Week 5

God continues to do awesome things here in Florida! Last weekend was pretty challenging for me. It was really hard to find joy in my job. Working fast food can get very disgusting and I was also getting impatient with people. Definitely evidence of how sinful I am and how I won’t meet my expectations of how I should act. Sunday however, something changed and I started to find a lot of joy in working. Before work on Sunday I went to Celebration Church and the pastor went in depth on Mark 5 and on Jesus’ healing ministry. After church, a family invited all college students who were in Florida doing ministry projects over to their home for lunch. It was such a blessing to get a free meal and we got to connect with other students who were working at places like Sea World and Universal Studios with the same mission that we have: to see lost students trust in Christ! Sunday night we went out to eat with some of our work friends at IHOP after work and that was a lot of fun to be able to hang out with them outside of work. Monday morning we had bible study and we talked about Ephesians 2, one of my favorite passages of scripture. We talked about what it meant to be dead in sin, and that only because of God’s love and mercy does he send his son Jesus Christ to die on the cross and that salvation is a free gift, not by our works. It was so great to be reminded of that. Tuesday morning we had our prayer and share time, which was really encouraging. During share time, we sent messages out to friends over facebook so that we could start spiritual conversations with them. After that, Phillip and I went sharing and we got to talk to a man from Brazil! He couldn’t understand the questions on the survey very well, but then his wife came over and helped translate. His desire to know God personally was a high 9, so then I asked him if he wanted to go through the knowing God personally booklet and he said yes. I explained the gospel to him, while his wife helped translate a little bit. In the end I asked him if he wanted to trust Christ and he said yes! It was so cool to see that because this man was on vacation in Florida for just one week, and he had probably never heard the gospel before. It was also great to have a good conversation after getting rejected a few times earlier that day. On Wednesday we had our project men’s and women’s days. Us men went to a state park and went canoeing for a while down to a rope swing and jumped in and swam. The way back was a race. It was intense because it was down pouring and the water had alligators in it, but It was sweet! My team won the race because both of our canoes finished before other teams. After that race we had some down time and then had another race that included a long distance run, a short sprint, a downhill run, a long swim, and another long swim. I swam the first distance, and it was so tough! My team wound up winning again because we got our time cut off because we won the first race. After the races we had a cookout and talked about what it means to be a man in God’s eyes and connected our races to the R.A.C.E model we have for the summer: Reject passivity, accept responsibility, courageously lead, and expect the greater reward! After our talk, we were all blindfolded and were taken in cars, then walked a long distance in a line. We then took our blindfolds off and we were challenged to each of the 4 points in the race model. Yesterday I was able to spend the afternoon with some of my coworkers, which was a lot of fun. I got into a really good conversation with one of them that was a Christian, but had been feeling really distant from God since coming to the U.S. He seemed so happy to finally be with Christians again after so long, and he is planning on coming to church with us on Sunday! I’m really excited for that. Today I was able to finally sleep in, and tonight I go back to work! Please continue to pray for our team here that we would depend on God and walk moment by moment in the Spirit. Also, our staff is leaving next week and the project leadership will be handed over to us as students. We are both excited and nervous about this!

Berto