The rest of the team is back! The Central Asia trip is a two week trip where teams from different churches rotate in for a specific week. The remaining part of our team got back after spending an amazing week seeing God work with one of our mission partners in Central Asia.
This is a unique trip for our church. The team is able to directly engage people from an unreached people group, having conversations and distributing digital Scripture and other resources. Many of the people the teams talk with have never heard the true gospel or had access to the Bible.
Given the nature of this trip, we are not able to share pictures of the people or places our team went. However, below are some stories team members (from our church and others) shared of how God has been working over the past week.
The missing piece
“A young woman came into the cafe by herself wanting to talk with someone about Jesus. She explained that a few years ago she had heard about Jesus and was intrigued. She wanted to learn more so as she looked she was able to find small pieces of the gospel inside her country, but she was not able to learn the full gospel. She was on a trip with some friends when they spoke with a team on the street who asked if she wanted to learn more about Jesus. Eager for the chance she had been waiting on for years, the young woman left her uninterested friends and went to meet with this native speaker by herself. As they walked through the gospel, the native speaker realized she knew about Jesus’ life and his death on the cross, but she had never heard about the resurrection!
As soon as this young woman heard about the resurrection, she put her faith in Christ.” Too often we can take the gospel for granted, without remembering there are many out there seeking Jesus with only pieces of the truth to hold onto. How important it is that we are faithful to the call to “Go” and take the gospel to those who need it most!
Dinner Disruption and answered prayers
One team stopped for dinner and as they were eating, they noticed a family eating dinner near them. They didn’t want to disrupt their dinner, but were eager to have a conversation about Jesus. When the team was ready to go, the family wasn’t even close to being done, so on the way out one team member went up to the family and said, “I don’t want to interrupt your dinner, but I wanted to tell you, you have a beautiful family.” With that they went on their way. However, that family stuck in the minds of two team members and they prayed that God would allow them to run into them again. I was meeting them for lunch the next day, but they were running a little late. When they came up they were so excited to say they had run into the family walking out of their hotel that morning. They were finally able to have that conversation and give the family digital Scriptures. They exchanged numbers and are planning to continue the conversation.
Both team members were overjoyed to see God move so clearly in answer to their prayer. In this big city, the day after they prayed, they would run into the family on their way out of the hotel first thing in the morning. As much as we want to share the gospel with those who haven’t heard, God wants it more. Pray for this family, that they will continue to hear the Good News of Jesus Christ, and will believe.
Broken Hearts and broken bodies
There was one family that was determined to have a conversation about Jesus. One of the five family members was in a wheelchair and they spent about 30 minutes trying to get her into our room, having taken elevators to wrong floors, walked around the building to lock doors, and more. As I watched the family listening intently to the gospel, another native speaker came up to me and told me she had met the family on the street yesterday and one of the younger women had taken her aside and asked for prayer. That younger girl had an inoperable tumor that would kill her. She had not told her family yet. I believe three of the family members had trusted Jesus, and two had not. As I watched across the room as the family wrapped up the conversation praying with the native speaker, each one of them was crying. Life is hard and sin is destructive.
The other two did not end up professing faith. I think this a good reminder that not every story we experienced has the ending we want. But, God is still moving. Pray for that young woman to be healed, and that her healing will display God’s glory in such a way that it draws those two remaining family members to Jesus in faith.
Thank you!
Thank you for being willing to give and pray for missions at West Bradenton! You make trips and partnerships like this possible. This team did an awesome job, but there is still more to do. Join us!
