Does Evangelism Change with Culture?

We landed on Saturday and did many things as soon as we landed. That night we all went out for a tradition Spanish Saturday night. We went out around 10:30 and there were babies in strollers, little kids running around, teenagers, adults, and people in their 80’s walking around! We stopped at a place for sangria (very popular and delicious in Spain) and Courtney and I watched the scenery. There were teenagers (young life age) smoking, drinking, going into clubs…in public! It made me wonder about how Young Life would be different in Spain compared to America. And how evangelism is different in different places would be. The drinking age is 18 here but it is not enforced.  Not many things are enforced… How do you show the love of Christ and talk about it to people who have never heard about a relationship with Jesus. Courtney and I went out with some teachers last night and they asked us how we could afford to go to Africa and India (they thought we were rich) and I said “Jesus” …they did not understand so I said “Jesus, God, pointed up, said iglesia (church)”…they were even more confused then before.  But I am hoping that by the little conversations we do have about God and the actions I do take they will see something different…a light that they are drawn to and will want to know more about. God works in amazing ways and I cant wait to see how he works in the surroundings he has placed me in! 

Evangelism tool # 345: Watch Church Services in Bars

This weekend I visited Courtney in here city. On Sunday’s we are trying to watch Northland services online so we can worship at the same time with our church family back home. She does not have Internet in her apartment and we found out that the library is closed on Sunday. Therefore, we went to the only place with Internet…a bar! I am sitting here right now amazed how God works. Courtney and I are praying together and worshipping the Lord in the same place some of the teachers took us out to on Friday night! 

Out of my Comfort Zone

My experience in Spain has been eye opening to my faith in many ways. It is defiantly out of my comfort zone. It is a new culture, a new language, a new house to live in, new people surrounding me, new surroundings, and a new school to get use to all at the same time! I went for a run the other day and was wrestling with God and just asking Him why he put me in the surroundings, and thanking Him that “my ways are not His ways” Isaiah 55:8 and I came back to my house and God gave me an answer in my devotional that said “How many of us are set upon Jesus Christ slaking our thirst when we ought to be satisfying Him? We should be pouring out now, spending to the last limit, not drawing on Him to satisfy us. “Ye shall be witnesses unto me”- that means a life unsullied, uncompromising and unbribed devotion to the Lord Jesus, a satisfaction to Him wherever He places us.” (My Upmost for His Highest.) I live to bring glory to God and I should be focusing on how I can satisfy Him where he has placed me rather then relying on Him to give me comfort in my surroundings. Now, will I rely on Him and pray for comfort? Of course! But that shouldn’t be my main focus. 

5 Month Mission Trip

Life

Courtney (who came with me to Sierra Leone) and I were doing our homework in a coffee shop when I told her about a trip to Spain I heard about. Then and there we decided we were going to apply. From there we realized that the trip to Spain is only three months long so why not take advantage of the opportunity! What if we took off a semester and traveled the world going on different missions? And that is how we left the coffee shop; with big dreams. A month later we got accepted, and now it’s weird to think that our big dreams are starting to become a reality. God opened the door for us, we prayed about it, and decided to walk through.

Doors God has Opened:

Spain: January 15^th-April 13^th

The College of Education is partnering with the government of Spain that has a program that is sending ten students to Spain to teach English for 3 month with all expenses paid for.

Sierra Leone: April 14^th-May 9^th

I have not stopped missing my kids from Sierra Leone since I left. There are times I just cry thinking about them going to bed at night with out a hug. So I am so excited to return and see them. Courtney and I will be returning by ourselves and will be living in the orphanage again. Our goal in going here is to live and talk with the children in the orphanage and the people and children in the villages, and come up with different story lines to create a children’s book. Once we have the story line we will have students draw pictures for the story. Then when we return to America we hope to get these stories published for these children. Hopefully, we can bring enough awareness to this so that we can have people purchase a book to send overseas to a child, house, or teacher to use.  We hope to bring this idea into other developing countries around the world for children.

India: May 10^th-June 10^th

I have also felt a strong calling to India so after Sierra Leone Courtney and I will be traveling to India where we will be staying a month with a missionary couple that works with Pioneers. Here we will be letting God guide us as we build relationships with people and reach out to the community and specifically street children.

What God Has Placed on My Heart

My heart goes out to the children who are poor and orphaned in the world. These children are not tucked into bed, they are sleeping on the streets. They are alone, invisible, and unloved. I have felt a strong calling from God and I have prayed about the fact that so many children need a mother. They need someone who will live with them, love them, give them support, and make them feel wanted for the first time in their life. God has given me a mission heart for children who are the poorest of the poor and for people who have never heard the truth of the gospel. I am taking a step of faith to see where God is calling me.

My family will be far away, nothing is secure, heartache and sadness will come. But when I think about the opportunity to love even one child…its WORTH IT! And a life for God is a life surrendered to God and to follow his purpose for my life.

Support

This is a journey that I would love for you to be apart of with me. Together through pray and support we can transform the lives of children who WILL transform their nation. We CAN do it if we WILL! If you are interested in being a part of this new journey with me either by partnering in prayer or financially please email me at jesi.shearhod@gmail.com so that I can have your email to update you while I’m away. The total for India and Africa is going to be an estimated cost of $5100. 

There are two ways to financially support my trip: please email me at jesi.shearhod@gmail.com if you would like my address or if you would like to give me your address to send a support letter.

 You can support me directly by clicking on the donate button to the right of the blog. (this is not tax-deductible and will go towards my trip to India) 

Or For Sierra Leone:

If you are sending a check make it out to Children of the Nations and include the team code (SL_TJS411) on the memo line.

I send the money I receive to Children of the Nation every other week

By Computer:

Donate online at http://www.cotni.org/opportunities/7

In the subject line put my name (Jesica Shearhod) and my team number (SL_TJS411)

Children of the Nations will then notify me of funds received.

 

 

 

They are Real

I have always known that people are affected much more with issues of slavery, sex trafficking, starvation, and malnourishment when they personally know the people who are being affected. If your son was starving you would do anything you could to feed him. If your sister or your wife was being trafficked for sex or if she was raped (even one time) you would want to do anything to bring her justice, and stop it from happening again. If your best friend was being worked 6 days a week for 15 hours a day, treated horrible, and paid nothing you would get them out of that surrounding. You would never purchase anything from the company exploiting him/her. And yet there are sons and daughters, sisters and brothers, wives and husbands, friends dying from starvation, scared from being trafficked, overworked from slavery and yet we do nothing.

The other day I had the most amazing opportunity to watch a 2 week old baby and she was so precious. I loved to watch her sleep because in her I saw innocence. Then I begin to think of this innocent little girl in the conditions of children around the world and it made my heart sink. I put her name on the girl dying of starvation and malnourishment, on the girl lying on the brothel floor praying that she wont have to give herself to another man, on the girl who has been injured numerous times by the machines she works with all day and doesn’t have a chance to a childhood. Then it began to become real. This child could be me… this child could be someone I love. This child is someone who is loved by someone. 

Being Paralyzed

In my post on August 2^nd I shared the quote about the feeling of being paralyzed “The very information that should move us is so overwhelming that is actually paralyzes us. It is like a big meal that’s suppose to provide fuel for our body but actually makes us feel like lying down and taking a nap. Instead of energizing us for action, the overwhelming injustice of the world actually makes us feel numb. We sense of hearts melting and our feet sinking into concrete.” I forgot what that feeling was like until today. I listened to a sermon by Francis Chan called “Lukewarm and Loving it” (if you want to be challenge your faith watch his sermon on youtube) and after processing it for like an hour I just feel numb and overwhelmed. From the sermon I started to think about how and if I am living my life for God. Am I surrendering my self fully for His glory? Or am I trying to hold onto things the world finds as important while justifying it in my mind. I had to go for a run to keep my mind from spinning and as I was running God was making so many things clear to me. He was saying to deny myself and focus on him and him alone in my decisions, he was saying to be ready to live in conditions where I wont always be happy or comfortable, he said to trust him to get me where I feel called, he said to be ready to leave people I love and a life I may find desirable to follow Him…after thinking through this I thought, how? How can I serve the poor? How can I be a voice for those who have no voice? How can I help people to see the light of God and the hope he has for them?...and that when I begin to feel powerless,and sad, and overwhelmed…the devil starts to work his magic by making me feel like I can’t do it.

            So what do I do? I seek God where I am now and I learn how to trust Him and follow him when he calls me. I grow in him and slowly drown the devil out. Most importantly I remember “Despair is a greater sin then any of the sins the provoke it.” 

Hell on Earth

Hell is on earth. Hell is when boys are soldiers who are forced to kill their father, mothers, sisters, and brothers. Hell is where children must watch as their pregnant mother is raped, cut open, and are then forced to watch as the fetus is cut out and roasted. And the child is not only forced to watch this but must also eat the fetus. Hell is where girls under the age of 12 are the highest percentage of women sex trafficked around the world. Hell is where 1 million children are exploited by the global commercial sex trade every year. U.S. Department of State, The Facts About Child Sex Tourism: 2005. Hell is women being forced to have sex (to be raped) by men 10 times a night.  Hell is when 32 billion dollars a year is generated by human trafficking industry every year. Hell is when a mother and a father sell their 10-year-old daughter to a man for sex so that their family can eat because a virgin is worth a lot of money. Hell is that 100,000 children and young women were trafficked into America at an average age of 11 and we as Americans are naive and think that all women in strip clubs and prostitute themselves do it by their own will. Hell is children being drugged to kill. Hell is children living on the streets with nowhere to go. Hell is when a father doesn’t have $2 that could save his child’s life from a curable disease.

Hell is where we read about this and do NOTHING.

Hell is on earth…what are YOU going to do about it?

Some people think “god left Africa a long time ago” but what we need to recognize is that God did not leave it WE left it.  Its not that God is not doing anything about it, its that WE are not doing anything about it.  

Watch these videos about what happened in Sierra Leone during the war: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLOf1V4eDqk&feature=related

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtwgU-LjkTI