Hello All,
The word that God gave me for this year was “presence,” and while we’re headed only into the month of May this year, I am astounded by how He is revitalizing me and my vision of the future with His presence. Really, this journey of going deeper into His presence and His person started with stumbling upon that conference in Ojojona in January. Only days earlier, on New Year’s, my dad had sent me a text message that I saved to my phone because he touched so clearly on a heart’s desire: “Happy New Year! I love you Sarah. I’m praying that you are strengthened, encouraged, and that the Lord ties you into a source of help and real fellowship in Him.” It’s been quite a journey since I moved here. I came with the idea that I’d be doing certain jobs and be part of family (at the Eagle’s Nest girls’ home), but that idea was quickly shot down only within months of moving here when the Eagle’s Nest closed. Since then, it’s been a lonely trek of finding my way, my niche, and my divine calling in this country, and more often than not, it’s not what others around me would push me into to (nor what I’d push myself into either necessarily).
Just being real with you for a moment, I want to ask: Have you ever felt like an orphan? I don’t really mean in the sense of not having biological parents. I mean as a follower of Jesus. Have you ever felt like maybe you’re in church but you don’t feel like you belong? You love Jesus with all your heart, but this institutional program thing just leaves you hungry for something else, something more? You’re in a ministry, but you’re the black sheep that no one “gets”? You’re looking at the spiritual horizon and see things that the people around you don’t see, and you think, “Is this just me? What’s wrong with me? How can no one else see this?” I want to be careful to honor all of the churches and pastors and spiritual fathers who have played a wonderful part in my process as a lover of my Savior. And I’ve hesitated to write about this although it’s been a forceful undercurrent in my life since I was very young because I want to be an instrument of honor and unity and not of division or blame. I am grateful for every person who has spoken into my life and every place of worship and season God has brought me to and through, so I in no way want to criticize. But, I know that I can’t be the only one who has felt like there’s got to be more.
For those of you who may not know me personally, I was raised in church all of my life. My family was the family who was there every time the doors were open, and my parents always held a position of leadership as elders or youth pastors or children’s church pastors or part of the children’s ministry team. I grew up as part of that legacy and learned to do what anyone in church leadership asked me to do regardless of my age. From that willingness (and religious though unconscious desire to earn God’s love—as if it’s not a free gift to receive!), I found myself writing an entire Vacation Bible School curriculum of skits and puppet ministry and directing adults two or three times my age in dramas when I was 11. I took on the position of youth pastor in a church with my mom as my only constant support system with a group of mainly teenage boys when I was 15 because supposedly there was no one else. And through lots of experiences like that, I kept God very much at an arm’s length trying to earn His love because in my heart I felt very unworthy of His love and had many childhood wounds that hadn’t healed because I had tried to forget them rather than let God deal with them.
When I was a junior in high school, I had this idea of what my life was going to look like, and when that naïve vision shattered through a series of revelations, I felt lost. I was always the girl with the plan. But that shake-up of my world and my mission of perfectionism brought me face-to-face with my Heavenly Father as He asked me, “Are you ready to really let me have your life? Are you ready to let me lead you on an adventure?” And, I was. Even after being raised in a home that supported missionaries often with great financial sacrifice and a father who urged me constantly to go on a mission trip, I hadn’t been interested. But, after hearing a message from a total stranger in a camp where I wasn’t a camper but just a camp worker for a summer job, I encountered the reality of how many people didn’t know Jesus, how many people didn’t have clean water, how many people struggled just to stay alive and find food to eat, and how many needed to know that perfect love. It wasn’t a tearful or dramatic call. It was simply a decision to let God fully have me and a knowing that I was about to become a person so far from my original limitations at 17. Months later, I took a short-term mission trip to Honduras, and the rest is history in the making.
Loneliness has been a theme in my life for as long as I can remember. It’s been a force that has made me draw so much closer to God and has pushed me to be brave in the face of timidity even since childhood. It’s given me a maturity I wouldn’t have reached in any other way. My parents raised me even as early as kindergarten to purposefully seek out the outcasts to be their friend even if no one else would. They taught me to defend the defenseless. And, for whatever reason, since 5-years-old, that was so ingrained in my mind that it became my personal mission even when it made me an outcast too. As I grew up, I felt very different, very solitary for as long as I can remember. It might have been because I was homeschooled when others weren’t. It might have been because I was a passionate Christian in the midst of normal teenage angst. And, while that feeling different shouldn’t have been so prevalent even in church, it was. At 12-years-old, while my peers were talking about boys and clothes, I was reading Tommy Tenney’s The Godchasers and was consumed with wanting more of God’s presence. This longing was aided by being in a church where a real outbreak of a Holy Spirit revival was present—miracles, unity, hours and hours of non-stop worship, prophetic words, and just a genuine feeling of being at home in His presence.
When my family had to leave that church because of my dad’s job change and a move, it really devastated us. I don’t think we’ve ever been the same since as individuals nor as a family. We had been so wrecked in God’s presence that the idea of “normal” church just didn’t satisfy anymore no matter how much we tried to pretend. We were still in church, but we all just kind of lost ourselves because we felt like we’d lost His presence. We had never learned that we could be a catalyst of that same presence in our home and community. But from that move, our family became the black sheep of church. We had tasted more of the Holy Spirit, and everywhere we went, we challenged for more and were met with staunch (though understandable) opposition from well-meaning folks who simply hadn’t been wrecked as we had. They didn’t know what they were missing, and the idea that something more could exist was a paradigm challenge difficult to handle.
After I got back from Honduras, I was a mess of questions. I got back to the US on a Sunday and from that Sunday in church, for four years, every time I entered any church service, all I could do was cry. I couldn’t even explain why I was crying. I was just overwhelmed every time I was in church. A close family friend and the pastor of the church where my family and I had met the reality of God’s person once told me, “Do you know why you cry every time you’re in church? The Holy Spirit is letting you feel the grief that He feels in not being welcomed even in His own house.” The questions I wrestled with when I got back were also difficult to handle. I couldn’t understand how the prosperity gospel I often heard in churches in the US could possibly apply to the Third World country I’d just visited. Something was skewed in our thinking. Something was wrong in our interpretation of God’s love, ministry, and favor. Why did we seem to think that we should be exempt from suffering when I’d just witnessed so many Christians in Honduras suffering with a smile and triumph in their hearts? What was I supposed to do with the stories I heard of Honduran teenagers who were murdered by their own friends whenever they decided to leave their gang to become a follower of Christ? How did that fit in the cookie cutter spirituality I witnessed every Sunday morning? What was I supposed to do with the reality of martyrdom when the most suffering a Christian close to me would go through for their faith would be being subjected to an elected government that didn’t agree with their political agenda?
I spent a lot of those four years outside of church because I just couldn’t handle the way my reality was shifting in the midst of things I saw to be nothing more than a routine façade. And, I have to tell you, that being out of church was so necessary for me. I needed that time to get to know God on a real, personal level beyond being spoon-fed. I needed that chance to ask Him all of my questions and realize that He’s not daunted by my doubt or uncertainty. He’s not frightened by my challenges because He is the answer even when religious depictions of Him don’t live up to His rightful personality and standard. And, in the midst of longing to know Him more, He also brought me to a place of facing the wounds I’d stealthily avoided letting Him deal with while I was in church. Perfectionism and earning man’s approval in church had been the Band-Aid that I’d slapped on a broken bone of not knowing how to really receive His perfect love. Without that placebo effect in church, I was left with only myself. Who was I without that system of earning religious points? What did it really mean to be a child of God? He found me and healed me so much more deeply than I had ever even realized was necessary.
At 13, when my family had moved for my dad’s job, I was in one of the darkest places of loneliness I’d encountered yet, and I had no other refuge other than my family and God. I had no friends. Being an “import” to a town where everyone is normally “born and raised” made it so difficult to break into the social structure and make friends—even worse for someone so shy. But, in that time, I just passionately fell in love with reading God’s Word with the Holy Spirit at my side. And, the verse the Holy Spirit gave me over and over and over again was Isaiah 58, especially the part about rebuilding ruined cities. I didn’t know it then but that was part of the call God had placed over my life. Years later, when I spent a summer in Honduras, a woman (who I later learned to be Raúl’s spiritual mom) gave me a word referencing Isaiah 58 and telling me that I was going to be a rebuilder for many young people who were currently desolate ruins.
When I decided to respond to the call of being a missionary in Honduras, I had no idea what that was going to look like. I didn’t go to missions school or seminary. I knew that my connection was Alvin Anderson and Manos Extendidas, and I had felt so captivated by their heart for street kids, for seeking treasure in forgotten people, and so at home in their ministry family. So, I decided to come, thinking that I’d be a teacher here and trying to figure out what my formal place was. I was up for whatever Alvin wanted me to do although God kept telling a very dumbfounded me, “Your call is not dependent on Alvin or Manos Extendidas. Even if at some point you’re not connected to them, you’re still called to Honduras.” But, in the last months of my senior year of college, I went home unexpectedly for a weekend and stumbled upon a documentary on Netflix about a woman I’d never heard of—Heidi Baker. Seeing her life as Mama Heidi amongst rescued street kids in Mozambique and hearing her wild story of passionate love for her Savior, tears just streamed down my face, and I watched it over and over and over again because I found myself—everything I’d ever wanted to dream or hope was possible after a childhood of supernatural missionary stories to a church encounter with the presence of God to developing a passion for missions in Honduras—in her story. Her testimony instantly made me a very different kind of missionary even if I didn’t realize it at first. No one had ever taught me that fruit in ministry comes from intimacy with the Holy Spirit, and most of the time, the examples I had were the contrary of missionaries running around like busy, crazy people with their personal spiritual lives as an afterthought because “that’s just ministry.”
In the past three years and seven months of being a missionary, the theme of being a black sheep has continued. It drives me crazy. Anyone who knows me well knows that I don’t like to make waves. I hate calling attention to myself. I am a very submissive person who likes to sacrifice my own preferences for those of others. But, God so captivated my heart that I cannot budge when I know He’s the one making me stand. I have to be honest with you that there is a cycle in church and ministry of wanting results and having something to show for our work that we often carry yokes that do not belong to us. When we’re overburdened and carrying weight not assigned to us, that often makes it much more tempting to shove other people into positions where they don’t belong and are not called by God simply because we’re cracking under the exhaustion and that person is another warm body who can do something to alleviate our stress. This was a hard lesson that God taught me at 15, and it has kept me from being so quick to do whatever someone tells me to do in ministry. I always say that I have to pray about it first, and a lot of times, my answer is no. It’s a policy that hasn’t made me popular to say the least. But, it so necessary that we guard our hearts in ministry. There is so much church hurt all over the world because when people are not treated with love for who they are and who God has called them to be but for what they do and what results they bring, they start to feel used. It’s religion versus relationship. Relationship loves others unconditionally for who they are whether they do something productive or not. Religion is conditional love based on the actions and results of others. It sends the message that you’re only valuable if you give forth results. That’s a dangerous message to send when we’re wearing a badge of Christ’s name and supposedly representing God’s nature.
I give you this lengthy history partially because it’s letting me process but also because I know that I’m not alone in this battle. Even though I’ve been hesitant to cover this area of my life, this is me, guys. And, this history gives you a glimpse into the reason my father sent me that text desiring real fellowship for me. When I was in Tsebaoth’s School of Prophets in January, they were talking in a class about spiritual paternity and how that relates to our relationship with biological parents. My relationship with my biological parents is great, so I felt like the ministry time of forgiving biological parents and letting God heal those wounds didn’t really apply to me. But, in an instant, God had my number. He said, “What about spiritual parents?” And He took me on a journey through a series of visions in my mind where I was in each and every church I’d been a member of but had been rejected for being so different. Each time, I was an orphan girl outside of the locked church just longing for a home, for spiritual parents to see my value as a person and not for what I could do for them. But, there I was alone and cold and rejected. And, each time, at each location, Jesus came and scooped me up in His arms and let me cry on His shoulder. He never left me an orphan even when no one else saw any value in me. And, after being rescued from each location by Jesus, He whispered in my ear, “Little one, they didn’t even know their own value. How were they ever going to see yours?” Even in the midst of great hurt in church, because of my parents and my upbringing, I’ve always done the best that I can to forgive. But, in that moment, I let God lead me through each situation with each spiritual father or mother and declare, “I forgive them. I honor them. And I bless their ministry.” And, I truly honor each one because each one, though imperfect, has had an impact on my process and who I am today. Each one taught me something, and each one is so greatly loved by God and so highly called by God that it’s only appropriate that I love and honor them as well.
I had no idea what this year was going to hold. Honestly, since I’ve moved here, a lot of the time, I’ve just been holding my head above water, doing my best to stand even when I feel so alone. Over the last three years, I’ve received countless words (a lot of times from complete strangers) about how even when I’ve had to stand my ground that I’ve never stood alone because God has always backed me. It’s been hard to know that’s there’s more that God has to offer of His presence and to push and challenge those around me to reach out for more when a lot of time, they’re only interested in the status quo, the routine, the man-made and man-pleasing program. But this is a prophetic call—to see beyond a desolate city to a treasure that will be discovered and can be rebuilt. How do we get the sweetness of orange juice? It’s only through the pressure of squeezing the fruit. If the orange were a person, I’m sure it’d hurt. I’m sure it’d balk at the challenge and pain, but without that force, there is no sweetness.
All last year and the beginning of this year, God pruned me to the most painful point I could’ve imagined. But, I am so thrilled to say that we’re starting to bloom again. The sweetness of the orange after all of that pressure is starting to spring forth. I couldn’t be more excited. New things are coming. It’s a new season. God told me last year back in August through a young lady at the Go Conference in Nashville, “When you’ve been standing alone, He was always with you. God is honoring you, His daughter, for every time you forgave. May you even now get a very clear grasp of your value, that you would not struggle with knowing your value. He’s beginning a new season for you. This is not a season of more pain but of abundance, favor, and His face shining on you. You’re going to find people in your life who love you as well as you love others. God examines the depths of your heart and finds an obedient daughter. He is healing those wounds inflicted by those who misrepresented His love.” I can’t tell you how many times between September and now that I reminded God (often in frustration), “You said you were bringing me to a new season where the pain stops. You said You’d bring people to my life to love me well. So? When??”
I had no idea the blessing God was bringing to me whenever I stumbled upon that conference in Ojojona. The pastor, Edgar, and his wife, Daniela, are my age, but I have never encountered people who honor or love me so well. I see in them everything I’ve believed is possible for Honduras but hadn’t seen yet. They truly live by faith in all provision, and they have countless, supernatural miracles to show for it. They live for God’s presence and are committed to doing missions in and through the Holy Spirit only. They are radical, obedient lovers of Jesus and lovers of forgotten people, and because of that, we are such kindred spirits. They were a refuge for me when Josuan went back to the streets, and I am so happy to say that they are now that refuge for Josuan.
Josuan spent about two and a half months between the streets and a center with loose rules. He’d leave the center, go get high, steal, get beat up, and come back to the center. They’d take him in, help him, and get him set up in high school again only to have him leave again days later. All during those two months, I was battling the spirit of death that was after him. I have come to learn that when I have dreams that something is chasing me, it’s because it’s chasing my children because that’s how the enemy gets to me is through harming my children. I kept having dreams that a spirit of death was after me, trying to kill me. I’d already seen the demon of death over Josuan before he left my house, and Pastor Edgar had told him in that conference that there were demons of death surrounding him but that God was his refuge. A few times during that two months, I got reports that Josuan was dead. At one point, I spent two afternoons looking for him—one in the morgue looking for his dead body because he was rumored dead and the other in the hospital looking for him amongst the unidentified patients. As it turns out, he was nearly killed by gang members when they asked him if he’d like to work for them. When he said no, they beat him up and left him unconscious in the market. He spent two days hospitalized. All during that time, God was at work in his heart. I kept offering him the option of going to Ojojona, but he kept refusing. I finally reached a place of peace where I wasn’t worrying about him, really had him placed in God’s hands, and was even prepared for the worst even as I pleaded for the best. Then, one day, around three weeks ago, out of nowhere, the center called me and said, “Please come get your son. He’s tired of the life he’s leading, and he wants to start over in Ojojona.” I picked him up that same day and took him home with me. He spent two days at home with me before I took him to the pastor in Ojojona. I was very cautious at first, but it soon became evident that he was, in fact, my real, very repentant son. And, he is doing to very well in Ojojona. He just got back from a retreat where God gave him a vision. Josuan had spent his 18th birthday in February in prison because he was taken in for being accused of assaulting and robbing people on a bus. In the vision, he was face-to-face with God in the midst of a great party of worship, and God told him, “This is the birthday party I’m giving you.” When he came out of the vision, someone handed him a piece of cake. This is stuff that only God can do…bring the prodigal sons home.
A month before Josuan wanted to go to Ojojona, during an evening alone with God, I asked Him why I felt like such an orphan, why rejection in church and ministry seemed to be so ongoing in my life, why I was losing fruit in Josuan, etc., and God said so clearly, “You’re fighting a spirit of abortion in ministry. Look up the stories. You are a redemption baby. You were called to be revolutionary.” So, first, He led me to Samuel, then Solomon, then Moses, then Jesus, then John the Baptist, then Joseph, then Jacob and Esau, and even to Heidi Baker who was born after her mother fought with sterility. He made it clear to me that every time someone was fighting with sterility or there was a decree by government to kill babies or there was a baby that died before a child was born that this was really a demon of abortion that was impeding that fruit for fear of a calling being fulfilled. But, the sons and daughters born as a fruit of that faith and obedience struggle are revolutionary.
My mom has always been very open with all of us kids that when she was 16, before knowing Jesus, she got pregnant and had an abortion. It’s been part of my mom’s life work to speak out against abortion because she knows personally the pain it causes and the difficult process of healing afterwards, and she’s always compassionately reached out to pregnant women in crisis pregnancy centers or women who are scared to be single moms without being judgmental or hateful. I was her first child born after that abortion, years later after she had met Jesus and gotten married. I’m the redemption baby. And, if Biblical history teaches me anything, it’s that that means that I’ve got a revolutionary call, but because of that call, Satan’s going to do everything he can to abort the fruit God has purposed for my life. I have struggled with fear; with feeling like I couldn’t do ministry on my own; worried about being a single, adoptive mother, etc. which all sounds like similar reasons to why a pregnant woman would convince herself to have an abortion. And, for the past six months, I’ve been having dreams about being pregnant and having a baby (pregnancy in prophetic dreams is representative of ministry) all alone, with no one to help me, and frustrated by that lack of help. So, God started dealing with that fear and really ask me, “What would you do in ministry or in life if you weren’t afraid?”
Only a few days before Josuan called me, I was in a home worship service Nelly was having. She had me as one of the people leading worship with a group of people from various churches and ministries. While I love to sing, I don’t have a very strong voice. I’ve only led worship once, and while God will give me spontaneous songs at home or even on my own in church services, I’d never sung a spontaneous worship song in front of other people before. But, during that home group, God started giving me a song (in Spanish). I was so afraid to sing it. I didn’t feel qualified. Fear of failure or fear of what the people there would think. But, God gave me my moment, so through tears, I sang it out until I felt released to stop…
I reject abortion. I reject abortion. I’m not an orphan. I’m Your daughter. I reject abortion. I reject abortion. I will give birth to what You placed in me. I reject abortion. I reject abortion. The victory is mine. I reject abortion. I reject abortion. I will give forth fruit because I’m Your daughter. I reject abortion…
The day that I left Josuan in Ojojona, I was driving the hour back home, and God said to me so clearly, “If you would not have sung that spontaneous song I gave you even though you were afraid, Josuan would still be on the streets. That is the impact your small obedience can have.” That revelation blew me away.
God has been faithful to preserve my remnant with Josuan, but there has been more loss. Elvis left the orphanage after two attempts to escape and much rebellious behavior to live with his aunt. He called me the other day, but he lives hours and hours away from me on the border with Nicaragua. He concerns me because he will be raising himself at 15, is accustomed to street kid life, and is surrounded by drugs and drug traffickers where he lives. Apart from Elvis, Marvin is no longer with me.
When Josuan left, Marvin and I pulled together for a period of time, comforting each other. But, I knew that wasn’t going to last too long. Lying has always been a major battle with Marvin, but new and more lies were popping up all the time. He had started smoking and being very rebellious with Raúl at work. So, I sent him for a week to Ojojona (before Josuan was there) to give him a chance to reflect on what he wanted because he was ready to go back to the streets. He spent most of that week in behavior that was so far beyond acceptable that it really brought me to a breaking point where I confronted him and said, “Look, you need to decide what you want. You don’t want to continue in Bible school. You don’t want to work, and my house is not a hotel. This is a ministry. If you don’t want to have anything to do with Jesus, you don’t belong here. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. We don’t serve demons of lying or drugs or stealing. So, you decide. You live for Jesus, and you kick those demons out of your life. Or, you let them stay, and you leave with them.” That night, I prayed and said, “God, if this kid really does want to change and still has the will to do so, let me know. But if not, give me the strength to send him on his way.” The following morning, he got up, happily gave me a hug, said he was going to church, and then went directly to steal from Raúl’s business which he’d been doing for months. Raúl caught him, and I personally packed his bags. Now, he’s living with his family. He has shown up at church and at Teen Challenge, and we’ve talked and are on good terms. I didn’t leave him without an option. He knows fully that if he wants to avoid street life that he can return to Teen Challenge or can ask to go to Ojojona. But, he told me directly, “Mami, I’m not going to go to either of those places yet because I don’t even know what I want or who I want to live for.”
Jonathan had a drug relapse even while in Teen Challenge only two days before he was to complete his year. This was not surprising to me. (We have a saying in Honduras about how it takes people a while to show their claws…it’s true.) But, that resulted in the pastor not letting him have temporary leave or letting him leave permanently so quickly. God actually used this because the plan has been to send Jonathan to Ojojona, but with Jonathan not being allowed to leave yet, it’s giving Josuan time to get settled and firm beforehand.
So, it’s the end of an era. For the first time in two years, I’m alone. I still have kids, but they’re not directly under my care. I still love and pray for my kids, including each one that I’ve lost. But, it’s time for a new season. I cannot tell you what a relief it is for me to have Pastor Edgar discipling and disciplining Josuan. And Josuan is so thankful to be there because he’s learning new things about the Kingdom of God every day. He still wants to come home and be with me, but that’s not happening right now. After two years of single motherhood, I’m at rest.
And, as part of that rest, I’m headed home for a month from May 25-June 25. After four years of praying that God would radically call my brother to give his whole life to Jesus and send him to the mission field, he is answering that call and is headed to Mozambique, Africa because he was accepted to Heidi Baker’s Harvest Missions School. I am so excited (and jealous) for him! He heads out at the end of May for three months, and God has been unspeakably faithful to bring in the finances to send him. I couldn’t possibly be prouder of my baby brother or happier with God for answering my prayer. If any of you would like to be in touch or visit during that time, feel free to let me know via sarah.crickenberger@gmail.com .
In the mean time, I’ve been turning a new leaf by teaching English classes. (Raúl may learn after all!) I teach to three different groups—a group of various people from various ministries, the people from Alvin’s church, and the young people at Pastor Edgar’s ministry in Ojojona (including Josuan). It’s going well, and I think God is really using these classes for two purposes beyond just language learning: 1) It has started to change the way that people look at me. The people I’m teaching are all people I know from ministry. Some have known me since I’ve moved here, but they see me as quiet, timid, not very authoritative, etc. That’s primarily because it really takes time and effort to get to know me. I’ve done the absolute best I can to avoid positions or the spotlight. I’ve tried to minister as quietly as possible to forgotten people. But, that’s also meant that the people in my life of ministry often have no idea who I am or what I’m capable of because they’ve never spent quality time with me. Pastor Edgar actually told me, “You know, you seem so quiet and reserved. I’m surprised how easily you manage and direct your classes with authority and ease. You could probably preach. Have you ever preached before?” Ha ha. Uh, yeah…numerous times since I was 15. And 2) It’s building my self-confidence as a leader. I know, perhaps better than anyone except God, what I’m capable of. But, I also know that no one else really expects me to be a good leader because I’ve been in hiding…trying not to get hurt any more, trying not to make waves, trying to be obedient to God without drawing attention to myself. It makes leaving that cave to lead just a tad more difficult when I know that very few people have seen my potential and have me pigeon-holed as something that I’m not. But English class is helping.
This post is incredibly long (sorry about that…just needed to be real about some stuff…maybe it helps someone), so I’m going to finish up. But, I will say that in the midst of Family of Promise Ministries finally being legal (we’re still lacking some final steps we have to complete before February that cost $700 but are still officially legal) and in the midst of just lining up with Pastor Edgar and comparing visions and feeling like one is the puzzle piece that has been missing for the other, new, big things are coming! The majority of the people on my board of directors for the ministry have felt like orphans in ministry. We’ve kind have been wandering about without direction, but in sending me to Ojojona and in meeting Pastor Edgar and Pastor Daniela, I feel like God opened a door I needed but wouldn’t have known how to find. I’m so excited for all that the future holds for me, my kids, my ministry, and my US family. God has so much more for us...let's go after it!
All of my love,
Sarah
The word that God gave me for this year was “presence,” and while we’re headed only into the month of May this year, I am astounded by how He is revitalizing me and my vision of the future with His presence. Really, this journey of going deeper into His presence and His person started with stumbling upon that conference in Ojojona in January. Only days earlier, on New Year’s, my dad had sent me a text message that I saved to my phone because he touched so clearly on a heart’s desire: “Happy New Year! I love you Sarah. I’m praying that you are strengthened, encouraged, and that the Lord ties you into a source of help and real fellowship in Him.” It’s been quite a journey since I moved here. I came with the idea that I’d be doing certain jobs and be part of family (at the Eagle’s Nest girls’ home), but that idea was quickly shot down only within months of moving here when the Eagle’s Nest closed. Since then, it’s been a lonely trek of finding my way, my niche, and my divine calling in this country, and more often than not, it’s not what others around me would push me into to (nor what I’d push myself into either necessarily).
Just being real with you for a moment, I want to ask: Have you ever felt like an orphan? I don’t really mean in the sense of not having biological parents. I mean as a follower of Jesus. Have you ever felt like maybe you’re in church but you don’t feel like you belong? You love Jesus with all your heart, but this institutional program thing just leaves you hungry for something else, something more? You’re in a ministry, but you’re the black sheep that no one “gets”? You’re looking at the spiritual horizon and see things that the people around you don’t see, and you think, “Is this just me? What’s wrong with me? How can no one else see this?” I want to be careful to honor all of the churches and pastors and spiritual fathers who have played a wonderful part in my process as a lover of my Savior. And I’ve hesitated to write about this although it’s been a forceful undercurrent in my life since I was very young because I want to be an instrument of honor and unity and not of division or blame. I am grateful for every person who has spoken into my life and every place of worship and season God has brought me to and through, so I in no way want to criticize. But, I know that I can’t be the only one who has felt like there’s got to be more.
For those of you who may not know me personally, I was raised in church all of my life. My family was the family who was there every time the doors were open, and my parents always held a position of leadership as elders or youth pastors or children’s church pastors or part of the children’s ministry team. I grew up as part of that legacy and learned to do what anyone in church leadership asked me to do regardless of my age. From that willingness (and religious though unconscious desire to earn God’s love—as if it’s not a free gift to receive!), I found myself writing an entire Vacation Bible School curriculum of skits and puppet ministry and directing adults two or three times my age in dramas when I was 11. I took on the position of youth pastor in a church with my mom as my only constant support system with a group of mainly teenage boys when I was 15 because supposedly there was no one else. And through lots of experiences like that, I kept God very much at an arm’s length trying to earn His love because in my heart I felt very unworthy of His love and had many childhood wounds that hadn’t healed because I had tried to forget them rather than let God deal with them.
When I was a junior in high school, I had this idea of what my life was going to look like, and when that naïve vision shattered through a series of revelations, I felt lost. I was always the girl with the plan. But that shake-up of my world and my mission of perfectionism brought me face-to-face with my Heavenly Father as He asked me, “Are you ready to really let me have your life? Are you ready to let me lead you on an adventure?” And, I was. Even after being raised in a home that supported missionaries often with great financial sacrifice and a father who urged me constantly to go on a mission trip, I hadn’t been interested. But, after hearing a message from a total stranger in a camp where I wasn’t a camper but just a camp worker for a summer job, I encountered the reality of how many people didn’t know Jesus, how many people didn’t have clean water, how many people struggled just to stay alive and find food to eat, and how many needed to know that perfect love. It wasn’t a tearful or dramatic call. It was simply a decision to let God fully have me and a knowing that I was about to become a person so far from my original limitations at 17. Months later, I took a short-term mission trip to Honduras, and the rest is history in the making.
Loneliness has been a theme in my life for as long as I can remember. It’s been a force that has made me draw so much closer to God and has pushed me to be brave in the face of timidity even since childhood. It’s given me a maturity I wouldn’t have reached in any other way. My parents raised me even as early as kindergarten to purposefully seek out the outcasts to be their friend even if no one else would. They taught me to defend the defenseless. And, for whatever reason, since 5-years-old, that was so ingrained in my mind that it became my personal mission even when it made me an outcast too. As I grew up, I felt very different, very solitary for as long as I can remember. It might have been because I was homeschooled when others weren’t. It might have been because I was a passionate Christian in the midst of normal teenage angst. And, while that feeling different shouldn’t have been so prevalent even in church, it was. At 12-years-old, while my peers were talking about boys and clothes, I was reading Tommy Tenney’s The Godchasers and was consumed with wanting more of God’s presence. This longing was aided by being in a church where a real outbreak of a Holy Spirit revival was present—miracles, unity, hours and hours of non-stop worship, prophetic words, and just a genuine feeling of being at home in His presence.
When my family had to leave that church because of my dad’s job change and a move, it really devastated us. I don’t think we’ve ever been the same since as individuals nor as a family. We had been so wrecked in God’s presence that the idea of “normal” church just didn’t satisfy anymore no matter how much we tried to pretend. We were still in church, but we all just kind of lost ourselves because we felt like we’d lost His presence. We had never learned that we could be a catalyst of that same presence in our home and community. But from that move, our family became the black sheep of church. We had tasted more of the Holy Spirit, and everywhere we went, we challenged for more and were met with staunch (though understandable) opposition from well-meaning folks who simply hadn’t been wrecked as we had. They didn’t know what they were missing, and the idea that something more could exist was a paradigm challenge difficult to handle.
After I got back from Honduras, I was a mess of questions. I got back to the US on a Sunday and from that Sunday in church, for four years, every time I entered any church service, all I could do was cry. I couldn’t even explain why I was crying. I was just overwhelmed every time I was in church. A close family friend and the pastor of the church where my family and I had met the reality of God’s person once told me, “Do you know why you cry every time you’re in church? The Holy Spirit is letting you feel the grief that He feels in not being welcomed even in His own house.” The questions I wrestled with when I got back were also difficult to handle. I couldn’t understand how the prosperity gospel I often heard in churches in the US could possibly apply to the Third World country I’d just visited. Something was skewed in our thinking. Something was wrong in our interpretation of God’s love, ministry, and favor. Why did we seem to think that we should be exempt from suffering when I’d just witnessed so many Christians in Honduras suffering with a smile and triumph in their hearts? What was I supposed to do with the stories I heard of Honduran teenagers who were murdered by their own friends whenever they decided to leave their gang to become a follower of Christ? How did that fit in the cookie cutter spirituality I witnessed every Sunday morning? What was I supposed to do with the reality of martyrdom when the most suffering a Christian close to me would go through for their faith would be being subjected to an elected government that didn’t agree with their political agenda?
I spent a lot of those four years outside of church because I just couldn’t handle the way my reality was shifting in the midst of things I saw to be nothing more than a routine façade. And, I have to tell you, that being out of church was so necessary for me. I needed that time to get to know God on a real, personal level beyond being spoon-fed. I needed that chance to ask Him all of my questions and realize that He’s not daunted by my doubt or uncertainty. He’s not frightened by my challenges because He is the answer even when religious depictions of Him don’t live up to His rightful personality and standard. And, in the midst of longing to know Him more, He also brought me to a place of facing the wounds I’d stealthily avoided letting Him deal with while I was in church. Perfectionism and earning man’s approval in church had been the Band-Aid that I’d slapped on a broken bone of not knowing how to really receive His perfect love. Without that placebo effect in church, I was left with only myself. Who was I without that system of earning religious points? What did it really mean to be a child of God? He found me and healed me so much more deeply than I had ever even realized was necessary.
At 13, when my family had moved for my dad’s job, I was in one of the darkest places of loneliness I’d encountered yet, and I had no other refuge other than my family and God. I had no friends. Being an “import” to a town where everyone is normally “born and raised” made it so difficult to break into the social structure and make friends—even worse for someone so shy. But, in that time, I just passionately fell in love with reading God’s Word with the Holy Spirit at my side. And, the verse the Holy Spirit gave me over and over and over again was Isaiah 58, especially the part about rebuilding ruined cities. I didn’t know it then but that was part of the call God had placed over my life. Years later, when I spent a summer in Honduras, a woman (who I later learned to be Raúl’s spiritual mom) gave me a word referencing Isaiah 58 and telling me that I was going to be a rebuilder for many young people who were currently desolate ruins.
When I decided to respond to the call of being a missionary in Honduras, I had no idea what that was going to look like. I didn’t go to missions school or seminary. I knew that my connection was Alvin Anderson and Manos Extendidas, and I had felt so captivated by their heart for street kids, for seeking treasure in forgotten people, and so at home in their ministry family. So, I decided to come, thinking that I’d be a teacher here and trying to figure out what my formal place was. I was up for whatever Alvin wanted me to do although God kept telling a very dumbfounded me, “Your call is not dependent on Alvin or Manos Extendidas. Even if at some point you’re not connected to them, you’re still called to Honduras.” But, in the last months of my senior year of college, I went home unexpectedly for a weekend and stumbled upon a documentary on Netflix about a woman I’d never heard of—Heidi Baker. Seeing her life as Mama Heidi amongst rescued street kids in Mozambique and hearing her wild story of passionate love for her Savior, tears just streamed down my face, and I watched it over and over and over again because I found myself—everything I’d ever wanted to dream or hope was possible after a childhood of supernatural missionary stories to a church encounter with the presence of God to developing a passion for missions in Honduras—in her story. Her testimony instantly made me a very different kind of missionary even if I didn’t realize it at first. No one had ever taught me that fruit in ministry comes from intimacy with the Holy Spirit, and most of the time, the examples I had were the contrary of missionaries running around like busy, crazy people with their personal spiritual lives as an afterthought because “that’s just ministry.”
In the past three years and seven months of being a missionary, the theme of being a black sheep has continued. It drives me crazy. Anyone who knows me well knows that I don’t like to make waves. I hate calling attention to myself. I am a very submissive person who likes to sacrifice my own preferences for those of others. But, God so captivated my heart that I cannot budge when I know He’s the one making me stand. I have to be honest with you that there is a cycle in church and ministry of wanting results and having something to show for our work that we often carry yokes that do not belong to us. When we’re overburdened and carrying weight not assigned to us, that often makes it much more tempting to shove other people into positions where they don’t belong and are not called by God simply because we’re cracking under the exhaustion and that person is another warm body who can do something to alleviate our stress. This was a hard lesson that God taught me at 15, and it has kept me from being so quick to do whatever someone tells me to do in ministry. I always say that I have to pray about it first, and a lot of times, my answer is no. It’s a policy that hasn’t made me popular to say the least. But, it so necessary that we guard our hearts in ministry. There is so much church hurt all over the world because when people are not treated with love for who they are and who God has called them to be but for what they do and what results they bring, they start to feel used. It’s religion versus relationship. Relationship loves others unconditionally for who they are whether they do something productive or not. Religion is conditional love based on the actions and results of others. It sends the message that you’re only valuable if you give forth results. That’s a dangerous message to send when we’re wearing a badge of Christ’s name and supposedly representing God’s nature.
I give you this lengthy history partially because it’s letting me process but also because I know that I’m not alone in this battle. Even though I’ve been hesitant to cover this area of my life, this is me, guys. And, this history gives you a glimpse into the reason my father sent me that text desiring real fellowship for me. When I was in Tsebaoth’s School of Prophets in January, they were talking in a class about spiritual paternity and how that relates to our relationship with biological parents. My relationship with my biological parents is great, so I felt like the ministry time of forgiving biological parents and letting God heal those wounds didn’t really apply to me. But, in an instant, God had my number. He said, “What about spiritual parents?” And He took me on a journey through a series of visions in my mind where I was in each and every church I’d been a member of but had been rejected for being so different. Each time, I was an orphan girl outside of the locked church just longing for a home, for spiritual parents to see my value as a person and not for what I could do for them. But, there I was alone and cold and rejected. And, each time, at each location, Jesus came and scooped me up in His arms and let me cry on His shoulder. He never left me an orphan even when no one else saw any value in me. And, after being rescued from each location by Jesus, He whispered in my ear, “Little one, they didn’t even know their own value. How were they ever going to see yours?” Even in the midst of great hurt in church, because of my parents and my upbringing, I’ve always done the best that I can to forgive. But, in that moment, I let God lead me through each situation with each spiritual father or mother and declare, “I forgive them. I honor them. And I bless their ministry.” And, I truly honor each one because each one, though imperfect, has had an impact on my process and who I am today. Each one taught me something, and each one is so greatly loved by God and so highly called by God that it’s only appropriate that I love and honor them as well.
I had no idea what this year was going to hold. Honestly, since I’ve moved here, a lot of the time, I’ve just been holding my head above water, doing my best to stand even when I feel so alone. Over the last three years, I’ve received countless words (a lot of times from complete strangers) about how even when I’ve had to stand my ground that I’ve never stood alone because God has always backed me. It’s been hard to know that’s there’s more that God has to offer of His presence and to push and challenge those around me to reach out for more when a lot of time, they’re only interested in the status quo, the routine, the man-made and man-pleasing program. But this is a prophetic call—to see beyond a desolate city to a treasure that will be discovered and can be rebuilt. How do we get the sweetness of orange juice? It’s only through the pressure of squeezing the fruit. If the orange were a person, I’m sure it’d hurt. I’m sure it’d balk at the challenge and pain, but without that force, there is no sweetness.
All last year and the beginning of this year, God pruned me to the most painful point I could’ve imagined. But, I am so thrilled to say that we’re starting to bloom again. The sweetness of the orange after all of that pressure is starting to spring forth. I couldn’t be more excited. New things are coming. It’s a new season. God told me last year back in August through a young lady at the Go Conference in Nashville, “When you’ve been standing alone, He was always with you. God is honoring you, His daughter, for every time you forgave. May you even now get a very clear grasp of your value, that you would not struggle with knowing your value. He’s beginning a new season for you. This is not a season of more pain but of abundance, favor, and His face shining on you. You’re going to find people in your life who love you as well as you love others. God examines the depths of your heart and finds an obedient daughter. He is healing those wounds inflicted by those who misrepresented His love.” I can’t tell you how many times between September and now that I reminded God (often in frustration), “You said you were bringing me to a new season where the pain stops. You said You’d bring people to my life to love me well. So? When??”
I had no idea the blessing God was bringing to me whenever I stumbled upon that conference in Ojojona. The pastor, Edgar, and his wife, Daniela, are my age, but I have never encountered people who honor or love me so well. I see in them everything I’ve believed is possible for Honduras but hadn’t seen yet. They truly live by faith in all provision, and they have countless, supernatural miracles to show for it. They live for God’s presence and are committed to doing missions in and through the Holy Spirit only. They are radical, obedient lovers of Jesus and lovers of forgotten people, and because of that, we are such kindred spirits. They were a refuge for me when Josuan went back to the streets, and I am so happy to say that they are now that refuge for Josuan.
Josuan spent about two and a half months between the streets and a center with loose rules. He’d leave the center, go get high, steal, get beat up, and come back to the center. They’d take him in, help him, and get him set up in high school again only to have him leave again days later. All during those two months, I was battling the spirit of death that was after him. I have come to learn that when I have dreams that something is chasing me, it’s because it’s chasing my children because that’s how the enemy gets to me is through harming my children. I kept having dreams that a spirit of death was after me, trying to kill me. I’d already seen the demon of death over Josuan before he left my house, and Pastor Edgar had told him in that conference that there were demons of death surrounding him but that God was his refuge. A few times during that two months, I got reports that Josuan was dead. At one point, I spent two afternoons looking for him—one in the morgue looking for his dead body because he was rumored dead and the other in the hospital looking for him amongst the unidentified patients. As it turns out, he was nearly killed by gang members when they asked him if he’d like to work for them. When he said no, they beat him up and left him unconscious in the market. He spent two days hospitalized. All during that time, God was at work in his heart. I kept offering him the option of going to Ojojona, but he kept refusing. I finally reached a place of peace where I wasn’t worrying about him, really had him placed in God’s hands, and was even prepared for the worst even as I pleaded for the best. Then, one day, around three weeks ago, out of nowhere, the center called me and said, “Please come get your son. He’s tired of the life he’s leading, and he wants to start over in Ojojona.” I picked him up that same day and took him home with me. He spent two days at home with me before I took him to the pastor in Ojojona. I was very cautious at first, but it soon became evident that he was, in fact, my real, very repentant son. And, he is doing to very well in Ojojona. He just got back from a retreat where God gave him a vision. Josuan had spent his 18th birthday in February in prison because he was taken in for being accused of assaulting and robbing people on a bus. In the vision, he was face-to-face with God in the midst of a great party of worship, and God told him, “This is the birthday party I’m giving you.” When he came out of the vision, someone handed him a piece of cake. This is stuff that only God can do…bring the prodigal sons home.
A month before Josuan wanted to go to Ojojona, during an evening alone with God, I asked Him why I felt like such an orphan, why rejection in church and ministry seemed to be so ongoing in my life, why I was losing fruit in Josuan, etc., and God said so clearly, “You’re fighting a spirit of abortion in ministry. Look up the stories. You are a redemption baby. You were called to be revolutionary.” So, first, He led me to Samuel, then Solomon, then Moses, then Jesus, then John the Baptist, then Joseph, then Jacob and Esau, and even to Heidi Baker who was born after her mother fought with sterility. He made it clear to me that every time someone was fighting with sterility or there was a decree by government to kill babies or there was a baby that died before a child was born that this was really a demon of abortion that was impeding that fruit for fear of a calling being fulfilled. But, the sons and daughters born as a fruit of that faith and obedience struggle are revolutionary.
My mom has always been very open with all of us kids that when she was 16, before knowing Jesus, she got pregnant and had an abortion. It’s been part of my mom’s life work to speak out against abortion because she knows personally the pain it causes and the difficult process of healing afterwards, and she’s always compassionately reached out to pregnant women in crisis pregnancy centers or women who are scared to be single moms without being judgmental or hateful. I was her first child born after that abortion, years later after she had met Jesus and gotten married. I’m the redemption baby. And, if Biblical history teaches me anything, it’s that that means that I’ve got a revolutionary call, but because of that call, Satan’s going to do everything he can to abort the fruit God has purposed for my life. I have struggled with fear; with feeling like I couldn’t do ministry on my own; worried about being a single, adoptive mother, etc. which all sounds like similar reasons to why a pregnant woman would convince herself to have an abortion. And, for the past six months, I’ve been having dreams about being pregnant and having a baby (pregnancy in prophetic dreams is representative of ministry) all alone, with no one to help me, and frustrated by that lack of help. So, God started dealing with that fear and really ask me, “What would you do in ministry or in life if you weren’t afraid?”
Only a few days before Josuan called me, I was in a home worship service Nelly was having. She had me as one of the people leading worship with a group of people from various churches and ministries. While I love to sing, I don’t have a very strong voice. I’ve only led worship once, and while God will give me spontaneous songs at home or even on my own in church services, I’d never sung a spontaneous worship song in front of other people before. But, during that home group, God started giving me a song (in Spanish). I was so afraid to sing it. I didn’t feel qualified. Fear of failure or fear of what the people there would think. But, God gave me my moment, so through tears, I sang it out until I felt released to stop…
I reject abortion. I reject abortion. I’m not an orphan. I’m Your daughter. I reject abortion. I reject abortion. I will give birth to what You placed in me. I reject abortion. I reject abortion. The victory is mine. I reject abortion. I reject abortion. I will give forth fruit because I’m Your daughter. I reject abortion…
The day that I left Josuan in Ojojona, I was driving the hour back home, and God said to me so clearly, “If you would not have sung that spontaneous song I gave you even though you were afraid, Josuan would still be on the streets. That is the impact your small obedience can have.” That revelation blew me away.
God has been faithful to preserve my remnant with Josuan, but there has been more loss. Elvis left the orphanage after two attempts to escape and much rebellious behavior to live with his aunt. He called me the other day, but he lives hours and hours away from me on the border with Nicaragua. He concerns me because he will be raising himself at 15, is accustomed to street kid life, and is surrounded by drugs and drug traffickers where he lives. Apart from Elvis, Marvin is no longer with me.
When Josuan left, Marvin and I pulled together for a period of time, comforting each other. But, I knew that wasn’t going to last too long. Lying has always been a major battle with Marvin, but new and more lies were popping up all the time. He had started smoking and being very rebellious with Raúl at work. So, I sent him for a week to Ojojona (before Josuan was there) to give him a chance to reflect on what he wanted because he was ready to go back to the streets. He spent most of that week in behavior that was so far beyond acceptable that it really brought me to a breaking point where I confronted him and said, “Look, you need to decide what you want. You don’t want to continue in Bible school. You don’t want to work, and my house is not a hotel. This is a ministry. If you don’t want to have anything to do with Jesus, you don’t belong here. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. We don’t serve demons of lying or drugs or stealing. So, you decide. You live for Jesus, and you kick those demons out of your life. Or, you let them stay, and you leave with them.” That night, I prayed and said, “God, if this kid really does want to change and still has the will to do so, let me know. But if not, give me the strength to send him on his way.” The following morning, he got up, happily gave me a hug, said he was going to church, and then went directly to steal from Raúl’s business which he’d been doing for months. Raúl caught him, and I personally packed his bags. Now, he’s living with his family. He has shown up at church and at Teen Challenge, and we’ve talked and are on good terms. I didn’t leave him without an option. He knows fully that if he wants to avoid street life that he can return to Teen Challenge or can ask to go to Ojojona. But, he told me directly, “Mami, I’m not going to go to either of those places yet because I don’t even know what I want or who I want to live for.”
Jonathan had a drug relapse even while in Teen Challenge only two days before he was to complete his year. This was not surprising to me. (We have a saying in Honduras about how it takes people a while to show their claws…it’s true.) But, that resulted in the pastor not letting him have temporary leave or letting him leave permanently so quickly. God actually used this because the plan has been to send Jonathan to Ojojona, but with Jonathan not being allowed to leave yet, it’s giving Josuan time to get settled and firm beforehand.
So, it’s the end of an era. For the first time in two years, I’m alone. I still have kids, but they’re not directly under my care. I still love and pray for my kids, including each one that I’ve lost. But, it’s time for a new season. I cannot tell you what a relief it is for me to have Pastor Edgar discipling and disciplining Josuan. And Josuan is so thankful to be there because he’s learning new things about the Kingdom of God every day. He still wants to come home and be with me, but that’s not happening right now. After two years of single motherhood, I’m at rest.
And, as part of that rest, I’m headed home for a month from May 25-June 25. After four years of praying that God would radically call my brother to give his whole life to Jesus and send him to the mission field, he is answering that call and is headed to Mozambique, Africa because he was accepted to Heidi Baker’s Harvest Missions School. I am so excited (and jealous) for him! He heads out at the end of May for three months, and God has been unspeakably faithful to bring in the finances to send him. I couldn’t possibly be prouder of my baby brother or happier with God for answering my prayer. If any of you would like to be in touch or visit during that time, feel free to let me know via sarah.crickenberger@gmail.com .
In the mean time, I’ve been turning a new leaf by teaching English classes. (Raúl may learn after all!) I teach to three different groups—a group of various people from various ministries, the people from Alvin’s church, and the young people at Pastor Edgar’s ministry in Ojojona (including Josuan). It’s going well, and I think God is really using these classes for two purposes beyond just language learning: 1) It has started to change the way that people look at me. The people I’m teaching are all people I know from ministry. Some have known me since I’ve moved here, but they see me as quiet, timid, not very authoritative, etc. That’s primarily because it really takes time and effort to get to know me. I’ve done the absolute best I can to avoid positions or the spotlight. I’ve tried to minister as quietly as possible to forgotten people. But, that’s also meant that the people in my life of ministry often have no idea who I am or what I’m capable of because they’ve never spent quality time with me. Pastor Edgar actually told me, “You know, you seem so quiet and reserved. I’m surprised how easily you manage and direct your classes with authority and ease. You could probably preach. Have you ever preached before?” Ha ha. Uh, yeah…numerous times since I was 15. And 2) It’s building my self-confidence as a leader. I know, perhaps better than anyone except God, what I’m capable of. But, I also know that no one else really expects me to be a good leader because I’ve been in hiding…trying not to get hurt any more, trying not to make waves, trying to be obedient to God without drawing attention to myself. It makes leaving that cave to lead just a tad more difficult when I know that very few people have seen my potential and have me pigeon-holed as something that I’m not. But English class is helping.
This post is incredibly long (sorry about that…just needed to be real about some stuff…maybe it helps someone), so I’m going to finish up. But, I will say that in the midst of Family of Promise Ministries finally being legal (we’re still lacking some final steps we have to complete before February that cost $700 but are still officially legal) and in the midst of just lining up with Pastor Edgar and comparing visions and feeling like one is the puzzle piece that has been missing for the other, new, big things are coming! The majority of the people on my board of directors for the ministry have felt like orphans in ministry. We’ve kind have been wandering about without direction, but in sending me to Ojojona and in meeting Pastor Edgar and Pastor Daniela, I feel like God opened a door I needed but wouldn’t have known how to find. I’m so excited for all that the future holds for me, my kids, my ministry, and my US family. God has so much more for us...let's go after it!
All of my love,
Sarah
