Please join us as we kick off the night with special performance by musical guest Taylor Carson.
Living Water International will share its heart and ministry for those in need of water, sanitation, and the Gospel. Learn about the many problems that stem from the lack of clean, safe water: education, poverty, burden on women, and [...]
If you’re going to be in town on Friday, stop by Ebz for a benefit concert for the Bolivian Life Center. We posted several blogs from our NCC team that returned from Bolivia a few weeks ago. Now you can come out and support them in person! See the image below.
In the wilderness, and later under the law and the prophets, God often reminded His people about their time in captivity under the oppressive Egyptians. He used their experience so that they might not forget what they went through- the suffering and pain they endured. The time of slavery in Egypt was to serve as [...]
It has been truly amazing to see the outpouring of support to Haiti and the situation that has happened there over the past weeks. Whenever things like this happen, there are always a number of issues that are revealed; especially when the questions of “why there?” and “why now?” subside.
I am personally humbled to see [...]
50,000 people dead. Thousands of homes lost. The devastation is overwhelming in Haiti. If you’re around this weekend at National Community Church, we’ll take an offering to purchase a container with food, water, medical and sanitation supplies that will help around 12,000 people. It costs around $10,000.
We’re teaming with Convoy of Hope, who already has [...]
Most life changing trips I’ve taken in the last five years:
Uganda – building an orphanage for street kids
Thailand – building an identity in Christ for girls coming out of the sex trade
Ethiopia – building a mud hut for a grandmother [...]
This is part of a series of posts containing stories from the NCC team returning from their trip to Bolivia where they worked with the Life Center, an orphanage for boys.
So, here I am, a few days after being home from Bolivia and I am still trying to figure out what just happened.
My trip started out weeks before we actually left the U.S. In my heart I had already decided that there was little I would be able to contribute as I am not very good with kids and my Spanish is more than rusty. I was frustrated that less than a week before we left I still had no idea what exactly we would be doing once we got there. There was no packing list and no final meeting. I was looking more forward to the drive down to Miami than the actual trip to Bolivia. And the last thing I ever contemplated doing was praying or seeking God’s help in calming my spirit. To say that my heart was in the wrong place, that is putting it mildly.
After a 36 hour drive from Philadelphia to Miami, I was exhausted and just hoping the week in Bolivia would go by fast enough for me to forget that I was missing out on “the best New Years party ever” back in D.C.
God had different plans.
The moment I stepped of the bus at the Centro de Vida Boliviana and saw the 73 curious faces, I knew I was in trouble. I wouldn’t find out how much, until we left. As the days went on and I spent more and more time with the boys I realized that they are normal kids, just like I was at their age. They do the same things—listen to music, make jokes, play sports, break the rules , pray, go to youth group, dig holes, play in the mud, you get the idea. The only difference between these boys and me was that I grew up in the U.S. with parents that cared for me and sacrificed to make sure I had more opportunities than they had.
As more time went on I began to feel God ministering to these boys, through me. He was telling them that he loved them, that they were worthy and valuable, that no matter how poorly they had been treated in the past, they were His children now and He would be watching over them. It is powerful to play a role in showing God’s love to someone else. Orphans in Bolivia are often referred to as “disponible” or disposable–as if they were nothing and no one cared. All of them have been physically and mentally abused and most of them have been sexually abused as well. Violations that many of us would not be able to cope with if given hours of psycho therapy and millions of dollars in medicine. These kids have been abandoned and forced to live on the streets of Hell where love never showed its face.
God changed that reality.
Healing takes time. I am not claiming that after spending one week with me and the rest of our team that these boys are now 100% better and will no longer struggle with past issues. The reality is that they will likely struggle with these issues for the rest of their lives–certain life experiences and milestones will trigger reminders and that is inevitable. But healing is happening. God is on the move and His power cannot be stopped. He came to heal the broken hearted and that is what happened this week in Bolivia. We did not build a wall or dig a ditch or paint a classroom but we played with kids. We hugged them, squeezed them, tickled them and loved them as much as was humanly possible. And once we reached the human limit, God came and used us as His tools to show love, healing, forgiveness and grace to the ones He values most–the outcasts, the lost lamb, the ones society deems to be “disposible.” Those are our boys.
They will always have a piece of my heart. I cried my eyes out during the entire trip home to D.C.–on the bus, on the plane, on the second plane, in the hotel room, in the airport, on the third plane and in the car. Tears flowed from my eyes like I have never felt them flow before. God turned my hardened heart from that of stone to that of flesh.
The reality is that my heart hurts. It hurts to be separated from my new family, my boys. It hurts that the orphanage where they live is constantly under attack by the government and at risk. It hurts that the boys have already experienced so much pain in their short little lives. It hurts that many of them do not have any family and those that do have been abandoned by them. And yet, I cherish the pain. I cherish it because I know that what I feel is only one small minuscule drop in the bucket as to what God feels for his children. However much I love them, He loves them so much more and His heart grieves for them so much more deeply than mine.
I am thankful for my grieving heart. Part of me hopes that the pain will subside sometime soon and yet the other part does not want the pain to ever go away. I never want to be back in the place I was before when my heart was hardened to what God is doing in the lives of the most vulnerable. As Christians we are called to care for those who cannot care for themselves. Our team did that this week in Bolivia and I am blessed beyond words. Thank you God that you used little old me to minister to your children.
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This is part of a series of posts containing stories from the NCC team returning from their trip to Bolivia where they worked with the Life Center, an orphanage for boys.
Matthew 5:1 – “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
“What did you get for Christmas?”
“A new snowboard and a touch-screen laptop computer.”
“I got a brand new Ipod Touch, and two new Wii games but my brother got a new bass sound system which was worth like $700 though.”
“Well I got a…”
This was one of the first the conversations that I heard as I arrived back in America after my missions trip to Bolivia. I had just walked into work at a high school in Arlington, Massachusetts, and was struck by the abundance of shiny white Nikes, glistening ipods, and name-brand clothes. To be honest, the abundance of wealth and superfluous new items disgusted me. All the holiday break chatter I heard seemed to turn into a competition of who got the most expensive, the newest, the greatest item for Christmas. I just kept thinking about the boys in Bolivia who were overjoyed to receive a few small, humble gifts like coloring books and matchbox cars for Christmas.
My venture down to Bolivia with National Community Church had been my first mission trip. I was very excited about the opportunity to see the world and to bless and to teach the boys at the Bolivia Life Center Orphanage. Never would I have imagined how much I myself would learn from the experience. Instead of impacting their lives, actually God used them to change me! I was so humbled by the trials and suffering the boys had experienced in their life, situations that are completely beyond my imagination from my upbringing in a loving, stable family. Their faith blew me away: they trusted Jesus above all else and that He would get them through anything. Jesus was truly all they needed, and everything else was secondary.
And as I returned to America, I saw our American lives in a whole new light. It seems that we can be so focused on the “stuff” that we miss the essence of the gospel. Many pray to God to receive things, as if He is some sort of divine slot machine, instead of seeking Him simply because He loves us. To the children at the Bolivia Life Center, only God is faithful, not money, not things, not even family. When you have nothing else to turn to, and it seems that everyone in your life has turned their back on you, you are so desperate that you come running to God. There is none of this other stuff to block, clutter, hinder us from the only one that can fill the hole in our hearts.
And so I have come away from this trip with a burden for us here in America. My prayer is that we might be poor in spirit, as the Bolivian children are, so we can truly experience the kingdom of heaven. I pray that God would open our spiritual eyes to how much we need Him and no one else. That we would understand that no item, no person, nothing can satisfy us like Jesus can. I pray that we would be desperate, desperate, desperate for the Lord. I pray for an increased desire for Jesus’ love, joy, and peace in this nation, instead of material items. I pray that we would know that we cannot do it on our own, that we would run toward Jesus and embrace Him as the only source of true life.
Let us throw off everything that hinders us and the sin that so easily entangles, and run the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the only author and perfector of our faith. That is my prayer for us in America. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you.
This is part of a series of posts containing stories from the NCC team returning from their trip to Bolivia where they worked with the Life Center, an orphanage for boys.
How can I even begin to convey the beauty and wonder of witnessing God’s mighty hand at work? The only activity that I feared participating in is the very activity that I praise God for orchestrating. On Dec. 30th (Wednesday night), we traveled away from the orphanage and into the streets of Cochabamba, where we sought out “glue-sniffers,” who sniff strong, bottled glue to get high and to numb hunger pains.
My Aunt Bonnie and I began a conversation with two pregnant women, Estefani and Nancy. Estefani is 20 years old and 6 months pregnant with her second child. We taught them a bit of English and in return, they taught us some Quechua (an indigenous language). Estefani gave me her blue hair barrette. As we talked more, our conversation turned to heavier topics.
Estefani told us of how she was introduced to sniffing by her friends when she was only 15. The smell of the glue she inhaled was so thick that I began to get a slight headache. I asked her if we could pray for her, so my aunt and I laid hands on her pregnant belly and prayed that God would protect the baby growing within her and provide a way for Estefani to have a bright future.
When I looked up, Estefani’s young, beautiful face had streams of tears flowing down. Estefani wears one blue barrette and I wear the matching one that she gave to me out of gratitude. Now back at home, I continue to pray for that nation because my thoughts and heart are there.
This is part of a series of posts containing stories from the NCC team returning from their trip to Bolivia where they worked with the Life Center, an orphanage for boys.
One evening as we heldped send the medianos (Medium Aged Boys) to bed, I found myself reading a comic book with Maycol, standing between his bed and Brayan’s. After laughing through several pretty hilarious strips, I turned around to see Brayan silently reading his own comic book detailing the exodus from Egypt. I offered to read that one and so Maycol and another boy gathered on Brayan’s bed as I read from the floor.
A minute late
