The Vision

Raúl, me, and Lindsey

Hello All,
This past month was a whirlwind in many ways just in terms of teaching and tying up loose ends before I headed to the States. As I write this, I am sitting in my parents' living room curled up in a blanket with a space heater beside me. It was nice to see the last little bit of color on the leaves as I flew in, and I am enjoying the coziness of the season. Not a whole lot has changed in the last month in terms of the ongoing routine and responsibilities. But, I have started considering what some of the steps are to move forward going in to next year. It occurs to me that while I have touched on the blessing that some new community has been for me, I haven't really covered in depth the ways that ministry is shifting as a result of new community and connections that God is making. So, I will do that now.

Back in 2014, a few things happened that set the stage for a lot of the new things God is doing now. God is the great Author of all stories, and His foreshadowing never ceases to amaze me. The year 2014 was when we started the Honduran-registered non-profit Ministerio Familia de Promesa. Honestly, I didn't have a five-year plan or even much clarity on our purpose. I was just in the midst of working with socially at-risk youth and knew that we needed some legal covering and also felt like part of the "family of promise" set-up needed to include a support system that went beyond my little family of foster sons. Around this same time, I came to understand that one of the biggest needs in Honduras that undoubtedly needed to be addressed was unemployment. At that point, I had lived in Honduras for about three years and had experienced first-hand how well-meaning handouts just contributed to a cycle of poverty and perpetuating a victim mentality. I committed to leading my foster kids to work and to have dignity and ownership over their goals, responsibilities, and futures, but I knew that the element of employment and business would need to be present on a larger scale in ministry at some point. With this in mind, I bought a trailer that could be used as a location from which to sell food or other products. I really fought God on the purchase because I didn't see business as being my strength, and I had no idea how I would make it worthwhile. But, because of the purchase, we purposely included in our non-profit bi-laws that we wanted to be able to provide employment through various businesses including food services. Honestly, since then, the trailer has only seen some action, and I'd be lying if I said that I'd even broken even financially. However, every time that I've had an offer of someone wanting to buy it, I never felt peace about it. So, I held onto it.

In 2014, I also was seeking God as to what the long-term purpose of the non-profit ministry was to be. What would make us different than so many other ministries or what was even the reason I specifically was called to Honduras? Most of life and ministry to that point was really just stopping for one person and letting the Holy Spirit lead from opportunity to opportunity, and from need to need. But, while at an Iris Global conference in Nashville with my mom, God started giving me a larger, more long-term vision. One of the biggest things I understood deeply was that many well-meaning ministries place the needs of people as the highest priority and operate their vision from a place of meeting those needs. While that has good intentions, I was already experiencing firsthand how quickly those in need could quickly become demanding and entitled and how quickly I could lose focus from what God was nudging me to prioritize just because I was so swamped with putting out fires and meeting unending needs. I was quickly burning out and knew that something had to change. What God communicated to my heart through numerous means was that He had to be first priority. If we don't want people to depend on us, they have to know that they are not our first priority--He is. Our very first ministry is to the Person of God, loving Him well, being in deep relationship with Him, hearing His voice, and carrying out His plans. As I came to this conviction, I also began to have a vision of worship and intercession going before all else.

I still felt a heart for Honduras and for street children and needy neighborhoods. But, I also knew that I had no strategies within myself. I had already been trying on such a small scale with my kids, and so many of my efforts felt futile at times. If anything was going to be able to change, it had to be with His strategies. So the mental image I kept coming back to was worshiping God in the darkest of places. We all are worshiping someone all the time whether we're conscious about it or not. When love and compassion, pure motives, and genuine relationship with God are present even just in one person, God shines down on that place. We can see that in the Bible so many times--Esther was the conduit of God's rescue, the Israelites were walking testimonies of the true God and His mercy, David's worship in Saul's presence changed the atmosphere to peace instead of oppression. When evil is allowed to take place in a location, it becomes a pattern until someone interrupts it with God's love and presence. Areas become known as points of drug sales or places where people are tortured and murdered. There are dark corners where people know are dangerous, or there are whole neighborhoods that people are afraid to enter because they're controlled by gangs. And those precisely are the places that not only contain the most need in terms of people but the most need in terms of spiritual warfare. I have seen time and time again that we can enter and try to evangelize or give people resources or opportunities, but there are just certain strongholds that have to be broken before those people will even begin to value themselves enough to take hold of the opportunities before them.

So, the vision I had looked like a team of people worshiping and interceding together. There was a map on the wall, and we began to ask God where to go. We started with Tegucigalpa and prayed over the places God led us to. Then we went to those places and walked just like the Israelites did for Jericho, just praying and worshiping. This team started in a centralized location like Tegucigalpa, but eventually, it expanded in going to different departments of Honduras, and eventually, it led to equipping Honduran missionaries to be sent out to other countries. Armed with this vision, there were many steps that I've taken over the years to try to be obedient in bringing the vision to pass. And, I will be honest in saying that my endeavors have felt like they haven't gone anywhere.

We started by taking a small group of people to the streets to worship. That never really panned out into anything constant, and it was just my kids, myself, and one other person. We were not spiritually prepared to say the least. The next try a while later was a partnership with a church and many people from the church. My mom and my sister were in the from the US. We bought clothing to hand out on the streets and made some food. We assigned people to be intercessors and had a team for worship. But, while there was much zeal, there wasn't much maturity or understanding of the vision. The people who were helping to lead the worship were doing a good job, but I hadn't communicated well enough that the point wasn't to get the people involved. The worship is for Him and Him alone. If anyone else on the streets sings or worships or not isn't the point. I really loved seeing the potential of many of the people that we involved that evening, and some of those people have continued to be a part of the non-profit in the last several years. But, while many of the team were amped up about how many plates of food we'd given away or all the places they ended up preaching, I knew that the vision wasn't being carried out as God intended. Once again, we'd allowed people to be the focus rather than God first.

During that same season, I joined the worship team at the church we were at. I had known since 17 that part of my calling was in worship. Actually, God called me to worship ministry before He called me to missions. But, it was a part of my calling I'd never walked out. It was an area that I felt fragile in especially because I always wanted worship to remain a sacred space with God and not let it become a battleground for religion and people-pleasing. It was absolutely a blessing that I joined the worship team and had that experience. I learned so many things that I needed for the next season, but it did indeed become a battleground for religion and people pleasing, and before long, I knew that the season needed to end so that I could re-focus my heart.

My next try at assembling a team was last year when I started the small group at my house. The whole point was to foster community and to be able to teach my group how to be a team that operated with the leading of the Holy Spirit but also with hearts that were made whole. Things started out well but soon took a detour when my board members stopped coming, and my husband starting inviting neighborhood kids. It wasn't a bad season to have the opportunity to share about Jesus and love these young people well. It just wasn't what I'd started out with in mind.

I share all of this because since 2014 I have struggled with wanting to put the vision in motion and feeling like failure was a constant result. There have been times when I've questioned God's motives in sending me to Honduras. There have been times when I've doubted my ability to hear His voice. There have been times when I've wanted to shut out everyone because it seemed like the greatest burden to bear was the constant letdowns from other people. Raúl will attest to the seasons in which I've wanted to pack it up and just move back to the US. But regardless of anything that I am feeling, I always let God have the last word. I know that I only have one little life to live, and I want my life to have eternal value. I want to spend my time well. So, I persevered as best as I knew how.

Around the time that I was planning my wedding, I was in the midst of some cultural burn out. I felt so alone, and with so many expectations being stomped on for the wedding, I began to associate Honduras with disappointment and betrayal more than anything else. I knew that I needed someone who could understand me culturally if I was going to be able to continue in Honduras with a healthy heart. In Honduras, there is an organization that unites missionaries from all over Honduras, providing community, resources, etc. I knew about it but wasn't a part of it. So, I looked up their website and started looking at the profiles of missionaries. There are a lot! But, I came across Lindsey's profile, and something in my spirit knew that she was the right person to reach out to. I found some of her blog posts and just felt more confirmation that out of all of these missionaries, she was the one I needed to reach out to. So, I found her on Facebook and sent her an awkward message basically trying to indicate that I wasn't a crazy person and that I'd like to be her friend. We had mutual friends in common, so she gave me a chance. The first time we ever went out for coffee, we talked for around three hours about so many things! And she quickly connected me with more places and people with whom to have healthy community.

During our nearly three-year friendship, we both have felt that we were connected in ministry in some way, but we've loosely held what exactly that means or looks like, letting the Holy Spirit just develop anything in His own way. When I went to the States with Raúl in the summer, I was at the end of myself. It was the first time when I really had no Plan B up my sleeve. I had no more ideas in relation to ministry. We were still doing our best to love others well and to be a part of healthy community, but I just had no idea how to try again. All I knew in my return to Honduras was that I needed to stay close to Lindsey and also to Jen, another missionary she had been working with. I felt like God was cultivating something in Ciudad España, where Jen's ministry is located, and I just needed to be a part of that community.

In the three years that I've known Lindsey, I've known that her focus has been on building community, worship, and starting a coffee shop as a sustainable ministry. She has also had her share of processes and times when she thought that where God was leading her would be the THE fulfillment of the vision when it turned out to be a time of preparation for what was next. But, she has also persevered in obedience and continually just seeking God's voice. When I left for the States, Lindsey's plan was to find a house in Ciudad España and move there to be an active part of Jen's ministry, One Day Revival. But, no house ever became available to rent. Months were spent looking and knocking on doors, and Lindsey continued to be an active part of Jen's ministry. But, the way ended up seeming not as paved as she thought it would be. In the midst of the questions of whether she was just supposed to wait or what exactly all of this meant, a friend of hers approached her with the idea of a mobile coffee shop via a food truck/trailer as a means of evangelism. Lindsey had long known that coffee, community, and worship were all supposed to be tied together. She just didn't have clarity as to how. But this new idea was something worth praying about. As Lindsey began to pray about it, it became a means of expanding the vision. Yes, God was cultivating something in Ciudad España, and yes, Lindsey and coffee and community and worship were a part of it. But, the vision wasn't confined just to Ciudad España, and the idea of a mobile coffee truck starting making that vision grow. In the time that Lindsey was pondering what her ministry should look like, she never wanted to start her own non-profit. She didn't feel like that was her strength, and she is the kind of person who enjoys being a part of a network of support. As she was considering her legal options in starting a ministry that also included a coffee truck business, she wondered about being under another non-profit. And, it occurred to me that our articles included a specific clause that could make it possible for her to work under our umbrella.

That became the door that has led so much more than what we were expecting. In the last few months, God has made it clear that He has been knitting us together from the get-go. We feel as if God gave us snapshots of the same vision, just from different angles. And, if He is revealing the way that He has been connecting us (and all of the other people who has placed in our hearts), we hope to steward this new understanding as the opportunity to try again now with something new.

The vision looks like this:

1) Prayer and Intercession -- Our next step in moving forward is to form a ministry team of people who understand the value of worship and intercession. Just as we've been meeting for prayer and worship on Monday nights, we would continue but with a more focused purpose of praying over Ciudad España and asking God for specific strategies. There may be a period of time where we learn together what this kind of Holy Spirit-led intercession looks like and just develop a strong sense of unity among ourselves. We can't foster community for others if we aren't modeling it ourselves. When God leads, we would also start being purposeful about praying and worshiping in Ciudad España through prayer walks, etc.

2) Discipling Others in the Areas of Prayer and Intercession -- Over the last three months, Lindsey has been working with Jen to have worship nights for the community within the mission house that belongs to Jen's ministry. Recently, we have shifted gears to include some discipleship about what worship is and why we worship as well as doing our best to share about Who we worship. Jen's goal is to have a 24/7 prayer room, and we feel like it's important to lay a foundation of understanding and to give the community the tools to know what a relationship with God is. The desire is that the prayer room would be led and sustained by the same community and not by missionaries. Thus, it's imperative that we lead others from Ciudad España to understand that God hears their voices just as much as He hears ours and to know the power of their own prayers and to cultivate their own intimate relationship with God.

3) Establishing Prayer and Worship Centers -- We view Ciudad España as a place that God is indeed cultivating many things, but we hope that as we learn through our experiences in Ciudad España that we will also learn how to best put these ideas in practice for other communities in Honduras. The desire is to establish prayer and worship centers where people of all churches and denominations are welcome to fuel the flame of revival. We purposefully are not church planting because our desire is for unity within the Body of Christ. We hope that these physical prayer and worship centers can be a neighborhood refuge for people from all walks of life who need an encounter with Jesus. And, we know that prayer and worship are the ongoing fuel for any other ministry to the needs of people. We have to build and maintain a throne where God can reign in the midst of the darkness before we can hope to light candles in the people around us.

4) Ministry to People via Coffee Truck -- When God has released us to begin to reach out to people, this is where the coffee aspect comes in. Our hope is that the physical prayer/worship/community centers can be self-sustaining through a coffee shop. That very well could start out with bringing in a mobile coffee truck to start building relationships with the community and perhaps hosting community outreach events. As we develop relationships and become acquainted with people's specific giftings, callings, and needs, we could begin to expand our ministry to include training people for employment (like running a future coffee shop in the community center), education through tutoring for higher learning or English classes, and also setting up a Bible/missions school to help people develop their God-given callings.

5) Raising Up and Sending Out Leaders -- Our goal is to be able to empower people to carry out their God-given callings with the healthy help of community. Our desire is to be able to eventually hand off the day-to-day operations of the worship/community center and the coffee shop to local leaders. And, we would act as a parent with an adult child--we would continue to care and always be ready to give advice and a listening ear as well as to check in and make sure everything is going all right, but we would lead our leaders to the feet of Jesus. The goal is never dependency on us as humans but a commitment to serve one another mutually as the Body of Christ and to seek Him first for all of our collective needs. Some of the leaders who are raised up may stay in their own communities. But, some of the leaders may feel led to be missionaries to other communities in Honduras or to other countries. Regardless, we want to equip them and send them out with a system of prayer coverage and familial support.

Obviously, this is the big dream. We have no concept of how long, but we understand that this is long-term. Yet, I have a deep understanding that much of the time frame and our success as a whole depends on how unrelenting we are in our commitment to keep God as our very first priority above even ministry itself. We want to be worthy of His trust, and we truly want to behave as His friends.

In this coming year, Lindsey and I feel that our next step is forming that ministry team of people with the desire to worship and intercede. People can often be the hardest resource to come by, so please join us in prayer that God would send us the right people and that He would teach us how to lead them well with principles of Kingdom culture rather than US or Honduran culture.

Some other things you can be praying for are:

1) The speedy arrival of Raúl's ten-year green card and God's provision for Raúl's US citizenship. We have currently been waiting four months to receive it. Our hope is to be able to apply for his US citizenship this coming year. Currently, we are still lacking $2,100.

2) That God would speak to me during my time in the US. There are various areas where I am seeking His direction--especially in relation to the when/how of starting my master's program in Christian counseling.

3) For Raúl during this time that I am away. That he would also hear from God and be taken care of as he holds the fort down in Honduras.

4) My brother's upcoming wedding and marriage!

In this month of Thanksgiving, I would just like to say that I am so thankful for each one of you who reads and remembers us, prays and supports us. You are family and our community, and we bless you!

All my love,
Sarah