My Life Is Not Mine

    It’s Wednesday night and I am at church, sitting on the bench and listening to a sermon. I was at that point in my life where I had questions, like why am I on this earth. What is the purpose of my life on this earth. I am a christian my whole life. From a young age I knew about God. That night was a special night, I gave my life to God. After church service our youth decided to meet up and have one more prayer. I stayed as well, my mind was filled with so much questions and things that I was worried about.
    We all went down stairs and sat on the chairs, one guy started talking and he said that our lives are not ours. I was so confused for a moment, I was like “what do you mean?” so he explained. He said that God didn’t create you for you, He created you for Him. We can all live to survive, but never find out why we really here. Everyone has a purpose and God gave everyone a choice to live by what we were created to be or not. What he was talking about was the exact thing I had questions about. God worked so perfectly, He saw that I was seeking the truth, and He answered.
         He stopped talking and he said let's pray. I kneeled down and thanked God for answering my questions and for showing me the truth. When I was praying, God spoke to me. He told me not to worry, and that He will guide me through life. He also answered my prayers that I didn't have the answer to for years. I asked God why didn't I get the answer then, why now. He told me that I had question that I asked Him, but didn't fully gave my life to Him. He wanted a full surrender. When you give your life to God; now He is working in you and He answers your questions. He showed me what I was created to be, that night that I had all those questions, that night He answered. I gave my life to Him and now I live for Him and not for myself. I was created to be something more than I thought. I am a daughter of the King! Same as every one of you who is reading this, you are a son and a daughter of God.
     That night my whole life changed in a moment. I knew my creative waliu, I knew what God created me to be. All I had to do is give up what I was never created to be. He is our Father, He loves us and He wants only the best for us. After that night my whole life changed, I hear His voice and I follow Him. My life is amazing with Him. If the only thing you have in life is God, then you have everything you need. Life is perfect with Him, He gave you this life, and He wants to take care of you, He wants to talk to you. This is not some fairytale, it's the truth, I live with me, it happened to me. Your life is not yours, it’s His.

Let me share a story with you now…

In the middle of March of 2015 our youth from church decided to go on a missionary trip to Mexico. A month before that, our church announced that we were going on a missionary trip and asked every member of the church for donations. Our church collected money, clothes, candy for kids and made little gifts for kids. Our missionary group was big; our youth was ages from 16 to 20 years old and adults of course. We ended up having 30 people, but there wasn’t enough space for everyone so we had to make a waiting list. They could only take 25 people, so the extra 5 were people who signed up late so they were put on the waiting list, and I was one of them. I was the last one on the waiting list, and time was getting closer and closer till the day we had to go on a trip. I really wanted to go  but there wasn’t any open spots for me yet.  I was waiting for a miracle from God.
     A couple days before the trip we had a meeting. That meeting was important because they announced the people who are going and who was not going on the trip. They started announced names of the people who were going for sure, and the turn came to call on people from the waiting list who actually got in. My heart was raising, I was praying inside, I was telling God “God you know how much this means to me, I really want to go.” I was the fifth one one the list, and names were called, one, two, three, and four… the fifth one wasn’t called. I was sitting on a chair and my heart dropped, I didn’t hear my number. Well there was nothing I could I do...
Then someone yelled out “Hey, cross out that person, he just texted and said he can’t go!”. I gasped, “What!?” My prayer was answered, I got in! God is so amazing!
     Those three days before the trip I was the happiest person, you couldn’t get the smile off my face. I think no one was as excited as I was, it just meant a lot to me. The day came, we all gathered at church and got into our  sprinter vans and went off. It was a 24 hour trip to Mexico, seems like a long time but for us it went pretty fast. Time flies when you are having fun, right? We had two sprinters and both of them were packed with people and suitcases. We listened to music, talked, and prayed. Some people had chips as a road trip snack, and it smelled so bad. Can you just imagine, you’re sitting in a crowded place and someone opens a bag of smelly chips;  that was not a pleasant experience, afterwards I felt sick. Well let’s not talk about the  negatives, because the positive things are always more interesting.
     On the way to Mexico, we passed by a lot of beautiful places. We passed mountains, rivers, and when the day was ending, the sunset was so beautiful. The red was almost fire-like clouds and a blue sky, the bright orange sun, and mountains powdered with snow. It was a an incredible view. At night, when you look out the window you could see the whole milky way, so many stars and not a single cloud. The moon was shining so bright it wasn’t even dark outside. Looking at this beauty, so perfect, so detailed, it was breathtaking. It was in the middle of the night and everyone was still awake. We were talking about our plans and goals for this missionary trip. When we were talking, the adults suggested to start praying, because without God, our mission would be pointless. So we all started praying, and the Spirit of God came on us. We were praying even louder and tears started rolling down our faces. We prayed for each other and just blessed each other. After prayer we all fell asleep. In the morning the warm sunlight in our faces woke us up. The sun was peeking through the palm trees as we were driving, “wait, palm trees ?” yes we were so close to Mexico now, just hours away. We were happy that we were almost there.
     There we were, the Mexico border. We drove in and immediately it felt so unique. I was surprised how people were dressed. In Mexico you will never see people walking around in pajamas or sagging their pants. They all looked so nice: men were dressed in dress shirts and dress pants, women wore long skirts or pants and all of them were dressed very modest. I immediately fell in love with their culture. It changed my view and opinion on the people. As we were driving to our hotel we looked around and saw many interesting things. People lived very poor, the roads were all broken, it was hard to drive on them, the houses were very poor looking and there were a lot of people selling things like on a market along the streets. We came to our hotel and that day we just rested.
     The next morning we woke up early and hopped in our sprinters and went to an orphanage. When we came there, the second we came out of the sprinters, a bunch of kids just ran up to us and were looking at us without saying a word. They were little kids about seven to ten years of age. When we looked into their eyes, each child had their own story written in  them. Some eyes were full of sadness, anger and questions, others were happy eyes with a hint of sadness, full of hope and yet brokenness. We asked the director of the orphanage what was the story of these children, and he said that many of these children's parents were poor and didn't have the money to take care of them. Others were drug addicts, and some of them suffered a loss of their parents. It is very sad when you think about it: some parents are still alive, and yet these children count as orphans.
     We played games with them, ran around, and just shared Jesus with them. We told them that no matter what, God will never leave them and will always love them, even if our parents left us, or forgot about us, our Heavenly Father is always there. We prayed with them, sang songs and preached the gospel. When it was time to go we gave them candy and little presents: there were toys and colored pencils and coloring books. We also gave them new clothes and shoes. But the most valuable thing we gave them was love, and hope; we put smiles back on their faces. We left that orphanage with tears in our eyes, because that moment was so touching. We went to different orphanages that day and all the kids were left with smiles. We were glad that we could make someone happy and make them feel like they are needed and loved, all thanks to God.
      The next morning we went to a church. Before the service started we as a group walked around the streets knocking on peoples doors and inviting them to come and hear the gospel. Many people came that day. We welcomed them in. The people sat down and we sang songs of worship in Spanish, shared the gospel with them and shared how God loves them. We all told our testimonies of the miracles that God did in our lives. Some people that came there were people that just came to look at us, because we were from far away, but left with a purpose. We had a powerful prayer, we all gathered closer to each other and laid hands on each other. I was standing on the edge of the crowd praying for people, but then God spoke to me and said to go and lay my hand on a little girl that was standing in the middle of a crowd. The girl was about six years old, she was standing there, just with a blank stare, looking down at the floor; I came up to her and laid my hand on her head and started praying for her. When I was praying, she had tears in her eyes, and God just poured His love on her. After the prayer was over, someone told me that the girl I was praying for, came to church very sick, she had a very high fever and felt like fainting. After the prayer her sickness was gone immediately, the fever left her and she felt energetic. She had a smile on her face and was running around. All praise and glory to God! God healed her, and many people that were there. Our missionary trip wasn’t pointless, with God's help we were an example for people. It was such a blessing for me to be part of this, it changed my life forever. Seeing people get healed right in front of your eyes, made me think about who God really is. I feel like most of us have a wrong impression of who He is because of the things that happen in our lives. That's when our perspective of Him changes and we come up with our own definition of God. That day changed my view of God, and made me hunger to know Him, and  to know His will. We are here for a reason, every creation has its purpose, and we as people need to find our purpose. God created us to be so much more than we think. God didn’t create you for you, He created you for Him. That day many people gave their life to God, got healed, and joy was restored. It made me realise that the only thing God is asking from us is to give up what we were never created to be and be who He always wanted us to be. His love was on all the people that were there. The people who were broken, who have lost their hope found it again.
    After the service, we gave out food, clothes to families, candy and presents for kids as well as free hugs and blessings. When that was over, we were so hungry, it was lunch time. We decided to go to a restaurant to eat because the hotel was far and we still had to go to another service. As we were driving we passed by street musicians, they were dressed formal and had colorful sombrero hats. Some of them were with guitars and some played drums and they were singing songs. One of them waved at us as we were passing by. We came to a little restaurant that was an outside restaurant. The smell of grilled meat filled the streets. We all had watery mouths, the smell was incredible. We ordered tacos. When they brought us our food, we couldn’t wait to eat it. The soft warm tortillas, hot grilled meat, rice and all kinds of greens filled our hearts with joy. We began to eat, the looks on our faces when we were eating made the people next to our table laugh, it seemed like we hadn't ate in weeks. Well the food was so good, and we were very hungry.
     When the day was over, we came back to the hotel and rested in our rooms. Then, one of our friends came in our room saying that this guy feels really sick and he can’t get up. There were three other girls with me. We all jumped out of our bed and ran to the guy’s room as fast as we could. Their room was next door, so we ran in asking “What happened!?” Our friend said he suddenly started feeling sick and shaking. He was laying in bed shaking and we just kneeled down and prayed. We tried to call everyone else to pray with us, but they said that they are going to take him to the hospital. We said that our God is the greatest doctor, so we just prayed. After a short prayer, we got off our knees and went back to our room so he could rest. The girls were talking and I was sitting there and just couldn’t stop praying. I told the girls we need to keep praying for him, so we kneeled down in our room and started praying loud. Then I heard a voice that told the guy that was sick to get up, literally it repeated twice “Get up!” And I said “God if that voice is from you then heal him and make him get up!” Suddenly the guy that was sick came into our room with other guys. We all looked at him and he said that he heard us praying next door, and when we were praying he heard a voice that told him to get up. He said that the first time he heard it he was trying to get up, but was shaking and just fell down. Then he said he heard the voice again, and when he tried to get up, the shakiness was leaving him and he could stand up straight. After that prayer he felt amazing and was fully healed. It was a crazy experience, we both heard that voice. God is amazing, we need to trust Him. I realized that when you choose to take that step towards God, He is so faithful that He takes two steps towards us.
     After a week full of miracles, and amazing experiences we had to leave for home. It was a sad moment for us all. We fell in love with the food and culture and definitely the people. Saying goodbye to everyone was heartbreaking, and yet we were thankful for the experience. It left memories in our  hearts forever. It changed my life, made me realize how we need to cherish the things we have, sometimes we don’t even realize that the things we have, have a big impact on our lives, even little things like a coffee maker. Sometimes we realize how it was important to us when it’s gone. This trip was a big lesson for me. The people in Mexico don’t have the things we have. We stopped by villages where people live little houses made out of cardboard. You can’t even call them houses. We, on the other hand have everything we need and yet we still want more and more, not even realising what we have is more than enough. The drive home was amazing as well. We talked about what we loved and what we learned in that short week. Again our ride was filled with view of stars, sunset, sunrise, mountains, smelly chips, and laughter. We had a great time and hope to go again.