New Level of Trust

Some insane things happened right before debrief. I didn’t fully believe that I would see the Lord when I started doing logistics and I honestly was kind of annoyed I even got the role. However, God has changed my mindset, and now it’s one of my favorite things. He’s blessed me so thoroughly with joy towards it.

We had been pretty sure we were going to settle on a hotel called Hosteria Del Centro which seemed decent but not great. Trying to find lodging for 44 people plus a place for our coaches nearby all under a small budget is a serious challenge. This hotel seemed good on paper. It fit the boxes but we just didn’t have much peace on it. The time for debrief was getting close, only about a week and a half remained till debriefing and we needed to book something. But after we had got everything figured out with Hosteria Del Centro, Sophia, another member of logistics, found a Christian missions base. Now this place was sketchy, it didn’t have a single review on Google. There was only one picture of the property and quite frankly, it didn’t make sense at all to start looking into a whole new property this close to debriefing for so many people. But we felt something different about this place. We had an odd sense of peace despite knowing no details. The name of the place was the Promised Land, funny enough. We decided to wait to make our decision on where to stay till we heard a response from this new option and we waited multiple days. Multiple days pass and we had nearly zero communication. We were losing hope, what seemed like a cool option initially just looked like it wasn’t in the cards for us anymore. They told us they were booked for the days we needed. However, we were able to get a call with them. As they were on the phone their property completely opened up for us. We were in shock, they continued to describe the property and we saw that it fit every single thing we needed and it was even a Christian base location. It was perfect. But then two big problems arose, we needed a place to have our coaches stay and it didn’t have clean water or any obvious options for food nearby. There seemed to be nothing good nearby. We even included it in our sheet we give to our leaders, “No places for coaches nearby.” But we discussed as a logistics team and talked to each other about how God could make a way even if we had 10 dollars and a toothpick. If this place was God’s plan for our squad He could give us lodging, food, water, and everything else for everyone in the squad with absolutely nothing from us. So we trusted in His power and faithfulness and rested in Him. The verse that I continually felt placed on my heart at this time was, Psalm 46:10: “Be still and know that I am God.” Man, that verse is so true. The God of the cosmos was fighting for us. We heard about this restaurant only a couple minutes away that may have lodging. Now, this restaurant had nothing, no website, no email, nothing but a phone number. But we trusted. I called the restaurant and practiced my subpar Spanish and was able to find out that this restaurant did actually have rooms but that’s about all I could make out from the conversation. It realistically didn’t even sound like an option for us. But that’s solely based on his tone because I had no clue what he was saying honestly. Nevertheless, I got the man’s WhatsApp and texted him some questions about the property. I went to bed awaiting a response praying that something will work out.

I woke up the next morning, he had texted back with absolutely everything we needed. He even dropped the price 1000 Quetzales (Guatemalan currency). He put us under budget by a significant amount. I felt the Lord so extremely strongly. Seeing God show up for me is one thing, but seeing the Lord show up for 50 people is a whole different ballpark. I felt so deep in trust and communion with Lord from the moment I woke up. I even started worshiping in the shower because it was all I could do; it was the only way I could respond to His glory. I was just dancing like crazy and filled with joy all day. That morning I even went as far as to tell Luke that I trusted the Lord the most I have in my entire life. We had activation that morning which meant that we had worship, teaching, then a time to live out what we learned. During worship, I just felt God’s goodness so deeply. My eyes would randomly start to water just from feeling His presence in me. I started to see visions of my future, visions of a revival happening in my church, visions of me discipling young adults and high schoolers who experienced things like me. But it wasn’t visions of me solely telling them about Jesus, it was showing them, Jesus. I saw myself walking in the gifts and showing them that God wasn’t lying; He wasn’t lying when He said “I am the same yesterday, today, and forever.” I even got visions of the Holy Trinity covering up the trinity of soul, body, and spirit. After worship, we got a sermon on character. This sermon called us out. It talked about how our identity needs to be in God’s character, not how He makes us feel or His gifts. Because you may not feel good, or you may not see healing when you ask, but you can rest knowing that God’s character is never changing. You can be confident and trust in the consistency of His personality. After the sermon, there was a call to be baptized. Immediately I felt my stomach drop and I knew the Lord was calling me to be baptized. He wasn’t calling me to be baptized for a declaration of my salvation though. He was calling me to be baptized to declare my new trust in Him. My heart was racing, I almost felt like I had to be wrong because I was getting baptized a second time on the World Race. I had this feeling that I was going to be judged for it, like people were going to think I was only looking for attention by getting baptized again. But immediately after the thought crossed my mind God rebuked it. He told me, “the reason you are being baptized is to step into full trust and obedience to me despite what others think. Yet, the exact reason you do not want to be baptized is that you fear others more than you trust me.” I was completely and utterly dumbfounded. I knew that I needed to be baptized.

Before I was lowered into the water I was told by one of the members of the team that they felt that God was calling me into more authority and power. When I got baptized I began shaking. I felt the presence of the Lord so strongly. My team prayed for me and encouraged me. It was then spoken over me that God was going to use me for prophecy. Their words resonated in my head bouncing back and forth in my brain. The very next baptism, I asked the Lord, what is it that you have for this person? Vivid visions started to flood my mind and I shared what I saw with the person. And God, out of his goodness, decided to confirm my thoughts as being from Him. The person proceeded to share how they were prophesied over in training camp and got told of the same future. In the following baptisms, I prophesied two more times. I was also given the opportunity to baptize Caedmon, my teammate. He felt the Lord saying to let me baptize him. It was extremely special and unforgettable all around.

The entire day was incredibly God-breathed. I felt freedom, love, and trust like I have never felt before. It has been insane just how much of a difference deepening my relationship with the Lord changes my heart. I feel emotions in a way that I have never felt previously. I feel the joy that isn’t bound by circumstances. I experience trials and I’m finally at a place where I trust God through them. I’m not saying I don’t experience worries and doubts, but I am saying that my trust is in God’s character. And God’s character is unwavering, so my trust in Him shouldn’t waver either.