Day 5 (6/6/11)

Last day of what we call PDO. We began the day with Eddie giving us a short message about how creation is shouting out praises to God and that we will be joining in on this praise during our trips. I enjoyed his talk and it reminded me about God’s greatness since He did create this beautiful place in which we live. Following this message we took a trip out to the CMF office to get a tour of the place and take a group picture. While we were at the office the staff prayed over us and it was very nice to know that they were all supporting us this summer.
Following this there were a few other sessions that involved how to learn the languages in our host country and what to do if there is a conflict that arises in our team. Our team wrote out a covenant between each other that we will hold ourselves to throughout the term of our trip. Lastly, the day finished off with a very powerful worship service that was held by a very spiritual man named Dean Nester.
The reason the worship was so powerful is because he did something that I had never seen done before as someone leads worship. Prior to singing any songs, Dean started strumming the guitar as he told us the story of the first church that was built by the Levites. He described the process of the items that God required to be in the church and continued to strum the guitar. Finally after he had finished his story we stood and worshiped. Though it was a small group of people and only one guitar was used, the worship we experienced in that time rivaled worshiping in a huge auditorium filled with thousands of fellow believers. Following the worship service we gathered around as a group and prayed for each team that was being sent out one at a time. As we laid hands on each other and prayed for team after team, the excitement for one another was evident.
I volunteered to pray for my good friend Joseph, who is venturing to Thailand. He is a very compassionate person and I feel like he will do a great job this summer. I will have a tough time saying goodbye to PDO tomorrow as I have met a lot of great friends and learned a great deal about Mexico. I’m excited to leave and can’t believe the time is almost here. My prayer is that I will be ready for any challenges that face me from tomorrow forward and that I will be a light for God wherever I am taken.