Walk by Faith Not by Sight

This is the story of something crazy that I took part in last week. Remember the refugee camp. This is not it. From the beginning of last week, instead of having a guest speaker like we normally would have, our leaders, at the base, told us stories of how God has worked in their lives here and on outreach. They have great stories, but like I told one of my roommates, I’ve heard so many missionary stories that I’m at the point where it kind of goes in one ear and out the other. Well Wednesday, they told another story that was not only a missionary story but I had already read it in the ATOM magazine. So naturally my mindset was that is great but I don’t think I could do something like that. That’s when they told us that we would be doing something like that. Now, I ought to tell you what “that” is. “That” is a faith walk. Our leaders told us we would be split into groups, we would be given one euro each, and we had to go out and try to bless people. The one rule was that we had to leave Herrnhut. I’m going to be completely honest, I was scared stiff! I met with my group and told them what I was feeling. We all talked about what to take and where we would go and how this would all work out. My group decided that we would go light, yet we also wanted to go north (maybe even to Berlin), so you’d think we would need more stuff. I know that God is my provider, and I know that he cares for his people, but I’m still struggling with hearing God’s voice. In my mind, only people who can hear God’s voice truly see him do great and incredible things. That is why I was mentally preparing for the worst. It’s funny though, even though my mind was preparing for the worst, physically I was completely depending on God. I took with me a small bag basically just for my sketchbook, journal, and bible. I put a small blanket and water bottle in my bag along with my pocketknife. Clothing wise I just had the cloths on my back: sneakers, jeans, a t-shirt, a sweatshirt, and a hat. It was about the same for each of my 4 other team members. We were quite a group. Anna, our leader, is from Kansas. Mel, our translator, is from Germany. Michael, our guy (there are a lot more girls than guys at MOTA, so the leaders made sure that there was at least one guy in each group), is from California. Sherry, from the justice DTS, is from Texas. Then me. We set out Wednesday evening for the north.  We walked to just outside Lobau when a guitar player in a large van picked us up. The crazy part was not only did this man pick up my group of five (which it was very hard to find a ride that could fit five people) he also picked up another group of five that we were kind of playing leapfrog with. It was great and totally God because we got picked up right as it was getting dark. This man took us to Boutzen and left us in the dead center of the city. We, the two groups that he dropped off, went to find some food and a place to sleep. We didn’t get food that night, because we were trying by our own power, but we did find some cardboard and a place to sleep. The most awesome thing about that first night was that, like I said earlier, my group packed extremely light but we were able to share blankets with the other group and because of that we had a decent night sleep. – On a side note, I’m sorry if this story has more holes than Swiss cheese. I want to share the whole trip and experience with you but I honestly can’t. Adding every detail makes it a super long and boring story, but I’m afraid I might cut out some of the best parts. Just know that everything that happened on this trip happened because God wanted it to happen. Now back to the story. – So the next morning we met a man outside the mall that we were sitting. We still aren’t sure what was going on in his head, but we started talking to him and he decided he wanted to show us the old city. Finally after praying with him we decided to split ways with him and with the other group. From there we went to the open market in the middle of the city and just sat there and waited. We played some music, drew some pictures, and prayed. After a while a lady came over and started talking to us. She ended up giving us five euro and some cheesecake. Right after that we were told that we needed to move because someone wanted to set a stand up where we were siting. We bought lunch with the five euro then we thought we should leave the city. We tried to get a ride out of the city for maybe 2 hours. Then we prayed and decided that we were supposed to leave the inner city but we were not supposed to leave the city limits. Instead we were supposed to minister to the kids in the suburbs. So we, well Mel, started talking to some kids, then we asked another man where the closet church was. We went to talk to the pastor to see if he had a place for us to stay. – I feel like this story is too long and for that I am sorry – This pastor welcomed us with open arms. He let us stay in the church nursery, which didn’t have beds, but had the next best thing… BEANBAG CHAIRS! He was so generous. Not only did he give us a room, which we were just glad to have walls, and he gave us 20 euro and breakfast the next day. Through Mel, he told us that earlier in the year there was another group from YWAM Herrnhut that called him and asked if they could stay at his church and do work in that area. They were kind of doing the same thing as us; however, they had 50 euro and time in advance to figure out where to stay. This group had made a big impact on the pastor. The other cool thing about that story is the other group said that they might come back in September, well they hadn’t made it back but we did. We spent that evening in our room getting to know each other and relaxing (Some of us, *cough cough* Michael didn’t sleep the night before.) It was nice. The next day we got up and went to breakfast. At breakfast the pastor came over and asked if we would sing some worship songs with him because they sing in English and some words he was unsure of. So we did. It was fun. Even I was singing (lol). After that we planned out our day. We decided to take the 20 euro to the store and buy a bunch of candy, snacks, and drinks that we could share with any and all the kids we meet. We also bought two large loaves of bread for lunch, which at the time I didn’t understand because we can only eat one loaf. Then we went to find our prey. There was a local skate-park that we were all excited about. We went there and waited for an opportunity to talk to people. Mel was great! She very quickly started talking to people, and soon we all had made friends with a group of about five kids. We shared our candy (although I think my group ate most of it) and our art. We had bought sidewalk chalk so we all had fun drawing with that. Basically we spent the whole day at that park. Over that time most of the kids came and left, but two of the girls stayed with us all day. We had to check in with the pastor around 6 o’clock, but the girls wanted us to come back after that. So we did. And so did the one girl’s boyfriend, his friend, and her mother. We spent the rest of the night talking and praying for them. The girl’s mother is doing some sort of bible school next year very similar to a DTS. We said our goodbyes and walked the other girl home (she didn’t want to walk alone, which was fine by us). She introduced us to her family. We then went back to the church where we ate our loaf of bread. – Oh, remember how we bought two loaves? Well while we were at the skate park another group of YWAMers came up. They hadn’t gotten dinner yet, so we gave them our second loaf. I love how God provided for them through us! – Yeah, so we ate dinner and hung out in the game room. Played some fooseball, and pool. And laughed hysterically. It was a good night. The next morning we got up, backed up, ate another great breakfast, prayed for the pastor and his family, and set out to go back to the castle. As we were first trying to get a ride one of the girls called Mel’s phone and asked if she could hang out with us. We told her where we were and that we were trying to get a ride home and that she could hang out with us till we did find a ride. So she did. And that’s how we spent Saturday until we got a ride. I know that we made an impact in her life. I’m not sure what time it was when we got a ride back to Herrnhut, but I do know it was an answer to prayer. Because five people don’t fit into someone else’s car, we thought that maybe we should split up, but God said, “no, I will provide”. God is ironic because we did end up splitting but we split between two cars that were driving together. When we got back to Herrnhut we realized that we still had our original five Euros, so we tried to give it to our driver. He gave us a 20 instead. What an amazing crazy God we live for!

~Bethany Graybill