Mission Adventures
Around 3
weeks ago, we hosted our first team for Mission Adventures. We had two youth
groups join us for the same week: One from North Carolina and one from Georgia.
Together, with our summer staff, we had 55 people running around. They arrived
on a Friday night and our busy week for them began on Saturday morning. We
spent the first part of the week training them in evangelism and bringing them
out to practice it. The last part of their week was spent in multiple
outreaches, a 10/40 window teaching and intercession for world hunger.
Though it
was somewhat of a struggle to get the kids comfortable with approaching
strangers for evangelism, the week turned out great and lives were changed.
These crazy, radical teenagers turned themselves to God and left their fear of
man at Jesus’ feet. Through their decision to obey God’s word to go to all and
preach the gospel, crazy things started happening. These teenagers jumped all
in, they made themselves available and ready to serve. Through their passion
and zeal we saw over 20 people supernaturally healed of different visible
health problems, a large number of people come to Jesus, so many people loved
on and we saw 46 teenagers from the east coast lay their lives down from Jesus
and experience Him in a new way.
There was a
young girl, Anna on the team from Atlanta, who told me on the first day
“Jackie, I’ve been praying for boldness for years. But I’m too shy to talk to
strangers and God just never seems to give it to me.” By the end of the week I
stood by her, in awe, as she asked to pray for a man who was called “Ogre” (and
for good reason!). She was bold. She was changed. I was blessed to be witness
to a a scared little girl who was stepping into her armor and stepping into
life BOLD and ready for more!
Often I ask
myself why God has chosen me to work with Mission Adventures, then God reminds
me of people like Anna who realized God’s love for her and stepped out in her
faith to make the first of a lifetime of radical love acts for Jesus. I am so
encouraged that I get to witness the metamorphosis of complacent teenagers into
passionate, loving, radical warriors for Jesus. I get to constantly pour into
the body of Christ in America through serving the summer staff and the teams
that come through this base. I’m thankful that I have such awesome support from
home, so that I am able to stay here in Vegas and serve God through serving His
church.
FAITH DAY
This past
Thursday, the summer staff and several of the full time staff did what we call
a “Faith Day”. We go out in groups of 2 or 3 with the plan to proclaim the
gospel publically and to trust God with something big. We are not aloud to
bring any money or credit cards. We are only able to bring an ID, Bible, Water
bottle and a cell phone. I was on a team with two of our summer staff Alexa
(who is 21) and Tyler (who is 17).
My team was
dropped off by the MGM hotel & Casino. Since it was 7-11-13, that meant
that 7-11 had some free slushies to give out and we were excited to use it as
an evangelism tool. We stopped, prayed to ask God for direction, pictures and
words then we talked about what we heard and headed to get slushies. We got our
refreshments and stood on a nearby wall to proclaim to people about our Jesus.
My group had an advantage – we had slushies as a creative tool to share God’s
love because “7-11 is giving out free slushies today. They’re free, they’re
refreshing, they can bring you joy. Just like Jesus’ love for you. It’s free,
it’s refreshing and it will bring you joy!” For 20 minutes, the three of us took
turns sharing the gospel of Christ through something as simple as a frozen
beverage. When we turned around to leave and saw the store, we were thrilled –
there was a line out the door and down the steps. Which, means that people were
listening to us and for the rest of the day they’d be thinking about God’s
refreshing love, just like that free slurpee.
After we
were done preaching on the street corner, we headed towards the MGM buffet,
because God had given us the clear word to trust him for both supernatural
healings AND a free meal. When we got to the buffet, my precious little brother
Tyler approached the counter, asked to speak with the manager and explained to
him our what we were doing and what we were asking. The manager, Jeremy, told
us that he couldn’t give out free meal tickets – for a moment we experienced
some disappointment. But then, Jeremy pulled out his wallet and used his
personal credit card to pay for all 3 of us to eat at the buffet. We were
floored and in tears. Reminded that “If you ask, you will receive” and that
when we ask Jesus for blessings, he does not give us a stone instead. God is SO
MUCH FUN and he loves to give good gifts to His children. We are His royal,
blessed, well taken care of children!
Before we
left the buffet, Tyler went to the bathroom and found a janitor who had a knee
problem. Tyler talked to him for a moment and asked if he could pray for him.
With his consent, Tyler laid hands on the man’s knee and prayed for God to
supernaturally change the make-up of the knee and restore it to it’s proper
place. The man felt all the pain leave and immediately took of his brace. The
obvious gimp that the janitor had previously walked with was completely gone
and he could hop on one leg, with all his weight on his bad knee. Jesus is the
great physician.
So many
awesome, crazy things happened on our faith day. An entire book could not hold
the stories I have to tell about this day. It all comes down to Jesus reminding
us that he is faithful, and through faith we can see crazy awesome things
happen in His name. The biggest thing for me to remember is that, it is not an
abuse of faith or God’s power to trust him for things like MGM grand buffet.
God wants to treat me to special gifts.
It’s also a
blessing to see my summer staff used by Jesus in awesome ways. In ways that
they doubted God would or could use them. It’s always a great, great thing to
be witness to the growth that takes place when Jesus does super awesome things
in another person’s life.
Anti Human
Trafficking:
Although we
are unable to meet throughout the summer, the Anti-Human Trafficking team is
still active. I get the privilege of
leading a human trafficking themed intercession time every week for
our Mission Adventures students. This gives me the opportunity to remain up to
date with current numbers and stories.
It’s such a
blessing to be able to share my heart for anti-trafficking, spread awareness of
the issue to one of the most vulnerable age groups and then teach teams how to
sit at Jesus’ feet and intercede on behalf of the pimps, johns and victims
involved. We tend to focus on the problem in Las Vegas, but I’m also sure to
look up numbers from their own home state, the nation and world.
In general,
our awareness talks and time of intercession for human trafficking, tend to be
very eye opening. On our Mission Adventures teams we usually have a large age
range. This last week we had kids ranging from 13-22 years old, not to mention
leaders. I’ve only gotten great responses and have seen some gain a fiery
passion to do everything they can to end trafficking through a furious love.
In the
future, our anti-trafficking team is looking to continue with our involvement
in city wide awareness events, awareness presentations in colleges, public
schools and youth groups and we hope to branch out into other areas of
abolition here in Las Vegas.
Just Life:
Soon, the
summer will be coming to an end, which means the end of Mission Adventures.
YWAM Las Vegas will be transitioning into their Discipleship Training Program
and everyone’s rolls will shift to help accommodate the season that God has led
us to.
I will remain
in my position as head of housekeeping and hospitality, I may be involved as
staff for the DTS and I will most certainly remain on the anti-trafficking
team.
After MA has
finished and the dust has settled, I will be visiting Michigan! I’ll be in
Michigan the last week in August for vacation, but while I am home I am hoping
to have an evening where family, friends and supporters can come and hear
testimonies first hand of all the things that have happened in Las Vegas since
I arrived in April.
I am so thankful, to have you all as support. It is a
comfort and a blessing to know that I have people standing behind me in my
mission here.
Prayer Requests:
·
That I would find a home church, here in Vegas.
·
For lives to change during Mission Adventures.
·
For God to continue to reveal himself to me in
new ways, continued growth and learning.
