Beautiful Churches

In exactly four days I will be stepping off a plane and onto the streets of Santa Cruz, Bolivia.  I will be joining 10 others from Calvary Church who are part of the GO Bolivia 2013 short-term missions team.  This team is one of relative youth...a team with great potential...a team of significant diversity...and a team passionate about seeing Jesus Christ exalted among the nations!  We will be joining forces with dozens of South Americans who also increasingly desire to make knowing, loving, displaying and exalting Jesus the preeminent motivation of their lives.

From July 26 to August 7, we will be sleeping, eating, praying, speaking...SHARING LIFE alongside local Bolivianos as well as fellow brothers and sisters in Christ from at least four other South American nations.  The focal point of our time will be a 10-day course known as English Village, organized by South America Mission (SAM) with whom we are partnering.  English Village provides a handful of South Americans a unique opportunity of English immersion for ten days.  The course attendees will be men and women throughout South America who are planning to enter the missions field in the near future or who are considering the Lord's calling upon their lives regarding missions.

Every day during the course, English will be the only permissible spoken language from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.  Through the use of small group discussion and teaching sessions, group activities (such as cooking, visiting markets, and hosting mock airport visits), prayer and testimony development, and much more, those attending English Village will be able to learn an immense amount of the English language in under two weeks' time.  They will also be taught language acquisition skills so that they are better equipped to more readily pick up a language wherever the Lord may take them in the future.  Our Charlotte, NC Team and other SAM missionaries will take on the role of teachers/mentors during the 10-day course.

God has been incredibly blessing this year's English Village!!!  While SAM was aiming for 20 participants in this year's English Village, there have been 31 men and women from Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Peru who have registered.  PRAISE THE LORD!!!  We have, in fact, had to reserve alternative housing for a handful of the group, as SAM's base cannot adequately house such a large number of temporary residents (remember...there are 31 participants and 11 Charlotteans alone, not including the local SAM missionaries and staff who may otherwise regularly stay on base.  We will be one BIG happy family indeed!!! 

Having participated in Calvary's first GO Bolivia missions trip last May and being one of two on the trip returning this year, I have a little more specific experience than most of our Team.  While I may know what our temporary home will look like, what it means to be on "Bolivian time," and how much different driving habits are in Santa Cruz compared to South Charlotte, I have no idea what exactly our Lord has in store for us all while there.  I do, however, know that our God is the God of immeasurably more who desires and

"is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think" (Ephesians 3:20)

Therefore, although I can hardly predict any of the stories I will be telling friends back home in three weeks' time, I can be certain of this: the stories will be beautiful.  They will not be beautiful because they will be about perfect people...faaaaarrrrrrrrrr from it!!!  But the stories will be beautiful because they will all tell of the grace of an infinitely complete God who delights in using redeemed lives to build beautiful churches whose aim is transforming communities both near and far all in the Name above all names...JESUS CHRIST!
May this be our focus...May this be our hope...May this be our legacy...JESUS

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3u_18IXhIM