Out of Control

Hey Helena, wanna preach tomorrow? Yeah, okay!
That's what I was told yesterday :)

I spent the remainder of the day yesterday praying about what it is that the Lord wanted me to say to this church here in El Salvador.
I even dared to ask that God would show me in a dream or something cray cray what it is that He needed me to share.

It didn't come to me in a dream (the only dream I had in El Salvador was about a really bad date? I went on a date with somebody... don't even know who! And I didn't have time to shower, and I wore a dress fished out of the dirty laundry basket, and I arrived late, and turns out it was some kind of nightmare setting because another girl showed up and they both walked ahead of me the whole time.............. I even dream awkward situations)

So I kept praying that the Lord would show me what He needed me to say and it became very simple, all of a sudden: preach the gospel.
Boom.
Just the gospel. Simple. Yeah okay, can do.

One little problem: my spanish is like a one-way street.
I hear it, understand it, I can mimic it like a little parrot.
Speaking it, however, is REALLY HARD!

I give full glory to God for the events of this evening. I wrote the sermon, had about 4 pages in my journal filled up with my terrible handwriting, bordering the previous doodles that occupied the page. Cartoon lion: check!

I had about 6 places in the Bible to read scripture from, so all the people who love to flip through the Bible as quickly as possible could get something from the sermon. (I'm one of those people hahaha)

I focused on baby food. No, that wasn't my topic AT ALL, but I wanted to make my message as "beginner friendly" as possible. You see, Christians get a lot of sermons. Mature Christians love church, and they come to church, and they understand the stuff. I wanted to preach the good news to the people who don't know what church is all about.

I started out talking about how this trip is kinda dangerous, and there are risks coming to these countries and diseases we could acquire. I talked about how people thought I was crazy when I told them about all this, and that they're right: I'm crazy :) I'm crazy about Jesus.
I told them I wasn't afraid of dying. I shared with them scripture in Hebrews about being free from the fear of death. I told them that the message of Jesus Christ is more important than my life. I told them that I'd rather die than not try to share the message with them and their children. I shared the gospel. I told them about the lies that Satan tells us, and overwhelmed them in TRUTH. I listed some scripture that had to do with truth, and to constantly encourage one another in truth. I had them turn to the person on the right and the left and tell them "you are precious, powerful, and loved" :) it was awesome to see them do it. I asked them to take some time to think about what the cross means to them.
It was beautiful to see the truth in the church. Their faces when I said that they are free in Christ. To watch their faces go from the concern that the lies brought to the smiles that the truth brought. I told them that the truth is so nice to hear, and we should say it more often, remind each other each day, like scripture says.
Animense! I said, over and over until they smiled :) Laughing. I saw laughter in the church. People who worshiped with serious faces were laughing.
I told them that they needed to believe the word of God over satan's lies.
I closed my sermon with 2 Cor 5:7-6:2...... I told them the gospel, again. Then I quoted Romans 10 and led them through a salvation prayer and an altar call. I turned off my microphone and went to stand by my team. The pastor prayed, and asked if anybody would like to come forth to make their decision public, and to my astonishment a young man walked up to the front.

no... seriously....... I preached the words that God gave me..... and a young man came to know the Lord tonight.

Praise be to my Father in Heaven, who used me tonight to bring a son to eternal life. Only God knows if there were others who prayed silently in their hearts, but I am just so humbled that my broken Spanish made sense to someone enough to bring them to the cross. My Daddy in Heaven LOVES me so much. It felt like my birthday today, with my hands raised in worship, standing aside watching the young man pray a salvation prayer.

My teammate said I spoke for about 30 minutes. With no translator. In Spanish.

My first sermon!

I received some amazing feedback from my team, just encouraging me and speaking life into me, telling me I did a good job. The pastor told me it was a good sermon, and I had several people in the church come tell me how blessed they were. One lady laid hands on me and prayed blessings over me, and, in tears, told me that she will remember this message in her heart. I am humbled beyond humbled.

God is so good to me. He used me for His Kingdom.
I am living to give Him glory, and my Daddy was glorified tonight.
I praise Him for the opportunity to do this crazy awesome trip. To be in a bunk bed right now, in a room with 4 other people, sharing a bed with another night owl, living out of a backpack in El Salvador, writing this run-on sentence in my blog. My life is anything but boring or average.
My God is out of control :)