POWER TRIP 2018 …. WEEK ONE/DAY 6
It Was A Good Day Serving the Lord …. No Hammers Needed ….Being Available Required!
by Terry Hickey
Tuesday, January 17th, day six of the Week One Power Trip … our last day to cross the border into Mexico. After breakfast and loading our luggage in to the luggage van, morning worship and devotions took place in the hotel conference room.
Pastor Brian concluded his series on Faith indicating that while faith is based on fact, we need more than a head knowledge of our faith to really walk with the Lord. He helped us to understand that faith can not be based on our feelings, circumstances or situations; but rather on God who never changes. Inasmuch as faith is a fully persuaded belief in God, it should affect how we live our lives. For many our faith in God starts and stops with head knowledge; which limits our faith walk to what we are able to control through our own understanding, abilities and strength. When we surrender our hearts to the Lord and submit to his authority in our lives, our faith will be based an unchanging, promise-keeping God.
We traveled from McAllen to Brownsville, Texas, crossing the border into Matamoros, Mexico …. destination, Magdiel Bible Institute, a three year bible school. Magdiel has for the past 76 years trained young Mexican men and women to serve as pastors, missionaries, evangelists, and teachers throughout Mexico and beyond.
The purpose of our visit was to interact with, provide friendship and encouragement and prayer support to the students. We gathered in their worship auditorium for worship in song, testimonies from students, and a great time of “ice breaker activities”. Pastor Brian shared a story from his days as a bible school student as an encouragement to the Magdiel students …. once God had captured his heart, he began to fully trust God’s plan for his life.
Following Pastor Brian’s words, Pat Schmeling led the large group of students and Power Men in an ice breaking activity. All the Power Men were instructed to sit next to a student, with no Power Men being permitted to sit next to each other. Single sheets containing five questions were handed out to the Men. Each question was written in English and Spanish, with the goal of breaking through the language barrier to find out information about and provide a means of interacting with the students. After about fifteen minutes the Men were instructed to move to another student and repeat the question game. The nature of the questions was both informative and silly …. The third question asked, “Would you rather give up taking a shower for a month , or give up the use of your cell phone?” … Antonio and Sauel both chose their cell phones … I on the other hand chose showering for the month … go figure!
Mario Perez, the long time Pastor of the Alianza Church in Reynosa, and a member of our Week One Team, shared a with these future pastors, evangelists and teachers a very heartfelt and encouraging message about serving God in ministry, and about the ministry of being a pastor.
A very powerful prayer time for the students ensued, with the Men of Power gathered across the front of the stage. The students were called to come up and stand in front of the Men. The Men placed hands on the students and began to pray for the students out loud and al at the same time. This prayer time could only have been described as noisy and confusing (a spiritual cacauphony!) if you had walked into the room unaware of what was happening …. but to the Lord it had to be a sweet and pleasing melody! The placing of hands on the students led to reassuring and calming hugs and embraces by the end of the this very spirit led and emotional time of prayer.
At the end of the service the Power Team provided hoodies with “Magdiel 2018” imprinted on the front. The fun part of this distribution was that the Men had to go to the students, with whom they had connected in the Question Game, to find out what size hoodie they would need. Then the Men had the fun of handing out the hoodies to their new friends. The students all immediately started putting on their hoodies … and then the cell phone cameras appeared and many pictures were taken!
A lunch provided by the Power Team followed; which provided even more time to connect with the students! Much more “conversation” broke out, often with the aid of various cell phone translation apps. Personally, I had the benefit of being aided in the conversation by David, who spoke good English, and was very patient in helping me to speak with Antonio and Samuel, as well. ( If I had to rely on the translation app, we may have not made it past “Hello, my name is …”, before it was time to head back to San Antonio!)
We departed from Magdiel about 3:00pm and headed back across the border to begin our final long road trip back to the Power Trip jump-off point in San Antonio. Our Week One time will conclude tomorrow morning (Wednesday, 1/18) with a debriefing/sharing time. This time is one of the trip highlights, as the men are provided an opportunity to share something about the trip that really impacted or touched them in some way.
Signing off (for the final time) from the far back seat of a fifteen passenger van ….It has been a VERY Good Day …. with language barriers and other “comfort zone” issues cast to the side …. in serving the Lord!!
Lessons learned this week …. Place your Faith in the Lord, only …. Trust the Lord as you step out of your comfort zone …. Make yourself available ….. serve the Lord! It is always our choice ….