who knows? Maybe I'm biased and I love the video because I was there. Regardless, enjoy, and "look what the Lord has done!"
http://www.facebook.com/v/10150763695974880
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