It's weird how God works. I never in my life thought that I would be on a trip outside of the country with a church sharing the gospel with people. I always told myself, "When I get older, I'll follow the Lord. I have things that I want to do before I settle down and devote my life to him." Long story short when God called me to go on a missions trip, I resented it. I literally hated Mr. Bognanno because he was so passionate about the Lord. Everything inside of me screamed to just quit. It was the summer before my freshman year of college and it was my time to party it up before I went. Then May 5th, 2011 happened; God called for me to give my life to him, with no holding back. He put in my heart to have a heart to yearn for being used as reckless abandon for his kingdom. Two months after coming to know Christ I was here in Guatemala as an infant in my faith, yet he used me in a way that I can take no credit for. He made sure last year that he was going to use me in a way that for the rest of my life, when anything happened for His kingdom, I would remember I was only used through him because without him I am nothing more than a lost sheep who had gone astray.

This year being in Guatemala, I have already gotten to see how far God has taken me. Being in America, change is so constant in our lives that Gods significant work in our hearts can be cheated and confused with just growth in our lives along with everything else. To be removed from Guatemala and this specific trip for a year, and then to see how things have changed in me is mind blowing. I went from hating Mr. Bognanno and wanting to get out of the trip to driving 2 hours into the rural areas of Virginia without technology just to spend 7 1/2 hours of prayer with Daniel Davenport over our trip, over our hearts as leaders on this trip, and for our lives. I went from keeping to myself about my struggles and my relationship with God to 2 Corinthians 11:30 "If I must boast, I will boast about the things that show how weak I am." I get to boast about my weaknesses to say how great and how strong my God is. I'm loving my trip so far and how God shows me more and more how he is active and living in our hearts to those who believe in him.

On the the stuff you really want to hear is our day! Today was an interesting one. We got our official orientation of ASELSI and from there began to get sorted and prepared for the youth group event we were going to be putting on tonight. After that we broke into individual groups and went on home visits to just invest our lives into people. Mr. Bognanno being who he is told me 5 minutes before we get in the cars to leave that I will be leading the visit for my group. To be fair he did that for Claire and Nick also, but there is something suspicious about him giving short time notices when I'm involved. For my group, it was encouraging to see as soon as we got to the house there was Jesus written on one of their doors. I thought I could assume that they were believers, and the majority of them were. We got to meet this family and hear some of their story and it really hit my heart hard. The mother of the family had problems with seizures and the family spoke of an instance where she had a seizure and she fell into a fire. It immediately made my think of the story of Jesus healing a boy with the unclean spirit in Mark 9:14-29 and just thinking of the father exclaiming "Help me with my unbelief!" The father of this family was a believer but he had been a drunk and after the fire incident he stopped going to church and felt like it was his fault that this had happened to his wife. They had at least 7 kids and all but 2 were believers. Daniel was in my group and he shared the gospel with him. What happened after that will be in my mind the rest of my life. Daniel and I offered words of encouragement to the mother and what was coming out of my mouth to her was straight from God, he was just pouring into my head different things that he had revealed to me that I could share with her, and Daniel also. Afterwards Shannon who had been quiet for most of the trip stepped up and prayed for the mother in confidence and boldness. With faith she came to the father we serve that there will be healing in her life, and even if it's not on this earth she knows her real healing, and her real rest is in heaven because she is a believer in the God of this universe. I then prayed for the father and shared a little in my life to show I know a little of what he was experiencing. He rededicated his life to the Lord right then. Then Daniel prayed for the little girls and they accepted Christ into their hearts. It is a beautiful thing to see someone come to accept Christ as their personal savior. We then presented the family with a gift bag and about the equivalent of $40 to go towards medicine for the mother. Their family touched my heart and  I hope that they together will continue to live and to glorify God.

Lastly was the youth group for the night, and God was most certainly in the building. The skits that I had worried about went exactly how it should have. The testimonies were the perfect ones that were meant to be said (Phillip and Morgan), the music went well, and the time of the bonfire went well. God is definitely working in our lives and I'm really getting to see growth in different team members and even mine. Everyone who is on this trip was meant to be on this trip, and God is going to do miraculous things in the days to come. I apologize for typing so much, I get it from my parents. :)

Andrew Washington