Update from a home-grown TBC missionary

I thought I'd post an email update a number of us received from Liz Stevahn, who is from our church and is serving as a missionary at Rancho Agua Viva, the camp we have a relationship with in Mexico. You can read more by checking out her blog at http://lizenagua.wordpress.com/

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There was a great group here from Canada (Winnipeg Manotoba to be exact) and they were so fun to be around. They were a group of 15 and they did all sorts of ministry in Ensenada. Every morning we would drive 45 minutes outside the city and do a VBS at a brand new church site at a church called Iglesia Betel (Bethel Church). The Pastor there had only been the pastor for about 6 months, so he was so glad to have a program for kids at his church. In the afternoons half the group would go to another church called El Gran Rey (The Great King) and play soccer and the other half would come back to Agua Viva and do construction for the remainder of the day. We teamed up with the youth from El Gran Rey and on Wednesday we played soccer against some other teams from Ensenada. A lot of the youth we played against were not Christians and we had the opportunity to share the Gospel with them.

There were some really great moments that happened this week that I know I will never forget. One of them was on the day we played soccer against the Ensenada teams and the Canadians gave them all Canadian flags. That was a hilarious moment to see the Mexican kids waving Canadian flags. (You can go to Agua Viva Ministries on Facebook and see the pictures!!)

In this group there was a 17 year old student who was severely autistic and OCD. He interacted as much as he could or felt comfortable doing. He was a really neat kid to get to know, but he was usually stand-offish and standing by himself in the back. On Thursday night we went to the church service at El Gran Rey and we sang this song that talked about when we think about Jesus we just can't stop singing, jumping, or praising His name. I looked over and saw this student in the middle of the group jumping up and down praising Jesus with all he had. Amazing!

There was also a male leader in the group who found out on Tuesday that his wife had a miscarriage and that they lost their 3rd baby this year. He was having a really rough time all week and was just really confused as to why this would be happening to him. At the church service I saw him singing with all his might this song that goes "Victoria la Victoria mia es" which means Victory, the Victory is mine. It talks about how we have the victory of Jesus living inside of us.

These were just a few of the moments that I got to experience this week that made me just stop and stand in awe of what Jesus can do.

In His Service,
Liz