Special Message

We ask your blessing upon this time. The word as it goes out. We just want to praise you this morning. Without hope, there's no place to begin.

Death was arrested, but today, yes, rejoice. Thank you for the new life that we have in you, for the freedom.

Yes, I did pray.

Blessed assurance.

Jesus is with me. Time after time.

Would you stand? I trust in God. My Savior answered. There's something, Lord. Help us to trust in you more every day. You're awesome. You're powerful. We lift praise to you this morning. This morning, as Brother Jeff comes to bring the word, I just pray that you would anoint him with your Holy Spirit. Overflow him with your Holy Spirit. Give him the words to speak.

And prepare our hearts to receive the word that you've prepared for us. Father, we love you. We praise you. We thank you. Jesus. In Jesus' name. Amen. Let's have some fellowship.

If you could begin the process of locating your seat, we will get ready to get started.

Welcome to Calvary Chapel. I'm glad that you have joined us on this first Sunday of 2024. A few things to take note of in your bulletin. Everything is back in action as normal on the left-hand side with different studies to get plugged into. So please take note of those. And if you're thinking, hey, how can I continue to grow in this new year? Well, that would be a great way is to get plugged into one of these studies.

Over in the middle section of your bulletin, a couple of things to take note of. Tonight is our intercessory prayer time at 6 o'clock back at the other end of the hallway down in the agape room. So please join us for that. It's a great time of lifting up the needs not only of our body and the community, but also needs around the world. And then, ladies, you have a women's breakfast coming up this Saturday.

The 13th at 8 o'clock a.m. at Daisy Mays. So take note of that, ladies. And then we'll talk about Mission Sunday here in just a moment. So those are the things that are going on. If you would, make sure that your mobile device is silenced. And for our responsive reading, we're going to be in Psalm 67. Psalm 67. Oh, there's also the next week's reading plan on the back flap of the bulletin.

And if you are not... Here, if you're watching online, we are putting that on our Facebook page as well. So, all right, Psalm 67. Looking at the New American Standard, so we sound the same for this part. If you need a copy of the New American Standard, there should be one in the row around you. And if you would, please, if you are able to, stand in the honor of the reading of God's Word.

I will do the odd verses if you will follow along with Pastor Allen in the even verses. Psalm 67. For the choir director, with stringed instruments, a psalm. A psalm. God be gracious to us and bless us and cause his face to shine upon us. Selah. That your way may be known on the earth, your salvation among all nations. Let the peoples praise you, O God. Let the peoples praise you.

Let the nations be glad and sing for joy. For you will judge the peoples with uprightness and guide the nations on the earth. Selah. Let the peoples praise you, O God. Let the peoples praise you. The earth has yielded its produce. God, our God, blesses us. And if you'd read verse 7 with me. God blesses us that all the ends of the earth may fear him. And Father, we do praise you for how gracious you are to us.

And Lord, that the blessings that you pour out on us truly do speak of the power of your name. And so, Lord, may we find ourselves being thankful for those today. And Father, I pray that as we pray, that we may be able to be grateful for those who are in need. And as we spend time in your word this morning, and as we spend time learning about your work in other parts of the world, may you bless us by the power of your Holy Spirit.

In Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated. Well, we're doing something just a little bit different this morning. A little over a year ago, Taylor Cushenberry reached out to me because she had been a part of a missions team that went down to Guatemala with a group called God Said Go Missions. And so she said, hey, they're looking for some other churches. To partner with, would we be interested in that here at Calvary Chapel?

And I said, that's a great idea. Well, it took us a little while to get connected. But right after Christmas of 2022, I met up with Jeff and Esther in Kansas City. We went and got a cup of coffee together. And boy, what a great time I had visiting with them and hearing their heart for ministry and hearing about the work that God is doing through God Said Go Ministries.

And so we then decided, hey, it's time for us to take a mission. And so we decided that would be the right group to partner with to go on a mission trip, which is what we're doing in May. And so these guys are stateside for a little while going around speaking at different churches. And so I've invited them to come and share. And so Jeff is the director of God Said Go Ministries.

And he's going to be sharing with us not only about the work in Guatemala, but just a little bit about what we are called to do as believers in Jesus Christ. So if you would please welcome Jeff McLaren. Thank you. Am I on? I don't know. Am I on? Okay, good. Good morning, Calvary Chapel. Hey, man, that's pretty good for this early in the morning. Thank you so much, Pastor Ryan, and thank you for having us here today.

It's such a joy to be able to come and just share with you about the passion that my wife and I have in our hearts. And also just tell you a little bit about us. I thought this morning that I would, basically, I would like to tell you about our ministry, but also I'd like to tell you kind of how it happened and a little bit about our testimony. And maybe, and I hope, I pray that the Lord might speak to some of you as well because we all have a calling.

And so if we could, let's pray real quick. Lord, we just thank you today for everyone that's here. And we just pray for, and we pray for everyone that's online. And Lord, we just pray. And we pray that you would have your way today and that you will be glorified and that you would speak through me. And it wouldn't just be all about Esther and me and about our ministry, but that you would speak to those that have also,

we all speak to everyone that we all have a calling and that you have something for us all to do. And we just love you and praise you and give you all the glory in Jesus name. Amen. And I will have to tell you, I'm not used to being up here. So if I'm not used to being up here, I'm not used to being up here. I stutter a little bit or, and I, you know, guys aren't supposed to cry.

I'm so passionate about what I do. I might shed a tear. So, you know, I'm warning you now, if you're not used to it, you know, that's this, I can't help it, you know, but, oh, we're used to it. Oh, okay. That's funny. I don't call it crying. I call choking up, you know, men don't cry. We choke up, you know, that's, that's, that's it. But, um, when I, I used a little bit about us.

We're from originally, well, I'm originally from Kansas city, Missouri. So I'm a neighbor, just a few hours north of you guys. And, um, when I was 14, I used to work at a, uh, a youth ranch. I was actually a horse wrangler at a youth ranch. So I know a little bit about farming and the community and riding horses and all that good stuff. Um, but when I was 14, I was in a, the Wednesday night service on the weekly service.

We had Monday salvation too. Live for the Lord three, uh, full-time ministry. And when I was 14 years old, I'll never forget it. The Lord, I felt the Lord calling me not only to full-time ministry, but to actual missions work. And, um, so basically, uh, that's how I actually met my wife. I call her my souvenir for my first mission trip, uh, in Hong Kong is where she's from.

We met while we're there, but, um, and we have two great, good kids. Well, awesome kids. I, I'm a little biased, but I think they're awesome. Um, our daughter's 30. She's a professor at Arizona state university. And then our son is, you know, I have one that's all about school. And then I had one that's can't stand school. And that was our son, but he's a videographer in Austin, Texas for a youth YouTube conglomerate.

I can't believe how much money those people can make on YouTube. But they, they, they're doing good and we're really proud of them. And, you know, any parent, what one, what any parent wants is that for their kids to be able to do what they love. And so we've been blessed because they both love what they do. Um, but little while back, uh, we had been serving in a church for a long time and, um, kind of had a burnout, I guess.

And, and the reason I think a lot of times we burn out is because we weren't, aren't, aren't doing a good job. quite where we need to be and so I had I had to really look back into my life and I looked at my life and I was doing a lot for the Lord and it was just out of service of doing what I think I should do and what I this started as I started to dig a little bit deeper you know I started to become really convicted in my life I had a friend that said you know this Bible is not a buffet you can't pick and choose what you want you need to follow the whole thing even the hard stuff and I started reading a lot of stuff in this Bible that was really hard to do you know and when I went to

Hong Kong I thought that was what a missionary is you go to another place and you serve people that are less fortunate or or haven't heard the word of God in Hong Kong they're considered part of the the 1040 window I don't know if you've ever heard of that but that's where the 1040 the 40 and the 10 parallel that's across the world is the hard to reach areas for God and and I thought that's what it was to do but then as I read and I started reading the Bible I started seeing a lot of stuff that I wasn't doing and then I read a verse like John 14 21 which you can change the slide if we read that John 14 21 let me bring it up my Bible is not the NASB so I apologize for that but if I can I didn't mark my Bible I

should have just oh there it is let's just read it here whatever has has whoever has my commands and keeps them is the ones who love me and I read that I'm like wow I look at my life and I'm like I'm not keeping his command so does that mean I don't love Jesus am I just playing this Christian game and I just decided right then in that part time of my life I am not going to play a Christian game I am because I do love Jesus and I'm going to live we're gonna live completely for him and during that time really both of I be totally became what I called surrendered I don't I don't know if you earn worship song but that's basically surrendered and we decided to go all in I'm still

a work in progress I still have a long best I heard a decide a paid disciple we need to be disciplined determined and devoted and I'm doing okay I haven't got the discipline partner done yet but I'm trying you know I promised my wife when we get that back to Guatemala I'm gonna go to the gym more in and try to get rid but like I said we were called to I was I felt called to missions but we're all called commanders dictionary states that missionary is a person set on a mission especially on a religious mission but if you look at that definition that includes not in a quote the title missionaries but we are all missionaries if you believe in Christ if you're a Christian or what I like to say you're a follower of Jesus then you have a

mission in 2nd Corinthians 15 18 through 21 it says all this is from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry gave us the Ministry of Reconciliation that God was reconciled to the world reconciled the world to himself in Christ not counting people since against them praise Jesus and he has committed us to us the message of reconciliation we are therefore Christ's ambassadors as though God were making his appeal through us we implore you on Christ's behalf be reconciled to God God made him who had no sin and sin for us so that in him we might become righteousness of God this right here is a command that we are to be ambassadors for Christ and that we're supposed to share ever to

everyone God's reconciliation and I forgot my water sorry I have this thing that makes me call so excuse me for a second so the the one thing that we all have a mission field and the last recorded command of jesus on earth do you know what that is it's in acts x 1 8 and it says basically but but you will receive power when the holy spirit comes to you and you will be my witnesses in jerusalem and all judea and samaria and to the ends of the earth that is his last command to us and um so i just want to encourage everybody here to be witnesses to be missionaries now in this verse it says in jerusalem that we are to be missionaries in jerusalem in my idea that's

our church that's your church right here your jerusalem is this church and this area where you live where you work that's your jerusalem in judea and samaria that's in other parts of the country some of us like a friend of ours who ministers to the homeless in kansas city he we're called to create a ministry and serve those that are throughout our country and then there's there's those few people that god calls to the ends of the world where i believe that's where we actually are called to leave our home and to go elsewhere into the world and share the good news of christ like esther and i but we're all called i just want to get that through we're all called

to and i just want to um especially i know that in i'm getting a little off topic but i don't care and in guatemala covid we lost 800 missionaries and 200 ministries because of covid in guatemala alone just imagine what it's like in the rest of the world and churches and in the states here in the states i'm sure you might have seen this i'm not sure if you're back up to capacity covid killed our attendance everybody got really comfortable sitting behind that tv screen watching the live screen no no offense if you're on the live stream can't be here but what i would like to challenge everybody here first which is what we did first start with your church start serving here start going out to those people that haven't been back yet

and visiting them say hey we miss you come back start serving in your church and then see what god does from there and that's basically what we did as as esther and i decided to take this faith walk and and become more um surrendered to god we decided hey let's pour into our jerusalem and we started serving in our church and as we did my insecurity i used to be really bashful and kind of an insecure kind of person and um i saw that starting to fall away you know now esther she's never had that problem she truly has the gift of evangelism if she'd get up here she can get on that she's the kind of person that's going to be able to get up here and get on that she's the kind of person that's going to be able to get on that she's the kind of person

that can hold that sign on the corner saying repent or you're going to hell you know and she has no problem doing that where i i had no way i'd pass out before i got the word first word out there's no way i could even today i can't do that but um i i remember one i this just can't i remember i don't does anybody know what ywam is it's a ministry called youth with a mission it's the largest missionary organization in the world they have over 30 000 missionaries all over the world anyway they're big on evangelism and i remember i got i went with this group they said they were ywam and i'm like okay i'll go with them oh my goodness that was the worst mistake i ever

did because they went witnessing on the corners you know and they would just put on this play and then you're supposed to go to these strangers and say hey do you know jesus and i'm like oh my gosh i i really it was terrible but esther she loved it um so i'm still work in progress like i said but we started in our church and and as we started um studying the word we started uh working with our friend that was dealing with the homeless we started working in our church i started to um this this love for the less fortunate started to dwell up in me and as i i read the word i was amazed at how many times the poor is mentioned in the word of god and i realized hey jesus loves the

poor too you know and it's not just me and i really felt that this was uh something that was coming or dwelling up um in me from the god and i felt called back to foreign missions it would been 27 years we've been married 33 years 27 of it was in the states raising our kids and i felt really called back to the mission field and i don't know why but oh i know why i just won't go into it because this story would be a little too long but because it would be a little too long but i wanted to learn more and uh i i i just i just i i i i i i i i wanted to learn more and i felt called to thailand and i wanted to work with the burmese minority groups uh burma or myanmar which is what it's

called now was too dangerous to live in so we lived in thailand and work across the border and i went there for a little about a month and that's where i learned about um relief and development and um about working with the extreme poverty over there it was working with children that were caught in courtait conflict because of the war going between the the civil war in burma and so what we found ourselves doing as we as we became obedient we started taking these small steps you know i went to thailand and that was a step and then unfortunately i got back from thailand and we tried to go to thailand for six long years i i thought it would be three months so i we sold

everything this is where i think i would warn you if you if you felt called to serve let god don't don't get take control i kind of took control i knew god was going to come through i wasn't really listening to him we sold everything excuse me sorry and i sold my house and we went and lived in my mom's basement i told my mom hey we're gonna be here for three months is that cool oh yeah go ahead it turned to three and a half years living in burma my mom's basement i'm surprised my mom and my wife still get along but they do god praise jesus but it was so long you know and we tried for six years to go to thailand but the door kept getting closing to the point where i actually gave up i went to work for a medical

software company country and a company and traveled the country and i i'd given up again but the lord just wouldn't let me go and um we decided to try again well at the same time a friend of mine some of you might know him but a friend of mine his name is stan nelson he was creating a ministry called roxanna's hope and um he at i asked him if i could help him because i'm good with administrative good with building stuff building websites creating piracy threes you know that kind of stuff and so i helped him build it and at the end where he was ready to go to guatemala he asked hey jeff if thailand doesn't work out what do you think about coming to guatemala with me oh no i want to go to thailand

i don't want to go to guatemala where is guatemala you know i didn't even know where it was and but i knew that it was especially confirmation came from esther because when i went home that night i said hey esther stands asked us to go to guatemala and she goes oh i can see us going to guacamalo you know is that in africa you know and and uh i can't i remember when we were packing to leave she wanted to pack a whole suitcase full of toilet paper because she was afraid we weren't going to be able to buy the toilet paper and she was like i don't want to go to guatemala she thought we were going to be in the jungle you know and i was like no no no it's it's okay it's

it's there is a city but um so that was another step we took and we just needed to wait on the lord first we started in our church i actually just started as a uh parking attendant you know in our church we have the guys that go this way through the parking lot to the next parking spot it's a little bit big a big of a church and so we and we got a golf cart that drives around and picks up people and brings them to the door and i was one of those parking guys you know and the start it just started there and then as we take steps and stay obedient with the with the lord he would guide our path and so today we went to guatemala we had some excuse me we had some hardships there and there were other steps and then we had um uh a nurse join us

and she came and said i'm gonna go home and i was like why and and she said because the ministry that i'm with is not working using me and i didn't come here to retire i came here to work and i'm like well i'll use you because her view her her goal and her vision was what my vision was in thailand and immediately god said told me right then this is why i had you go to thailand because there's no difference between children and children and children and children and children and caught in oppression and children caught in extreme generational poverty they're the same they they suffer from uh bad education bad health care bad nutrition bad water and no hope they're

basically the same he says i want you to take what i taught you what you learned in thailand and bring it to guatemala and that was the start of and you know what i'm sorry for the slides because i am way out of whack so i'll get back up on track real quick but um uh you can go with the to the next slide gsg the logo but um that's when we decided to start god said go as a non our own non-profit and a nurse joined us and we started with a medical ministry and that was another little step and then two months later guess what happens covid hit and then we took a lot of steps because the government decided to close all down all their clinics and so every time we showed up in a village there was 300 people waiting for our two nurses to be seen

it was a massive it was amazing it was very we were going uh sometimes it felt like we're going eight days a week i i don't know how that happened but you know i mean we were going all the time because there was so much need and at that time we were in relief we were jogging then to the point now that god said go is um is we're up to 12 missionaries now but our mission god said go is to uh god said go to the poor and feed them god said go to the sick and heal them god said go to the widows and orphans and care for them god said go to the nation and share my good news a good news full of hope and that's the mission of god said go mission verse which is my basically one of my favorite um parables that jesus told this is the

end of the parable but it is and the king will answer them don't you know when you cared for one of the least of these my little ones my true brothers and sisters you demonstrated love for me as we care for the people that god's called us to and as you care for the people god's called you to and whatever mission field you have either with be it here other parts of the country or to join us a little plug but to join us then you are showing jesus that you love him and so i love that verse um and that's our mission verse uh next slide god and gsg actually started in 2013 above was it started as our blog to go to thailand and then we grew into the 501c3 and it's kind of a pretty this was our first logo

god said go did it look like uncle sam you know so i was like that that doesn't work we got to change that and so today we changed our now we got our good old logo with with america i mean the world and but anyway we're we're a minute really a pretty um new ministry um we're about four years old we've went through a lot of growing pains we've went through we started with one nurse and esther and i we've been through a lot of growing pains we've been through a lot of growing pains and and then two minute missionaries started with her but and now we've grown to 12. um esther and i are the directors if you go to the next slide if you don't know where guatemala is we're pointing

to it it's right below mexico it takes you about as long to get to guatemala as it takes you to get to california from here so it's really close it's nice and convenient um and but it's a great place but i'm the director of god's said go or the executive director i guess you could call it um and then esther that's my wife she's here stand up i forgot to introduce you this is esther my wife i don't know why she's stuck with me but she has for 33 years um she's the one that's in charge of keeping everybody informed she's the talker you know and so she's always on social media you never see esther with not on her phone and so um she's the one that uh reaches out teaches everybody what we're doing um then we have mark and ramona mark has been um and they

have been serving guatemala for 15 years and mark is uh the direct our director of guatemala now and he runs basically the uh day-to-day operations he's the director of guatemala because we might be in guatemala but our vision is to be all through latin america in fact next year we're hoping to be branching out into honduras so that's really exciting so he runs the day-to-day operations in guatemala is basically my right hand man we have our first nurse charlene she's the one charlene will not look at a camera that's the best picture i have ever sorry but she just won't look at a camera but charlene was our nurse she's our head nurse and she before she joined us full-time she was actually a jungle nurse part time for 20 years um

then we have nurse becky nurse becky joined us in 2021 at the ripe young age of 75 and she's still going strong we have julio and rachel rachel is from scotland and she's been serving in guatemala for 27 years her husband is julio he's guatemalan and um rachel has designed and instructs and teaches and leads our youth program and our kids club julio is our driver our handyman and the best prayer warrior you've ever seen in our in our village ministry so that's julio rachel and then we have sean and julie sean and julie finished their spanish school uh last year and so they're joining us full-time this year and they are going to be leading and heading up our um pastors and women's discipleship ministry excuse me and then

there's rossio man i'm sorry i need it covered this way i don't mean to huck off in yours and then there's rossio rossio is actually a teaching nurse she was working when we when she started working with us she was actually teaching nursing and then last year she decided to join us full time and she's our guatemalan nurse and then we have evelyn and her son so evelyn is the mom she's a pastor's wife um he's a pastor and then hey her son 21 he wants to go into medic medicine and so they help us part-time and so that's our team right now and we basically minister to about 12 villages every month um that are suffering from extreme generational poverty um that's basically uh oh i forgot eric eric's next

eric is our partner and i don't know if you've ever heard of feed my starving children eric has about 60 000 pounds of food shipped into guatemala each month and so as we're doing our village ministry a lot of times they're coming with us and preparing nutritious meals for for the village and so that kind of makes up our team right now but we're still growing like i said we're we're looking at going into honduras here very soon so god put put together an awesome teams we we like i said we're starting guatemala we're going throughout latin america but what do we do we are called the hardest reached areas in guatemala to the extreme generational poverty most of these families make less than two dollars a day

a lot of times we'll go into villages where what they have for dinner is a flour tortillas with some salt sprinkled on them and that's what they eat no nutritional value at all some of these pictures that we'll show here pretty soon they the kids look fit but they're not they're fat because they're eating nothing but carbs but they don't have any nutrients in fact sometimes we'll see guatemalans with blonde or reddish hair and the reason that should be black but the reason is that color is because they don't even have enough nutrients to create the pigment to color their hair let alone take care of their brain and so um we have a lot of problems with malnutrition

so i'm going to go through these slides pretty quick we've got um the poor kids with malnutrition um we have bad water uh they drink toxic you this doesn't show it too good but this is the water they drink this is what it should look like it's pretty sick i won't i won't it even smells but then these kids they'll pop up on their pila is it pila is where they wash clothes and wash dishes and all this stuff but they'll pop up in the pila just suck that water out of there and i'm like oh my god you're gonna be kidding me and and so we hand out parasite medicine like it's candy at the clinics so um we um the next slide they have poor education little to no health care in these villages and really there's no hope they're just living to

survive our mission is work this is actually a church we work with that's their church building but he is building a new one he's finally that him and his wife would make tamales and they'd go from village to village selling tamales to raise the money for the cinder blocks to build his church and they're starting you can't see it really in this picture but they're they're they're building the walls around it but this is where they meet every day and this is where we hold our our village ministry our mission is works alongside the church and to show the love of christ through acts of kindness and to disciple the churches and the pastors in leadership and in a program called transform truth-centered transformation which

basically is using the word of god to transform the village out of poverty and it's worked really well we're really excited about this program because it's worked really well in parts of asia and then they've been in africa they've been doing true center transformation for about 20 years now and they've seen over a thousand villages transform out of poverty so really really excited about bringing the tct program to these villages because what we're about is not to just give away free medicine free clinics and and free food and all we're not about that what we want to do is eventually we want to build the church up to then reach out and love their community build the community up and then eventually transform them out of poverty god said there

would always be the poor but that doesn't mean he he wants us to be poor you know i don't know i won't get on that soapbox but basically you know when we become christians do we have to wait for heaven or is heaven on earth god said heaven on earth we we god wants us to live a full life now and in our earth does that make sense and even though they're suffering from poverty that doesn't mean that's his will that's just because we live in a fallen world and so but what we need to do is we need to build a church and we need to build a church and we need to build a church and we need to build them up because these people we serve feel just a little bit worth more than

dirt you know they they have no self um image they have no self-worth and we need to build them up and tell them god loves you just as much as he loves me and you can do it you can't get out of this circumstance and so that's basically that's really our goal is not to pass out stuff but in order to do that we got to get them healthy so we have a free medical clinic where we we um give them free health care free education and we give them the free medicines that we need we cook food with our partner eric with nutritious soups which is the next slide um they'll they they provide the food with manna packs it's a fortified rice and make soup out of it make basically the churches make soup kitchens three times a week um we also the next slide here

that's my favorite cook um she almost got a heat stroke from that deal they cook over open fire in 100 degree weather and she wasn't used to it about killed herself but um we actually now have a feeding program in one of our our villages where we feed the kids every day because this village we found out the kids were eating paper to fill their stomachs so that they wouldn't have hunger pains they didn't even have enough money to buy the flour tortillas you know or corn tortillas and so now we've through uh there's a uh some partners in florida actually heard the story they said hey we want to help and so they provide the resources and we provide the the the means and so now we're feeding a nutritious meal to the students every day

the government found out about it and said oh we can't let them be the heroes so then they came in and they're providing a breakfast so now we got two nutritious meals a day in this village and we're feeding the kids every day and we're feeding the kids every day and we're feeding the children so praise jesus for that but we do that um we we do next slide we do a lot of education with the kids uh and the mothers and parents and right now we're going to start doing it with the the um i need to hurry up uh we're going to start it with the pastors and teaching leadership on how to transform the villages but we provide education on nutrition hygiene diabetes much more we pray um with the the the villages

and i'll show tell you some stories about that in a minute and um then we have our youth programs which i told you a little bit about with um uh rachel and that um and i'll tell you a story about that too um and then we just work with the teams and and the oh that's the students well we have a student yeah you can go on it that's that's a student education program this school and that's this is the school that's in that village where they were eating paper right when we went there school had 10 students we started a we got the school uh we got a sponsorship for the school and now the school has been provided textbooks the students are provided a backpack with all

their school supplies and a pair of shoes every year but now because we provided the supplies now the kids can go to school and so it went from 10 students to 45 students in one year so we're really excited about that move on um we work with the this is that's one of the this is a classroom but um we work with the churches and the leaders you can see them we work with them to try to help them grow their church and grow their ministry but also how to transform their villages and then let's see what's next oh esther the kids and so that's that's what we do in a nutshell and we're just getting started but i thought i would show you real quick a little video now this is the

ordinary day in guatemala i'm not here there's music i don't know if that works but there we go they're coming in may we'll find it is it i i thought it would be cool to go four by four you know every day until after a while your guts kind of get all knotted up and everything you're like oh no we gotta go to that village today you know lord give us strength but it's a it's a lot of help and a lot of fun and and it it god's really moved we have uh rafael here i want to show you some of the stories that we have little rafael you can see he's pretty beat up when we first um started a clinic the very first day we started a clinic in this village we learned about rafael the night before he had

fallen off a two-story cliff and his the the the witch doc well they call it the bone doctor but it's really a witch doctor and come and go oh does his jew over him and then put a couple dirty uh bandages around his leg and said he'll be fine and we looked at him as like no he will not be fine and by god's grace the parents allowed us to prove it by taking him and getting him an x-ray rafael had never been out of his village but his parents trusted us enough for some reason um to let us take we were able to get the x-ray showed not only was his

leg set which means that it would have never he would have been crippled the rest of his life unless we set this leg um again the parents trusted us um after we showed him the proof and then said you either let us take your kid or he will be crippled the rest of his life i mean we had to be hard with the mom but um nevertheless by telling her the truth she allowed us to take him to get his leg set um at the hospital which was two hours later and we were able to get him away and um now he's he had to suffer even through his sixth birthday with a cast on his leg we got this big huge wheelbarrow that we rolled him around in you know on the village but um he had his cast a little over six weeks but now he's running around like nothing happened and then

we have jose here um jose was a 16 year old years old when he came into our our into the ministry and he had been suffering for two years with chronic pain right around here all the way out through his gut and we thought it was something serious told the mom you need to take him to the hospital right now and she basically hung her head and she goes if i could afford the taxi ride i would but even if i did take him to the hospital i can't afford the medicine so what's the use and he's been suffering from this for two years we took him down to get the uh some a stool sample done and it just turned out that he had a a sickness called hbc pylori which is a parasite in the intestines um it took a cocktail of three antibiotics in two

weeks and he was healed that was amen but the sad part was that he was suffering from this illness for two years and it only took three antibiotics in two weeks to heal him and that's the kind of health care that they have there unfortunately in these villages um we have uh miss anna miss anna is one of our cooks at that daily feeding program uh we have three cooks miss anna is one of those cooks she came in at the beginning of the year with uh do we have any diabetics in this room okay when you look at your scale and it says high what does that mean what that means is if your blood sugar is so high the meter can't read it and that's what anna came in her her level is over 500.

which is alarming you know and um but through the time that we've been working with her for with a medicine with metformin and through good old education um now her her levels are down man and manageable and she has a new life she she just says i have so much energy now to take care of her daily activities and to take care of our students because she's one of her cook this is one that touches me the most is this young woman i'm protecting her and i'm protecting her and i'm protecting her the next one that's right um i'm protecting her i don't want to show i didn't want to show her face this young woman came into the clinic and she was hoping we could help her because

nobody had been able to her husband and her had been trying to have a family for eight years and it just wasn't happening and after talking with rocio for quite some time rocio gave her some medicine to just take care of a feminine infection and uh told her how to use the medicine and sent her on her way hoping that would help a couple months later she came back in our clinic with a nice little round hump and she's pregnant today and so we're really excited but this you know what when you think of getting sick and getting some medicine okay now i feel better that's not what it's about it's life-changing you know what i mean it's life-changing to them because now i don't hey you know what i don't have to get up to go to work and

like crap oh sorry excuse me wrong word sorry feel feel terrible every day you know i actually feel good or wanting a family one i mean to the mayans children are everything and to wanting a family it's life-changing for them and then um now this one i do get choked up but we were at this clinic this guy comes up and you can tell you down and he was getting blood pressure and his sugar taken and he just wouldn't talk and was hanging his head and our worker julie said this guy needs prayer and so she got sean and sean brought back a couple of the pastors and they'd spent 30 minutes talking to this guy and the guy came to know christ at a medical clinic right well then the next slide oh no do i have the next

slide no no you show it was in the video then so in the waiting room these ladies had been listening to the conversation they were having with this girl and so as sean and the pastors were walking out the ladies stopped and said hey hey we want this christ and so four ladies right there in the waiting room they prayed over and they all accepted christ and then they went outside that next slide and there was a little sick kid and so they prayed over this sick kid and started talking to the parents and then the parents came to know christ so in one day man when the spirit moves the spirit moves you know and one day we saw eight salvations at it and and you know i love to see this because we our ministry is not about

uh church planning is not we don't see a lot of fruit because we're about planting seeds and we're about showing the love of christ but helping the church minister to their villages and then a lot of so a lot of times we don't see the fruit from the seeds and there it's it's done like the next video i'll show you but when we see it at the clinic it's just oh it's just so so exciting so invigorating but and then rachel created this program for youth and we started distributing and teaching all the churches um pastor aurelio which is is the next one a video yeah pause it can you pause it it's got the sound too by the way okay so pastor aurelio has one church he had 10 people in his youth program today he has over 150 in his youth program

because of the program that rachel put together not just because of that god's moving in that village but they we allowed them to have the tools to be able to kids started spreading the word and now kids are coming from all villages around each week to his church and then he had this church when we first went there it was just poles and a laminate roof it was outside it was a dirt floor it might have went there with you guys the year before but anyway it was nothing the pastor was it was the first church in this village and the pastor was planning it and he was so discouraged for a long time because he only had two to four people coming to this church but today this is a

video go ahead and play it has sound but it's music but today this is pastor aurelio sent us this village last week to show us um the awesome service that they had uh just last week

this church started with two people and now six months later it's grown this big kind of excited to see these things happen and it's all god esther and i would never have thought that we would be where we are today um just in four years and i'm gonna skip all the stuff that's about how you know if you um you know i hope that some of this has excited you and you're thinking hey how can i get involved well come see us i'm not going to share this stuff because i ran out of time so we're down to the girl that has the peace sign and basically our prayer is that you know like we've called we've answered our call and um our team members have answered their call and our prayer

is that you would answer your call as well i'm not saying that you aren't answering the call but keep answering the call of christ and um because my what i my dream or my vision is for you all to and to following the greatest uh missionary in the world which is paul where he says in in uh second timothy four seven um i have fought the good fight i have finished the race and i have kept the faith that's my that's my dream and then when we all go to heaven we'll have jesus say to us well done good and faithful servant come and share in your master's happiness that's our goal that's my goal and i hope that's your goal and i would say one more thing well i will do a

real quick selfish plug we have stuff in the back and so and and if you sign up for a newsletter i'll give you a free pin it's a cool pin and then the the only thing is that if you um oh that's my buddy he's a cool guy but the next one i wanted to thank you for having us and i will say the one thing i want to say is like our becky who is 75 years old sometimes we feel insignificant either because of our age because of our finances because of the time we have or whatever and if you feel insignificant it feel like you can't make a difference and yet you're too small to be effective i want this quote you to think of this quote if you think you're too small to be effective then you have never been

in bed with a mosquito i'll end you with that lord we just thank you for today thank you for allowing us to to share about our passion and our ministry in guatemala and i just pray lord that if there's anyone here today first of all if there's anyone here today that does not know you i just pray that you that that you would make yourself real to them and they they would come forward and and that they would ask hey i want to know this jesus jeff's talking about and then also lord i just pray that if anybody here is unsure of their calling that you would make it crystal clear for them today lord and then they would start here in their local body first and then that you would guide their steps and we just love you and praise

you and give you all the glory in jesus precious name amen and i'm sorry i only gave you one more minute i apologize well this morning is uh communion sunday so i'd like to invite the worship team to come up and so what a what a great segue into communion knowing that the uh the one place of hope that we all have no matter who we are no matter what our background is uh the one place of hope that we have is in is in jesus christ and that's what we celebrate uh when we celebrate communion together is that oneness that we have in christ matter of fact paul tells us that every time that we partake in this meal we declare the death of jesus and so as always we are told to do so in a worthy manner and so we are reminded that partaking in a worthy manner

means a couple of things we are told to do so in a worthy manner and so we are reminded that number one it means that you should be a part of the body of christ because otherwise this won't mean very much to you and so if you're not a part of the body of christ it's as simple as what jeff said just simply accepting jesus as your lord and savior if you are a part of the body of christ and partaking in a worthy manner means that our hearts are clean before the lord and so as we go throughout a week or a month or a day or an hour we find that we slip back into some of those temptations of the world the uh the things of the world that will pull us away from jesus and so as we sing this last song and as the ushers hand out

the elements i just ask that you would allow the lord to do his work in your heart allow the lord to uh to clear you out to clean you out and as you confess those things to the lord with the understanding that when we confess our sins he's faithful and just to forgive our sins and so as you receive the elements please stand and then we'll partake together

would you bow with me father we come to you and lord i just want to thank you lord for your blood that was shed for us your lord your blood that is enough to cover our sins father i thank you for your body that was broken for us lord your word tells us that by your stripes we are healed and so father as we partake of this meal lord i just ask that you would allow the lord to do his work ask that you would give us the understanding lord help us to embrace the great love that you have for us and keep us always in mind of the one place of hope that we have the one place of hope that not only brings us into unity with you but into unity with each other so father we thank you

for your sacrifice in jesus name amen you may partake and if you'd bow with me once more lord we thank you i thank you for the ministry that you have laid on jeff and esther's heart and i thank you for the work that you're doing i thank you for the lives that have been saved not only physically lord but those who have been ushered into your kingdom lord those who are now part of the kingdom of christ because of the work that they're doing we just ask that your holy spirit would continue to move in that ministry and lord that you would give us hearts to know and understand exactly what kind of a calling you have on our lives father we thank you and we praise you in jesus name amen be blessed have a great week