Isaiah 58 and Celebration of Life Church

Hello All,
I have an amazing story to share with you all! To give you a little back story, during our time in Starkville with Mrs. Carla, she asked us if there were any verses that we considered to be life verses. I hadn't really thought in terms of that particular phrase before, but I was certain that Isaiah 58 could be considered a life verse for me. It first appeared in my life in middle school after my family had just moved. I was struggling with the move, with entering school, and with a lack of friends, but God made Himself very real to me. One verse that He led me to over and over was Isaiah 58:9-12. I especially like the way that The Message puts it:

A Full Life in the Emptiest of Places
If you get rid of unfair practices,
quit blaming victims,
quit gossiping about other people's sins,
If you are generous with the hungry
and start giving yourselves to the down-and-out,
your lives will begin to glow in the darkness,
your shadowed lives will be bathed in sunlight.
I will always show you where to go.
I'll give you a full life in the emptiest of places--
firm muscles, strong bones.
You'll be like a well-watered garden,
a gurgling spring that never runs dry.
You'll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew,
rebuild the foundations out of your past.
You'll be known as those who can fix anything,
restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate,
make the community livable again.
One part of that verse that I have been clinging to during this entire trip is that one sentence: I will always show you where to go. This was especially evident yesterday. Although I haven't been "in church" for four years, I felt led to go to different churches throughout this trip. I have learned from my time out of church that I can experience God's presence anywhere and can fellowship with other believers anywhere. The past two Sundays (before yesterday), we went to churches that support Manos Extendidas, know Alvin Anderson, etc. Yesterday, however, was different. It all started, I suppose with contacting a couple who I had met during my first summer in Honduras in 2009. They had only been there for a week (although it was so lovely to be around them just in that one week) and had to leave abruptly, so I never got any contact information from them. It took me a long time to find them--towards the end of this school year, in fact. Thinking they still lived in Texas, I sent them a message telling them we'd love to visit and go to their church. They informed me that they had moved to Arkansas but that I should still check out their church, sending me the church's website. On the website, I found something that excited me--they support an orphanage in Honduras located in the same area of the juvenile delinquent centers. While I have never been to the Didasko Children's Home, I knew that area and figured that Papí Alvin would be familiar with the orphanage. I contacted him and found out that not only was he familiar with it, but when he called me the Saturday before, that's where he had been. Now, I was really excited, so finding the pastor's phone number on the website, I called. I mentioned a little of our story--I was moving to Honduras, we're road tripping, and we were interested in going to their church. I also asked if he knew of any inexpensive places to stay, and he asked if we'd be willing to stay with a church member. I was so blessed by that generous suggestion and said yes!

We ended up staying with a lovely woman named Paula, a single elder in the church, who treated us like family. We spent Saturday night laughing and visiting with her and another member of the church, Jonathan. We had never met these people before, but there was just such an ease of interacting with them. That night, I was reading the Bible and returned to Isaiah 58. We had heard a lot about the church from Paula and Jonathan, and it sounded a lot like Liberty House of Praise--a church I went to for two years in Greenbrier County, West Virginia before we moved. What happened at Liberty had been amazing--God's tangible presence showed up on a regular basis, the people treated each other like close-knit family, and it felt like home every time you walked through the doors. I hadn't really been in a church like that since Liberty, that felt so much like home, so I was excited (and still a little cautious) to go to Celebration of Life Church the next morning.

We got there early, and in typical fashion for me, I was crying just during their praise and worship practice. The whole experience was very much like being back at Liberty, and I don't think I realized just how wounded I was and how much I missed being able to enter God's presence in church--without typed out agendas, time lines, hype and show, or denominational rituals. It was very much a healing experience, and I kept thinking, "If they only knew how rare this is..." I told God that I just wanted whatever He had for me and just spent time in worship. Even as I was experiencing freedom in His presence, all I could think about was Honduras and how I wanted to see this in Honduras. I wanted to carry this to Honduras, but I didn't know how and felt unworthy. With this still lingering on my mind, Pastor Donny called me forward. I had just met him that morning.

He had church members gather around to pray for me as he began to prophesy. Much of what he said echoed Isaiah 58:9-12 and my own cries to God as well. I won't go into detail mainly because it almost feels like a secret between me and God even though it was in a public place, but I will say that it blessed me and encouraged me more than I can explain. After all of that, Pastor Donny asked the congregation to bring monetary offerings to "help the missionary"--still astounds me that that's me because I feel so unworthy. People began to come forward laying money at my feet as I just cried because I had never asked for anything and didn't know any of these lovely people, yet they blessed me as God led. The love of God that I felt from the entire experience was overwhelming, and when Gabrielle and I counted the money later, it was over $1,000.

He will always show us where to go when we seek Him and His Kingdom first. We're only in Texas. We have many states to go. I can only imagine what's next.

With wide-eyed love,
Sarah