They Know How to BE the Gospel

This summer's Ambassadors team set out this week to do ministry in El Guayabo, a village where everyday life is slow and steady. Sandwiched between a marsh and Lake Nicaragua, this narrow strip of land makes up a peaceful new world for these teenagers seeking to fulfill the purpose of going to the nations. In this new world, they are discovering what it means, not only to share the Gospel, but to BE the Gospel.

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When you turn five, you tell your parents you want to be superman when you grow up. On your twelfth birthday, you decide you want to be a veterinarian. At fifteen, you decide you'd rather be a musician.

Then at seventeen, with that yearning of something more, you decide to be something totally NEW. Inside and out. Changed. You want more, you want adventure, you want to make a difference in the world. You want to see the miraculous side of Christ that people talk about in church.

As you grow in your faith, the desires of your heart become less about what you can do, and more about who you can be.

free.

loved. 

compassionate.

radical. 

 

This trip to Nicaragua has been a launching pad for these students. They're embracing a new identity as disciples of Christ.

During training for the mission, the team prayed about the purpose of this trip. When we came together, Matt Johnson declared over our two weeks abroad, "…that God's love would come into our hearts, that it would flow out and be healing, not just for us, but through us, healing for Nicaragua." 

In the first five days on the ground in Nicaragua, this team came together and sought God's love for them individually as sons and daughters.

 

They've accepted each other into the body of Christ, and poured out that love all over the children of the village of El Guayabo. 

Leading children's programs and sharing their stories in the small village church, these students are living out the gospel in a totally new way than they ever have before. 

Nicaragua serves as a beautiful place for these teenagers to learn to be the Gospel for the people around them. 

Amidst all the unfamiliar smells, sounds, people, and food–they ARE Christ to the world. Through God's healing love for them, they are healing those around them.