He Always Shows Up

During youth group, we shared our missions testimonies today. I wanted to share mine on the blog so here it is! Instead of documenting on everything, I focused on one event that meant a lot to me. Also we will be posting everyone's testimonies on the missions blog so look out for those in the near future!
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Before we left for missions, I had several prayer topics.

1. I prayed that God would financially provide 100% of the trip.
2. That we would have unity in within our mission team and with the whole Joshua Generation mission team as well.
3. I wanted the Holy Spirit to come and encounter each of our team members. I wanted to see lives transformed - lives of our youth group members, the JG team, and the people we met on the streets. I wanted breakthroughs for our team.
4. My health. Whenever I am exhausted, tired, and weak, I can get really sick. So I asked people to pray for my health while we were away.

Although I was praying and I even asked people to pray for me and the missions team - a part of me questioned whether I was just saying words out of my mouth or would God really answer each one of my prayer topics? But throughout the two weeks while we were training in Pittsburgh and while we were in outreach in Boston, I saw God answer each one of these prayer topics one by one. For my first prayer topic - financial provision, I saw God open up people’s heart to really give and not only did he provide 100% of the cost of the trip, he provided even more! Thank you God!

The first week was intense training from Sunday to Friday at the YWAM Pittsburgh base (with the exception of the fun day on Wednesday when we went to a water park). There were many teachings as well as breakthroughs each day. As a leader, but not a YWAM leader, Augustine and I didn’t have distinctive roles in the beginning of the trip. This is what I wrote in my journal - “I think I’ve had moments yesterday where I was like - ‘what am I doing here? We should have just sent them by themselves - but no, God you have called Aug and me to be here for a reason. Jesus, I pray for ‘marching order.’ Who can I pray for? What should I say?” From then on, I felt a burden to pray for specific people each day. Although I felt really really burdened, I also experienced the most joy when I was able to pray for them and saw God just lift things off their hearts and shoulders.

One morning, the Joshua Generation head leader, Doug spoke on trusting in God. I don’t remember the specifics, but he shared the video of Jay Wright in the championship game. Even though there were only three seconds in the game, he had faith that once the ball was in the hands of his players they were going to shoot and win the game. Out of all the teachings, this really stuck with me. Doug said God will continue to reveal more and more to you as you go deeper in your relationship with God. I also want to be so close to God and be in a place where I trust Him so much that whatever He tells me is not crazily radical (though to others it may seem so). I want to be so confident in His love and as a daughter. It is not my role to perform, but to know my Father’s heart and to say “yes” to what He asks of me - not out of obligation, but out of my love for Him. After hearing this, my role during the trip was to know my Father’s heart by listening to Him and to go out in obedience. On day four of our mission trip, I felt really burdened and discouraged throughout the day. Although I felt so discouraged and burdened, I realized that this is not how I usually feel. Then it occurred to me that earlier in the day, I asked God to give me His heart. And God feels the burden and pain we feel as His own. Then I realized that the burdens (or whatever I was feeling) was not my own, but it was because God wanted to lift it up from the people feeling them. God already sent Jesus to die on the cross and Jesus already resurrected so that we don’t have to carry the burdens of our shame and guilt anymore. I felt that God wanted me to go up and speak out of obedience and said - “I feel like there are people here today that feel like they are carrying a lot of burdens. God wants to lift them up today. So if you feel like this, come up and the staff will pray for you.” At first there was an awkward pause, but afterward, at least six of the youth stepped up and then the Holy Spirit came and moved in amazing ways. It was amazing. As I saw the youth encounter God like never before, I heard God speak these words to my heart - “Grace, I always show up.” I don’t know why I doubt or doubted that God was going to show up because He always shows up when we step out in obedience. God doesn’t have a list of qualifications that I must meet before He can use me. Rather He just requires my full obedience. Sometimes God will ask us to do things that doesn’t make sense. But when we obey, He will show up - not because of anything we did, but because it’s His nature. Whenever He shows up everything changes. Through this mission trip, God opened my eyes once again to see that yes, God is the God who answers our prayers. He has the best in store for me - and when I can come to Him in prayer, I come with faith and confidence that He hears my prayers and is faithful.

There’s a lot more that God taught me and revealed to me during the two weeks, but this was the biggest breakthrough I personally experienced during the trip. Through this, I was really encouraged and challenged to continue to pray with expectation for the youth group and my friends. Please pray for me as I continue to study for my MCAT on Aug 20th!