Brazil in a Nutshell

"How was Brazil?"
The question everyone asks when you get back from a foreign trip.

And probably the hardest question to answer. My answer probably changes every time, but there is always the word "amazing" in there. Brazil was amazing. It wasn't like anything I expected, but then again I didn't really have any expectations...we just went.

I learned more about myself and about God in these last 6 months (especially the 3 months in Brazil) than I have at any other point in my life. Lots of good things and some convicting things, but God was always ripping out the bad and replacing it with himself. What a great promise to rely on.

All 11 of us learned different things on this trip. I saw that the growth was more personal than as a whole. We went into Brazil as a joyful, united team and we left Brazil with even more love for each other than when we started. How amazing! Each of us was stretched in what it means to have a personal relationship with God. As I looked back on Brazil, there are a few themes that stood out to me that I'll share:

1. Simple Gospel
It was in the first river community that my heart started struggling. It wasn't necessarily that we were in an impoverished place, but rather a simpler place. All the fluff from the city was stripped away in these river communities. We were doing house visits and I started to realize that I didn't know what to say to these people. In my mind, I only knew what choosing to follow Jesus looked like in America. I knew powerful times of corporate worship, the value of a prayer room, trusting God to provide finances while working as a missionary, and intercession times with the Holy Spirit showing up in a room filled with people. I didn't realize until now that I held those on the same level as my quiet times with Jesus.

You see, these things are not bad, they are just how followers of Jesus live out their relationship to God in this culture. We are simply called to do 3 things: Love God, love each other, and reach the lost. I started to realize that that is literally all our lives are to consist of. Within these 3 things, we all uniquely live them out. So as a shared the gospel with these Brazilians, I started to learn to accept that the way they will live out their relationships with Christ isn't going to look like how I am used to. What they need to know is that God is inviting them into a personal relationship with each other them through Jesus dying for their sins.

So I started to ask God, "What does it look like for people here to love you, love each other, and reach the lost?" He started showing me how he changes the hearts of people when they simply open the Bible to read His word, how a girl named Leidiane wanted to "reach the lost" by getting the youth in her community to be more unified through a youth group, and how home fellowship over some weak coffee is strong enough to bring love amongst a neighborhood. 

Bringing the gospel to a new country involves us remembering what God simply calls us to do. This is what unifies the church world-wide. This is what strengthens us. It gave me a better perspective on discipleship and God is still giving me so much revelation about this.

2. Grace & Forgiveness
A lesson we will always be learning. God brought me through a lot about having grace for others and grace for myself. I once heard a quote that says "You only have as much grace for others as you do for yourself." I understand this now. 
It was a new season...leading an outreach team for the first time. You definitely find out your strengths and weaknesses. We must remember that God is strong when we are weak. In those times we make mistakes, we need to remember that we are not perfect, which is why we need to come to Jesus. 

I have always dwelt on those imperfections I see in myself. The mistakes crowded my mind with solutions and stress of having to remember how to fix myself. I didn't allow myself any grace. 
But when we look forward to Jesus and don't look back, he takes care of everything!!! He is our teacher and knows how to change our hearts through what is best for us. Through the revealtion of this, I was taught to give myself grace.

And this tied in with giving others grace. Jesus is the only perfect one, and I am so thankful that we have him to guide us. Those around us do stumble and fall, no matter how perfect we think they may be. What they need to be met with is people who will teach them from a heart of forgiveness. We can't correct our friends when our heart is still bitter toward their mistake. If we want to speak into each other's lives, we need to pardon each other's faults beforehand. Otherwise we will hurt each other because "out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks".

I had to learn to ask myself "where is my heart?" when talking to people. We don't want to let the actions of others change the way we act toward them. Love conquers all. And choosing to love when your flesh doesn't want to is powerful. We are all sons & daughters of the same King...let's treat each other as such! Give grace.

Grace and forgiveness is something God is still heavily teaching me right now. 

3. Go out! 
The command from Jesus to go out and make disciples is weighing on me right now. More than any other time in my life. There are so many people in this world that don't know who their Father is. They don't know the depths of his love for them and how he wants to mend their broken hearts. We constantly asked God to break our hearts for what breaks His heart in order to feel what he feels. 

I realize even more now that this prayer comes with a cost because he delivers. What I didn't expect was the amount of kids we got to hang out with wherever we went. They loved us. And we were able to show love to them. Some have never been hugged. Some come from abusive families. Many love to just have fun with us in any way possible. I think back to the faces and names and my heart breaks, even as I am writing this. I didn't realize their impact on me until I got home. 

My heart breaks because I don't know who will tell them about Jesus' love for them. These kids in the middle of the jungle, who have never seen Americans, let alone foreigners. They are so joyful and free, yet without knowing their Creator they will fall farther as they get older.

My hope is in the Lord. In the Holy Spirit working in these communities even when we aren't there. My hope is that the few followers in these towns will fall more in love with Jesus and spread the good news to their neighbors. My hope is that there will be whole communities in love with the Lord and living out the gospel. And I trust that God can do this. 

All of this pushes me to tell people about Jesus. He is worth every second of my life speaking his name. He is worth following to whatever country, whatever state, whatever person. His love is better than life and it's worth everything for people to know that.