Sus Manos 2020 VMT Presentation.pdf |
Guatemala 2020
Our goal for our visit to the ICC Los Pinos home is expressed in Romans 1:11-12: "For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you—that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith, both yours and mine."
We discovered we could still fulfill our goals with our Virtual Mission Trip! Click HERE or open the file below to see what we did!
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Yes! Sus Manos is still alive and well, despite our trip being cancelled, due to COVID-19. And we still need your prayers!
A couple days after the trip was cancelled, as I got over my shock at the turn of events, I began to think: "Now what?" A thought came to me: "Virtual Mission Trip." Yes! My mind was buzzing with things we could do. But would my kids be on board? I wrote a masterful, inspiring email, saying our goals were:
Crickets. I sent a text message: Please read my email. Still... crickets. I texted the group: ¿Por qué no me pelan? Yes, I resort to Mexican slang when I am frustrated. Basically that means, "Why are you ignoring me?" But I said I understood the crazy week we had just had, but please, I want to talk. A couple girls responded, but it was all grasshoppers, cicadas and saltamontes (Spanish again) from the others… One week after the masterful email, I was discouraged. I knelt down and prayed. I realized that I was striving to create my program. "Unless you abide in Me, you can bear no fruit..." OK, I would work on abiding. If this was God´s plan, He would pull my team together. One teammate sent me an idea he had for mentoring a friend in spending daily time with God. Praise the Lord! I sent individual texts to students who had not responded. Ding! You´ve got mail! Soon six of my seven had responded. I told the Lord, "If #7 texts tonight, I will know this is from you. Bingo! Ends up that the non-responders were not receiving the group texts. My original email was too overwhelming to really register so soon after the trip cancelled and the school shifted to e-Learning. We had a video conference call the next day and all agreed to join the 2020 Sus Manos Virtual Mission Trip. Later we would figure out what that meant. A couple days later, for my morning quiet time, I read the story about Nathanael meeting Jesus. When Jesus tells Nate that He saw him under the fig bush, Nathanael was stunned by His prophetic vision and became a believer. Jesus assured Nathanael that he would be seeing much bigger things. It made me think about how sometimes little things happen--like teenagers responding to a text--that assure us that God sees and hears us. Those little events inspire us to believe, but if we keep following Jesus, we will see bigger things. We have met every morning for the past week to share what God is teaching us through our daily quiet time, just as we do when in country. I send them an email with the “mission of the day”: something to read, a short video to watch and something to do. We divided up the names of all the kids at the Los Pinos Home and have spent several days writing letters to them. They will be sent via online Dropbox to Guatemala, where the kids will receive our encouragement and love. The Guatemalans are also under quarantine and it may encourage them to know that we share their situation. Please pray with me that Jesus would work in us to accomplish big things during our Virtual Mission Trip. Pray that my students would be willing to give their time to advocate for orphans. Pray that we will find ways to bless International Children's Care from a distance. And pray that I will remember that the Virtual Mission Trip isn´t my program anyway. I pray that you are well and holding up well under this crazy situation. Well, what a roller coaster this month has been! It is hard to believe that just a few short weeks ago my concerns were all about fundraising and VBS planning. As the world began shutting down, Mike and I wrestled with the wisdom of carrying on as planned. We decided earlier this week that the risk to benefit ratio wasn´t in our favor. We were ready to pull the plug, but as of Wednesday, both the school administration and International Children´s Care said they would still allow trips to go ahead and we decided to wait a bit. What a difference a day makes! By yesterday morning, the Oregon Conference had cancelled all mission trips. Our sister school Milo had just sent their team to Egypt the day before and were then told to come home as soon as they can. Getting stuck abroad had been one of our main reasons for cancelling the trip (together with not wanting to take the virus to Guatemala, which is currently free of it and has a fragile medical system) and we feel for the Milo team and pray they return home safely. So what does this cancellation mean for Sus Manos? One of our guiding verses is Ephesians 2:10-- “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance as our way of life.” (Berean Study Bible) I am confident that God has not been taken by surprise by COVID-19. We have been preparing diligently for several months. All the time we were preparing, He knew that the work He prepared in advance for us to do was not going to happen in Guatemala in March. With all school activities cancelled by order of the governor, the Oregon Conference and PAA, our good works will also not be my Plan B of teaming up with the church in Hillsboro where we worked two years ago. Whatever it is, we will not be able to physically get together. So where is He leading us now? That is the subject of my prayers and I invite you to stick with us just a bit longer to see how He might still work in and through my little Sus Manos gang. A couple years ago I attended a breakout session at Mission Connexion that was put on by Culture Bound. I liked the interactive way they taught participants to learn while experiencing a new culture. I kept the postcard I picked up at the event and finally this year, all the groups going on mission trips at PAA decided to join in the training.
The speaker gave us general information about interacting with new cultures and then we were split into three groups, according to our mission destinations: Fiji (with about 20 students), the Bahamas (around 2 dozen) and our little Sus Manos group (7 students and me). We got a little information about some differences between US and Guatemalan cultures regarding individualism/group orientation and respect for status difference. Each of the three groups put on a skit for the other two groups, highlighting something learned today. I was really happy to have my students learn the information, but doubly happy that we could prepare together with the other two groups. My strategy for preparing my students has grown over the years and I am excited to see other leaders also working to prepare their students spiritually and culturally, so these short-term trips can make a bigger impact, both on those we go to learn from and serve and for those of us traveling. Our day began with cultural immersion at the Portland Spanish Seventh-day Adventist Church. Jacob, Lily and Kaitlyn had prepared the song "Ya no soy esclavo del temor" (I'm no Longer a Slave to Fear) as special music. Our Sus Manos team was to arrive by 10:30, but these three wanted to practice with the sound system and piano before the service. I told them the sanctuary would be in use from 9:30 till the worship service began and I presumed they would just wing it. But when I arrived at 10:20, the deacon told me he was surprised to find the three teens waiting by the door when he came to open up at 9:15. Their song was beautiful and their dedication to serving well got them a mention during the church service, too. After church, we very regretfully skipped the delicious smelling potluck to return to Portland Adventist Academy for sub sandwiches and an afternoon of Bible study and preparation for our trip. We focused on Ephesians 4, which tells us why preparation is important for doing God's work. So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. (Ephesians 4:11-13) Over the years I have thought a lot about the summers I spent as a teen on my church's Youth Witnessing Team. Our church had a newly minted college grad youth pastor who put the team together. He was energetic and visionary. He told us stories about his teen years, when he and friends would go out to share the gospel for fun. He studied the Bible with us, showed us thought-provoking Christian movies and took us to visit other teens in their homes, teaching us how to give Bible studies. When a theological question confused our group, Pastor Dan had the head pastor come to our youth meeting and give us a candid Bible study. Our youth group white-water rafted and camped in the summer and skied in the winter. As a result of his hard work, love and passion for sharing Jesus with us, our group grew to be "the happening place" with 50-80 kids showing up for vespers and mid-week worship. Our church bought us a big old house on the same block as the church where we could pack more in for enthusiastic singing and serious study. It was a golden time. One summer we decided to put on an evangelistic series, with us teens as the speakers. I remember sitting at Pastor Dan's kitchen table, crafting my sermon about salvation. Quoting something I had read that seemed clever to me, I penned: "Heaven's not just pie in the sky by and by. There's some on your plate while you wait." Pastor Dan looked at my paper. "That's trite," he decreed. "Write your own thoughts." I valued and respected his opinion and I took his criticism as a favor from a friend who had just saved me from saying something dumb. I rewrote the sermon. I've often looked back at that simple incident as a guide for how I want to treat my students: build relationships of love and respect and help them stretch themselves to be more and do better. This afternoon, as we worked in our Sus Manos journals, we looked at 2 Timothy 2:1-2. You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also. We wrote a spiritual timeline in our journals: Paul ---- Timothy --- Faithful men/women --- Others At each step of the way, people are trained SO WELL that they are able to pass it on. Although many people have been part of strengthening my faith in Jesus--my mom, Bible teachers, Sabbath School teachers, pastors and perhaps especially friends who have encouraged and inspired me--I think of Pastor Dan as the "Paul" that really set me on the path of following and sharing Jesus. I asked my students who they thought my faithful men and women were. I answered my own question: "It's you." And I mean it. I pray that God will help me pass on the faith in Jesus that was given to me as a teen and that I will do it so well that they will be able to pass it on to others. I got a text this week from Pastor Dan. He was in Portland for a wedding and wondered if we could meet up. So it was poignant that just a couple hours after meeting with my faithful young men and women, I had the amazing surprise of seeing my Paul--for the first time in nearly 45 years--and reminiscing about those summers when we were both so young. He told me that, as a 21-year-old, he didn't have a clue what he was doing, but our senior pastor took him under his wing, taking him out to give Bible studies and training him how to pass on the good news of Jesus. I suddenly realized that my Paul had his Paul, too. I pray that my faithful ones will be a Paul to another Timothy one day and continue the chain of multiplication, so that this can be true soon: And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end [and Jesus!] will come. (Matthew 24:14) Panama or Guatemala?
Once we discovered that Portland Adventist Academy's spring break dates did not line up with Andrews University--our partner for our last two trips--we knew Sus Manos would not be returning to Cuba this year. So where might God be sending us? We had several possibilities, but eventually focused on two invitations: Panama, where a pastor friend urged us to come help with children's ministry, and Guatemala, where we could help the International Children's Care (ICC) home we had last visited eight years ago. Mike and I believe strongly in Ephesians 2:10, which says, "For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." We don't want to run ahead of what God has prepared ahead for us to do. So we prayed. And prayed. We set some deadlines for a decision, but discovered that God does not follow our deadlines. As September turned to October and the mission trip orientation meeting loomed, we had to choose. We were strongly leaning toward Panama, yet specific things we asked God for did not come through. We concluded it was not God's leading to go there and we committed to Guatemala. We are thrilled to be returning to Guatemala, which I always say was our first ICC love. We had been there twice and planned to return every year, but after that second trip, our dates never lined up with their calendar again. Now, after several trips to the Dominican Republic and Cuba (and one to Hillsboro, Oregon!), we are excited to return to Los Pinos, especially because the directors and house parents we knew before are still there. Seven PAA students and one mom joined our team and we began our training program. But there was still this niggling wondering if we had heard God correctly. I got a call shortly before Christmas from my pastor friend in Panama. Due to financial difficulties for the church association in Panama, they decided to send all non-Panamanians back to their home countries. Although my friend has pastored in Panama for six years, is married to a Panamanian and has an adorable child born in Panama, he himself is Salvadoran. They were told they should move to El Salvador, despite having no call to pastor there. They don't know what to do and have applied for positions in a couple other Central American countries. As Christmas neared, they had no idea where they would be for the new year. Although my concern was and is for him and his family, as he spoke, I had another thought: I could be holding ten plane tickets to Panama right now, with no project to do and no contact in Panama. God's guiding is not always clear, but in retrospect we see how He always leads us to our Ephesians 2:10. I trust that the same loving Father who, although not with thunderbolts or writing in the sky, led us to choose Guatemala, will lead my pastor friend to his next Ephesians 2:10. I ask that you pray for God to keep our eyes open to see what He has prepared in advance for us to do. And I pray the same for you, because there is an Ephesians 2:10 for each of us. |
Sus Manos"Sus Manos" means "His Hands." We seek to be the hands of Jesus in the Spanish-speaking community at home and abroad. Archives
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