Puerto Rico Mission Trip:
Delaware County Christian School
Guest blog by Lynn Crawford
When Rhys and I first began talking about leading this trip with DCC, I had been very skeptical about how we were going to “meet a felt need” (a guiding principle that Adventures in Missions makes a part of each trip) with a trip that was primarily, if not completely, made up of concerts. In addition, as leaders, we know that each team comes to us in different places in their walk. Some are sold out and ready to jump into ministry with everything they brought (including an intense reliance on the Holy Spirit). Others haven’t had the same opportunities to learn that reliance and trust. And still some come without having truly said “yes” and being open to what God wants to do in and through them. And boy, did God have some plans that we couldn’t have anticipated for this team.
Over the course of the group’s time with us, they performed six concerts. One at a local Boys & Girl’s Club (after-school care program), one at a senior living facility, one in an outdoor plaza area in a shopping district that also has a private high school tucked in with the shops, another in a beautiful Catholic Cathedral, a fifth at an evening outdoor arts festival they were invited to, and a final one at the Sunday worship service of our incredible host church, Iglesia Canaan: Defensores De la Fe.
The choral director did an amazing job of selecting songs that so clearly presented the Gospel message and communicated God’s Presence in our lives. What we saw over and over again on the faces of those in attendance (and experienced ourselves as leaders) was an intense connection with the Holy Spirit and a drawing in of those people towards the Lord. In conversations with the students and leaders following the concerts, we heard themes of, “thank you for reminding me God is real and alive. Thank you for reminding me that God cares about me and sees me now and in every season.”
Some of the team also had an opportunity to help out at a community garden: clearing it out and prepping for this season’s planting. Many women from the community help upkeep the garden and their families benefit from the harvest. Several of those women were also there that day and the youth got to encourage and minister to them as they worked.
Another of the student’s activities was to go out in the community to hand out flyers and invite people to their concert at the Catholic church. This was definitely not an activity they had done before and, understandably, the students were very intimidated by it. Some walked around talking with people in shopping districts and others went door to door. It was so cool to see them start out being timid and afraid to talk to people, to being full-on, trying to communicate in the little Spanish they had to invite people to come and then share conversations about where they’d come from and about their faith with those that lingered. A couple of people in my group in particular came across what I quickly realized to be a place where someone was raising roosters for cock fighting. In their exuberance they grabbed the gate as if to go in and talk to the men that were in there. I had to pull them back and remind them that the people needed to come out to them and also to be cautious because I had concerns about the place. Two men came out and were the most excited of all about the concert and to share about their church and faith with us. One man asked for a small stack of flyers and ran off right away to invite some of his friends to come. It really encouraged the students to put themselves out there and surrender the results to God.
Another thing that AIM values is teaching Listening Prayer both in an individual’s personal time with God as well as when we are out doing ministry. Most of the students prayed regularly with their requests and thanks in the past, but almost none of them had been taught (or given the framework for a time) that you can sit quietly before the Lord and listen or ask questions, anticipating a reply. It was neat to hear their stories over their time with us and see their excitement because God had responded to them.
Over and over again, I was impressed with the student’s willingness to be all-in and how God’s joy and love was so evident in their countenance and attitudes. As leaders that are just passing through these youth’s lives, it was neat to be able to call out and affirm God’s gifting in the students and encourage them to pray for and develop those: leadership, discernment, leading worship (I was blown away by the worship these leaders fostered!), musicianship, and the ability to speak joy and encouragement into every situation to name a few.
On this trip, the way I sought to practice listening prayer as a leader was through coloring these small cards and writing messages or verses that I felt God had given me on the back to the recipient. I initially thought that they might get handed out during our times in the community interacting with people. But as I listened, I discerned that I should do a thank you card to our host church who really did sacrifice so much to help take care of our group of almost 60 (Rhys also heard that we should do a thank you card to the current priest at the Catholic church who was immensely instrumental in helping our team). I also discerned that I should do three specific cards of encouragement (calling out and encouraging the gifts above) and finally, one for someone “struggling with anxiety”.
For the first three, I was given faces as to who should receive them, but the final one came with no additional information initially. We got to the final day (breakfast, debrief, church, and then taking them to the airport) and I still hadn’t heard anything else about the card for the anxious person, nor an indication of which card it should be and thought that maybe I had misheard.
Then, about 30 minutes before we left for the airport, a young lady that I had had no other interaction with over the few days they were with us, came up to Rhys and I, asking about when they needed to be ready to leave. In that moment, I distinctly heard God say, “HER.” I rushed out to my van where the cards were, selected the one, wrote on the back what I sensed the Lord wanted to say to her, rushed back in, and gave it to her: “I know we didn’t really get to know each other these past few days, but I sense that God is telling me to give this to you.”
We drove them to the airport to drop them off and it was wall to wall people, spilling out to the curb from inside the airport terminal, and forming a large line where people were unloading (several cruise ships had disembarked and thousands of people were trying to fly home). As we unloaded 55 people and their luggage into the chaos, that same girl pressed through the crowd to come find me and thank me. Praise be to God for His beautiful ministry to these students and the people of Puerto Rico!
Thank you so much to all of you who support us and pray for us and the people we serve! We couldn’t do this work without you!
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