JOSH LEE

This past year I was really struggling with my faith. I was in a super dry period where I was distracted with school and friends, serving in KCM and church. I was busy and tired and I felt very distant from God. I prayed and went to as many Wednesday night prayers as possible but still couldn’t “feel” God. I wanted to be in his presence wherever I was but I couldn’t. This made me very frustrated and only made me yearn for God more and more I just couldn’t figure out what the blockage was.; church, school, praise and prayers, house churches, As STSM applications came around, I always had it on the back of my head especially because I was contemplating going last year. I was thinking hard and God convicted me to go. Prayer would mostly lead to the thought of missions, testimonies during MRN moved my heart, and singing praise brought new meanings that brought me back to the thought of missions. This was such a clear sign from God for me to go and because I hadn’t heard His voice in so long, I was excited to go, and I felt like He had something great planned for me and I could deepen my faith through this experience. 

Now as we came to Ecuador, I was passionate and excited to do ministry. Going to VBS would make me excited and I tried my best to love the kids and excite them as well. But as we kept doing VBS I slowly got into more of a routine, a schedule rather than being in the moment and being grateful that God has given me another opportunity to do His work and spread His love. As we explored, a unique opportunity emerged and that was being able to play soccer with the local Ecuadorian kids. I was so excited because I love playing sports and soccer is one of the sports I grew up with so being able to play with the kids and have fun with them was something I looked forward to. 

As I was playing, I was trying to steal the ball from someone but then I tripped over his leg. Everything hurt, my elbows got scraped but I dusted it off and I got up. But then when I started walking something felt weird. I thought at the time I just dislocated it but I broke my pinky toe. At that moment I was so discouraged and confused about why this happened and how it happened. Having this injury meant that I couldn’t be as physically active and I couldn’t participate in some of the skits or dances. This was so hard for me to let go and I told myself I was okay. With this injury, I was still active by chasing the kids around and playing sports because I just couldn’t watch and stay still. This made things worse so I eventually had to stop. It was so hard because this was all I thought I had and confident in loving the kids through playing sports or chasing them around. I couldn’t do that anymore. 

During this time I was so lost and felt useless, so I surrendered it all to God. I asked for His strength and to be filled with His love so that I could show His love to the kids. The next VBS day I was pushed to go talk to the kids during crafts. I was weary of talking to the kids because I didn’t know any Spanish. My lack of Spanish made me uncomfortable with communicating with them but I decided to make some small talk. I would ask the kids their names and from there I would start to break the ice a little. I would slowly tease them using the basic words I knew and they would find me to be funny and we shared some laughs. They would come to me when they needed help or just wanted to be around me. I would help them as much as possible and through God’s love, I was able to soften their hearts. Through His love, they were more willing to dance, pray, and even open to learning about the crafts. And by God’s love, I was able to plant seeds. 

In the following days, the kids would run up to me and hug me. More kids who I’ve never talked to would do the same and start talking to me. In all honesty, I had no idea what they were saying so I would just laugh or smile as much as I could. This experience is when I realized how powerful God’s love is. His love is universal and you don’t need to know a language to understand His love. 

I was so worried about how to love because my strength was taken away and I was not confident to talk to the kids but I just had to trust in God and let God work in that way. Not only did His love be poured out to the children I spoke to but it was amazing how contagious his love was by seeing the ways the other kids were responding to me. Seeing the kids be eager to hug me and coming up to me also allowed me to be filled with God's love and I was also received in that way. 

I learned many things during this trip and was truly refined through this experience. The biggest blessing I received was how God used me. God took away my strengths and used my weaknesses to allow me to realize that there are so many other ways to love one another. Although having a broken pinky toe sucks and I hope it heals well, I truly believe that God used me in that way and I was truly humbled by my abilities to do His work. Through this experience, I was truly able to experience the powers of God’s unfailing love. I learned that I need to change my ways and get uncomfortable to be truly used by God and experience Him. As I serve back at home, I want to get out of my old ways and obey God through the opportunities that He has presented to me. I want to glorify God’s name through sharing and using His powerful wonderworking love.