How many of you guys have ever been on a missions trip? Well, I got an awesome opportunity to go on a mission trip with my church’s high school group during Spring Break. One of the things that our church likes to do is to go down to the different places where missionaries that we support are working. While we are down there, we like to encourage and experience the ministries that our missionaries are working with. We have one missionary, Luanne Henderson, who went down to Albuquerque, New Mexico. Luanne has been working with inner city kids through a local church called, Desert Light Christian Church. These kids live in a place called the War Zone, a place of prostitution, alcoholism, and drugs.
The first day that we were there, we got to wake up early in the morning and bake a lot of pancakes, mounds of bacon (New Mexicans LOVE bacon) and sausage. We attended Easter Sunday Service and then, the boys helped with Awanas and the girls got to talk with Luanne and her girls. Later that night a family from the church treated us to an Easter feast.
The next day, we got learn about East Central Ministries, another ministry that Luanne works with. At ECM, they have a food pantry, school, health clinic, garden, pottery, and a thrift store. The cool thing about this ministry is that not only are the giving to the community, but they are teaching the community skills such as business keeping, distributing food, and helping the community become stable again. That night, we got to help at a weeknight gathering called Juntos. We got to share testimonies and lessons from the Bible with the kids.
Tuesday was a quick day with painting the church’s sanctuary and picking up donated bread to hand out the next day. That night a couple of people from our team shared their testimonies at the church’s Tuesday Night Miracle Service.
Wednesday was the best day for me. While others continued to finish painting the sanctuary, 6 of us went out and passed out bread to the people of the War Zone. Along with the bread, we passed out flyers talking about God being the Bread of Life and information about the church. It was a really neat experience. We would go up to a house, explain what we were doing, and then ask people how we could be praying for them. We had a lot of people open their hearts to us and ask for prayer things such as health, safety, and peace in the War Zone. One lady needed prayer for safety and healing. Her boyfriend had just gotten arrested the night before for being abusive and she wanted him to get help and hopefully get to know the Lord. The stories of people living in the War Zone really hit my heart. That night we worked with inner city kids and put on a street carnival. It was really fun and we made lots of connections with the kids there.
The next day, was spent redoing Luanne’s room. You’ll see pictures of it in the slide show, but it was really fun doing something for her.
What I got out of this trip was learning how to evangelize and share my testimony. In the bible, Acts 1:8, “And you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the Earth.” we are called to shared the word of God to others and I know sometimes that can be really hard. The verse 2 Timothy 1:8 really sticks out to me because. It says... “So I never be ashamed to tell others about our Lord.” I hope that you and I will be able to go out with courage and share the God’s word with others.
The last day we drove to the top of Sandia Mountain. There we had devotions and we sung, “God of this City”. The line, “Greater things are still to come, Greater things are still to be done in this city” really hit my heart. It reminded me that even though I wasn’t going to be in New Mexico anymore, God is still using people such as Luanne to minister and build up the body of Christ in Albuquerque.
