I have just returned from my pastoral visits of my school's outreach teams. It's been a full month of travel and visiting teams. I'm grateful to be back on the YWAM base and sleeping in my own bed again. As the leader of the school, I'm responsible for making sure the outreaches meet the YWAM standards for ministry times, worship, intercession. We have evangelistic outreaches. That means that the students are in the tourist areas meeting backpackers/travelers, forming friendships, sharing the Gospel, giving out Bibles and praying for people. Their two months are intentional and challenging.
I spent about six full days with each team. You find yourself trying to inspire and motivate people to spend time with God, to be filled by His Spirit, and then go out and share the Gospel with new-age hippie traveling backpackers :) It's a discipline that you can encourage, teach and challenge, but it's still the decision of the student to choose God's strength, and His Word every day. And it's their decision to walk outside of their comfort zone and tell someone about Jesus. My favorite part was having one-on-one meetings with the students. I would catch up on how they were doing, what God was speaking to them about, how they were struggling and/or growing. I would encourage them, challenge them in certain areas and pray with them. By the end of the week, I would head out and start traveling to the next team.
I love backpacker evangelism. It was great to meet people, even in my own travels, and share Jesus with them. I know that evangelism is a hard word and concept for some people to accept. In America, we see people on the streets handing out tracts, or holding large signs & telling people that they are going to hell, and that becomes the idea of evangelism that sticks in our mind. But let me paint a picture for you of someone I met and shared the Gospel with. I had just finished visiting the team in the south of Thailand. I was heading back up to Bangkok with my friend Lara. We were taking a sleeper train, 12 hours north. As we were waiting for the train, we met Ben from New York. He's a typical backpacker; he is touring Thailand with a small backpack and a desire to see culture and people. He asks us where we are traveling and why. It's an instant way for me to share about the Christian school I'm a part of. From the very beginning of the conversation, this man knows that we are followers of Jesus. I don't start 'Bible bashing' him. We just talk and share about life. And fairly soon in the conversation, he starts ASKING US questions about our faith. We talk about prayer and hearing God's voice. We talk about religion vs personal relationship (he's from a brief Catholic background). Ben shares that he has been on a spiritual journey for the last two years and searching for something. It's an open door for us to share about Jesus and the Bible. It's personal, it's open, it's honest and he's interested. We talk for maybe an hour or so. Then he has to return to his seat/bed for the night. I don't know what will happen in his life now, but I know that it was a divine connection from God. I know that Jesus used me and Lara to plant a seed; and I trust Him to water it. Lara and I pray afterward that Ben will meet more Christians and that he will choose Jesus! This is real life, intentional, backpacker evangelism.
I have a week on the YWAM base to prepare for my students returning. When they return, we have a week of debrief and talks on re-entry to their homes/lives. Then they graduate on February 17th. Whew, it's a whirlwind of events, but I'm excited.
Prayer Points:
1) Safe travels for the teams as they head back to New Zealand
2) The students would finish strong and focused on Jesus
3) Health- a few of the students on our India team have some stomach sickness :(
4) Wisdom for me to facilitate good and honest debrief/re-entry times with students
5) Pray for Ben, the backpacker, that he will continue to seek, find and choose Jesus Christ!
Praise Points:
1) Thank God that I had safe travels all through Morocco, India and Thailand.
2) I had some great conversations with some backpackers and I'm blessed that God used me to tell them about Jesus!
Bless you all with more of His Holy Spirit and JOY today,
Nicki
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