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Reports from the team...
Saturday, June 21
We left Los Angeles with 20 of us from Burbank and 6 from LAX since we
could not all get tickets to leave from Burbank. We did not encounter
any problems this time and the flight went smoothly. The team from LAX
arrived 8 minutes after us and we met each other at the luggage claim
counter with no problems. It took a while to rent the 4 vans and even
though we had a good rate, Alamo wanted $20 extra per day for those
below age 26 to drive so we ended up only with the main drivers and Josh
Yeh.
We drove up
to Andrew and Eunice Wang's (Lucy Chen's brother) in Northern Seattle
for lunch. Then we headed off to Canada. It took a whole hour for us to
cross the Canadian border, but we had no problems, just traffic.
After
meeting at Jack Young's house our "headquarters" (Jack and Lisa,
daughters Stephanie and Rebecca, and Henry Siu, a Regent student who
planned our Canadian trip and would accompany us for most of our
events), we headed off to FEC, the Fujian Evangelical Church. Vision
sang there 9 years ago, and we returned thanks to FEC Glendale members
who have many friends in this church. Since Pastor Tom still had a cold,
John Ngai spoke challenging us from the feeding of the five thousand. A
couple of people raised their hands for deeper commitment after he
spoke. We met many old friends after the concert, a couple of older
ladies who know Marshall's mother and siblings from the Philippines, a
childhood friend of Nehemiah's from the Philippines, Slim's "uncle", and
others.
Sunday
morning, we all went to Joy Fellowship, a service for handicapped
people. The place was quite filled and we could see the love of God
evident in their lives. Many of the Vision kids were humbled by their
lives, sincerity of worship and great joy despite their limitations. We
were invited to sing at 2 PM this afternoon at the habilitation center,
an added concert, so this note is to summarize what has happened so far
as we are now preparing to leave for this extra concert. God is opening
doors for us as we are here. Praise Him!
Sunday
afternoon and evening, June 22 After eating lunch at the Young’s (they
had prepared dinner for us for Saturday night not knowing the Fujian
church had invited us for dinner so we saved it for lunch Sunday), we
went to the rehabilitation center in Vancouver, the additional concert
we talked about at the first message. This Center is a huge complex of
buildings covering over an acre in which those who are handicapped, or
those who suffered injuries in accidents are sent to recover and rehab.
We were invited to participate in their Sunday afternoon service led by
one of the people we met that morning at Joy Fellowship. There were
about twenty people worshipping there, all in wheelchairs but we could
see they really enjoyed our thirty minute program. They were most
impressed by how many young men were in Vision (given their impression
that it was mostly women who went to church apparently).
We then
drove to VCBC (Vancouver Chinese Baptist Church) our host church. We
spent about two hours catching up on our group devotions, where we are
reading Rick Warren’s book, “The Purpose Driven Life”, taking two
chapters a day and starting a week before tour started. This book has
really challenged us to put God first, understand our worship is a
matter of pleasing God and not ourselves (so far in the book). We then
practiced our skits and warmed up with trying to learn the Bach
Alleluia. Then we were joined by about 15 members of the VCBC English
choir, the choir they started four years ago after Vision sang at their
church. We had asked them to learn the Handel “Hallelujah, Amen!” and
the Beethoven “Hallelujah from the Mount of Olives”. Their choir has
about 7 sopranos and 5 altos and only 3 tenors and 2 basses, just the
compliment of Vision this year, so together we had about 8 to 12 members
per section. After Vision sang a full program, and Pastor Tom Cheng
delivered his stirring message based on Matthew 6 on storing possessions
in heaven and not on earth, about 15 to 20 people responded with a
desire to live a life more focused on eternal values. Then we concluded
with our joint choir singing the two magnificent classical Hallelujahs.
It was a wonderful sounding and spiritually moving experience, to get
such a full sound from the singers. Praise God for the great concert and
good response.
Monday, June 23
We met a the Young’s at ten in the morning to worship and do our group
devotion. Only Nehemiah, who had a sore throat when he left LA is
somewhat sick. Everyone seems well rested after the long day yesterday.
This afternoon, we will be heading to a homeless ministry in Richmond
and assist in feeding them in the early evening. Tomorrow is our first
prison visit, please pray for that.
Monday afternoon
We
went to Lifeline, a ministry of counseling and caring which we also
served with 4 years ago. Since then, someone donated a plot of land to
them at the north end of Richmond with two houses on it. We arrived
there to help out with their ministry and basically help them feed the
homeless that night in Vancouver. We were separated into several teams:
4 painted, 2 mowed the lawn, 2 weed-whacked, some pulled weeds, three
cut up onions, three washed out their food van (boy, that was a messy
and smelly job), some sorted out old clothes for handing out to the
homeless that night, some built shelves, some cleaned out their
storeroom, and of course, some cooked the dinner and made sandwiches for
the homeless, something for everyone. It was interesting and good for us
to serve God physically doing manual labor. We then ate some of the food
we prepared, it was a simple meal of chili soup and tuna salad
sandwiches, to us, not very satisfying, but to the homeless, the only
meal that day. We then drove to downtown Vancouver and met to pray and
then met the homeless in an empty parking lot. There were about 200
people there, waiting for food and clothes and groceries. We sang,
served food and gave out clothes and groceries, and talked to whoever
was willing to talk. One young man was a successful telemarketer, but
because of drug addiction, lost his job, home and was now trying to get
back on his feet. He has now been drug free for several months, and
grown to appreciate his fellow homeless and wanted to stay and help
those around him so he is struggling with what he should do. Several
Vision folks prayed with him. Another insisted vehemently about the
hypocrisy in the church as his reason for rejecting Christ, and there
was no way to get him to listen. How often we shut God out for the wrong
reasons.
We found out
that this ministry owes property tax of $4000 (Canadian) at the end of
June. We talked to Dave, the leader and asked how much he had raised. He
said $1500 and was trusting God for the remainder. He has a vision of
expanding this ministry to feeding the homeless everyday (instead of
once a week as he is doing now), and Dave admitted his need of getting a
good business manager to help him in administration. We felt badly for
him, and as we did in Cambodia last year, took a free will offering from
among our kids. Praise God, we collected $1000 (U.S. which is about
$1350 Canadian) which we will give to him. (This money is from the
Vision members and not money which you gave to support us). We thank God
we can share in others‚ ministry as brothers and sisters in Christ.
Tuesday, June 22
After meeting for worship and devotion, we left at 11 AM for Willingdon
Church, where the Lighthouse Ministry is doing a fund-raiser for among
senior adults to support their work of working with seamen on boats.
Vision was invited for lunch and asked to sing. There were about 200
some guests there, not including us. We sang and heard about the
Lighthouse work. An old gentleman asked for a tape of our Alleluia, to
give to his 21 year old son doing youth ministry to inspire them to sing
similar songs for God. We then drove to Mountain Institute, a prison at
Agassiz,, about 20 miles further than Chilliwack, out first prison. We
arrived about 4 PM, so we visited Bridal Falls, a 15 minute walk from
the highway exit we need to take and saw a marvelous waterfall, pristine
in its beauty and shimmering in the sunlight. We ate our sandwiches by
the falls and praised God for his amazing creation. Then we split into
two groups. Since we only had ten singers older than 18, Joseph and
Pastor Tom led this group into the prison. Even though Wayne forgot his
ID, God was gracious to allow him to go in with the others and they sang
and ministered to a dozen inmates, all Christians. They had a good time,
with Jeff giving his testimony. The rest of us drove to Harrison Lake,
about 6 Km east of the prison to enjoy the scenery and pray for the
prison team. We sang along the shore of the lake and prayed for about
half an hour, singing to God alone. Three of the guys went swimming in
the freezing water (but no one got sick yet from that experience) while
the rest of us enjoyed the scenery and walk. We then met the prison team
at about 8 PM after they left the prison and drove back to our hosts
homes. Thank God for a hard day, but it was good.
Wednesday, June 25
We set up a new ministry opportunity when we sang at the Lighthouse
fundraiser to actually go and minister to the seamen today. After group
devotions, we packed up our left over dinner from the night before and
headed out to North Vancouver where the headquarters for Lighthouse is
located. There we met up with Paul, a full time chaplain and William,
their fulltime Chinese chaplain. There we split into two teams, a
Mandarin speaking team that will go on a Chinese boat and an English
speaking team to go on a Filipino boat. Pastor Tom went with William to
go on the Chinese boat. There we sang and talked to the senior staff on
the boat (the boats have a full crew of twenty something with a little
less than half being officers). The Chinese captain was very kind to us,
and even served us coke from China, which I am told tasted awful, but
the thought was there. We were then given a tour of the boat and
returned to the Lighthouse Centre about 2 PM where we ate our lunch.
Marshall
went with Paul and the non-Mandarin speaking team to the Filipino boat.
There we also sang (by coincidence, we sang the same songs) but Nehemiah
also gave his testimony in Filipino to about a dozen officers and
crewmembers. Paul then gave a short salvation message. Nehemiah said he
was amazed that he could remember some of the words he used; we think
the Holy Spirit gave him special language skills just to talk to these
sailors. We then talked to the sailors individually. One prayed with
Tina to accept Christ even though it seemed he was already a Christian.
The Captain said he was Catholic, and was very kind to us. He not only
served us Canadian Coke, but sandwiches too, spam and lettuce and
cucumber. It tasted quite good. The Filipino Captain gave us a large
offering for Vision’s ministry and then also collected an offering from
the sailors for us and another offering for the Lighthouse ministry.
This is grace, getting what we really do not deserve, in food and also
money. John and Debbie talked to a couple of sailors who were having
problems with the concept of a Triune God and understanding how Jesus
can be God‚s son and Father in one God. We left him some literature and
prayed for further understanding. We were then given a tour too,
spending time in the engine room as well as the helm. We then returned
to meet the other team and eat some more.
About 3 PM, we left for Granville Island where we were given permission
to use their stage area to sing to the shoppers and visitors. Granville
Island is like Ports of Call in San Pedro, and Old Town Pasadena rolled
together. We had stage time from 4 to 5 PM. We would sing for ten or
fifteen minutes and then break off to talk to the listeners, then sing
some more and repeat the process. Altogether, we sang three times. There
were a handful of VCBC church members and a few Canadian visitors there
to listen to us. Many thanked us for singing, but the crowd was not all
that great. We then returned to the Young’s for a dinner of Won Ton and
Fried dumplings. A lady who is a member of VCBC makes these for a living
but donated 400 of them for us. After dinner, we spent over an hour
praying and worshipping, the Spirit of the Lord was with us and many
tears were shed. We then practiced a bit before returning home to wash
clothes and get ready for Thursday’s activities.
Thursday, June 26
After group worship and devotion and lunch, we headed to Holy Family
Hospital, a Catholic hospital for the elderly. A large crowd of the
elderly (about 40) and some many of the staff helping them were there.
We sang, did the chair skit from the past, Alex and Echo each gave their
testimonies, sharing about their respective grandfathers and how God was
working in each of their lives. Pastor Tom also spoke for about 15
minutes and then we spent a few minutes talking to the elderly
individually. As we prepared to leave to go to the prison in Mission
(Ferndale Prison, a minimum security prison), we found John’s car had a
bad flat tire. So we spit up into the two teams (older prison team) to
leave first so they would have time to eat before the prison while the
younger team stayed behind to replace the tire and leave later.
We met at
the Westminster Abbey, a Catholic Monastery in Mission, and a few
minutes from the Ferndale Institute. By the time the younger team got
there, John had plenty of time to eat so he went to the prison to speak
instead of Pastor Tom. There were about a dozen inmates there but by the
end of the program, about 20 showed up. After John spoke, one man prayed
to receive Christ while about 8 rededicated themselves to follow Christ.
There was the usually sharing afterwards. One man’s tale was inspiring.
He had committed a crime in Canada, but escaped to the Caribbean. After
finding Christ, gotten married and had a child, he decided to return to
Canada to face the music, and in a couple of years, he should be freed
to return, a free and family man. God can change lives.
Meanwhile,
the younger team enjoyed the grounds of the monastery. We sang by the
lake, then joined the monks in their evening prayer service at their
magnificent sanctuary, a beautiful building with wonderful stained glass
windows. For many of us, it was an interesting experience of listening
to the monks chant prayers, listen to a reading from St. Augustine‚s
sermons, and observe their mode and style of worship. We then drove back
home for sleep and rest.
Sunday, June 29
We had to get up early today to go to VCBC and practice with the VCBC
English choir so last night was a short night and most of us were quite
sleepy, but today is a special Sunday for VCBC. First, we were there and
were to sing “Fairest Lord Jesus” as a call to worship and “Majesty and
Glory”, Beethoven’s “Hallelujah from the Mount of Olives”, Handel’s
“Hallelujah, Amen!” and “God Is So Good”. Second, VCBC had the ministry
group of 24 from the Southern Baptist churches called World Changers
there. They are here to do some construction projects in Vancouver,
including fixing up a guesthouse at the Sikh Temple as a means of
outreach to the Sikh‚’s, and help build some displays along Fraser Ave.
for the merchants in the area. So after service, they had a special
b-b-q lunch for all of us. Since I conducted the joint choirs last
Sunday, I gave the honor of conducting this Sunday to Danita, the VCBC
choir director for the first three songs, and Joseph Hsuing conducted
the last two songs. It was wonderful having over 40 voices sing these
magnificent pieces of music in worship and praise to God.
After lunch,
we met up with William, the Chinese Pastor from Lighthouse and he
brought us down to the Surrey Docks. We did not have any appointments as
we went down, but we went by faith, praying God would open the doors to
some boats there. When we arrived at the Lighthouse Centre, William got
on the phone and said there was one boat three and he would drive down
and check with the Captain. That meant half the group might go. When he
returned, he said he found another boat, so all of us could get on the
ship. We broke up into two teams and went on board, sang and toured the
boats (another Filipino boat and one from Miramar). We were asked to
sing “Happy Birthday” to one of the crewman, and planted some seeds but
no one prayed to accept Christ.
We then
returned to the Young’s where we met all the hosts and had a wonderful
potluck supper. We were able to thank all the hosts at once and express
our appreciation for what they are doing for us. May God bless them for
their hospitality.
Monday, June 30
Wow, we have been here over a week already. We thank God that He has
done so much and showed us so much in the time we have been here. After
getting together for worship and devotions, we took a quick survey to
find out that everyone is reasonably healthy. James has his stitches,
Debbie and Gloria have slight colds, but everyone else seems to be
pretty good, so this is the healthiest we have been for the last several
tours.
Right after
lunch, we headed for the Salvation Army Nursing Home in Vancouver. This
turned out to be a beautiful place with nice apartments for the seniors.
We met one lady who was 101 and in quite good health and several in
their nineties. We sang to 40 or more seniors, did the Dear Mr.
President and The Chair skits, and Stephanie Huang and Joshua shared
their testimonies. We ended the program singing the Canadian National
Anthem, which many of the seniors said was the best rendition they have
heard. The nursing home treated us to Okanagan Apple juice and BC
Cranberry juice and Butter Tarts, a Canadian specialty, delicious raisin
tarts sort of like the Pecan tarts one gets in the South US. We returned
to the Young’s‚ and after a quick dinner, headed off to the Union Rescue
Mission in Vancouver. This turned out to be a well-kept building with a
chapel seating of over 100 and dinning facility for about the same
number. We sang two quick programs of 30 minutes each at 7 PM, after
which the audience got fed, and at 7:35 PM. Kendrick shared his
testimony in the first service and Debbie shared hers in the second.
Pastor Tom spoke about 7 minutes each time but he was extremely
effective in the few minutes he had. Eight people raised their hands to
accept Christ at the first service and four did the same at the second
service. We also met some members of the Ebenezer Baptist Church on
Fraser St. who had come to present their program at the rescue mission.
But they graciously prayed for us and stayed to listen to us when they
found out we were there from California. They are members of the
Northern Baptist denomination, but they also were entertaining the World
Challengers (whom we met on Sunday at VCBC). We felt very privileged to
meet such gracious brothers and sisters in Christ, willing to give up
what they practiced and worked for out sake. Their prayers no doubt
played a big part in the good response we received tonight even though
we only had 30 minutes to sing, testify and preach a message. God does
not need hours for His Holy Spirit to work and convict hearts. We then
returned home early to rest up.
Tuesday, July 1, Canada Day
Today is Canada’s 136th anniversary. We are invited by the Brentwood
Alliance Church to join in their celebration of this holiday. The
Brentwood church is doing a carnival on their property as a means of
attracting their non-church neighbors to come to church, to introduce
them to church in a non-threatening manner (much like the Glendale
picnics and the Arcadia Tea). So after group worship and devotion, we
ate an early lunch and headed out to North Burnaby where the church is
located, arriving about 2 PM. They had balloon bounces, miniature gold,
all kinds of children’s games as well as snow cones, popcorn, hot dogs,
cotton candy and all kinds of goodies. A band played from 2 to 3 PM.
Then they raffled off some prizes donated by the nearby merchants, and
we sang “O Canada” their national anthem and for another 30 minutes or
so while they cut and served the cake. Most of the Vision kids ended up
with washable tattoos of the Canadian maple leaf or flag and various
souvenirs. Some of the group then met with their hosts of family friends
for dinner, since this is the lightest day of our tour. A small remnant
of us returned to the Young‚s for dinner and an early night. Since they
were still not feeling well, Debbie and Alex stayed home to rest up and
did not join us in our singing and Canada Day celebration.
Tuesday, July 2
We had to leave early today to go to Regent College to attend and
participate at their morning chapel service, so we did not have time to
do our group devotion in the morning. We drove separately to Regent,
located adjacent to the University of British Columbia campus, a
beautiful drive bordered by forest and trees. Dr. James Houston started
regent 30 years and we were fortunate to hear him preach at the service
and hear scripture read by his wife with a marvelous Scottish accent. We
opened the service with the Ralph Manuel “Alleluia”, and then led the
congregation in singing the hymn, “Dear Lord and Father of Mankind”.
Houston spoke about the essentials of worship, how we need to focus on
the cosmic God and not so much on ourselves and mentioned a meeting
where he counted 45 “I’s” or “me‚’s” sung and not a we (I think it was
the last FECA spiritual formation retreat he was referring to). We ended
the service with Handel’s “Hallelujah, Amen!” The chapel was quite
packed and we enjoyed the wonderful atmosphere of singing on a
God-centered campus.
After a
picnic lunch on campus, we drove to the Marpole Place for Seniors and
sang an hour program to about 20 senior citizens, including a lot of
Chinese (Cantonese) elderly. Grace and Wellman gave good testimonies and
we did our usually program with no preaching from Pastor Tom. We had a
good time talking to the folks both before and after the meeting. We
then drove a short distance to VCBC where we had our group devotion for
the day. We then left early so each household could take their host
family out to dinner as our thanks for their hospitality.
Thursday, July 3
Today
is our last day in Vancouver. We met for group devotions at the Young’s
and ate a quick lunch to go and sing our last concert. But on the way
there, we stopped at the dumpling store of the lady who donated 400
dumplings and won ton for our dinner last week. She was overwhelmed by
our presence as we sang “The Lord Bless You and Keep You” to her. After
this one song, we then went to the Senior Wellness Center which met at
the same place we sang last Friday, but this was a different program run
by a different organization. This time, they cautioned us not to get too
“religious” so we tried to keep our program light, but even Joseph’s
testimony about what we did on tour bothered the people who ran the
program. However, Henry said as long as the Marpole Place for Seniors
(July 2) was OK, these people would be OK too, even though they were not
too happy with us then. One of our vans was accidentally locked with the
keys in there, but the CAA showed up to unlock the car by the time we
were ready to leave. We then drove by Jack Young’s clinic for him to
debrief a few people in Vision who took some hearing and vision tests
from him. We then headed back to Seattle. Because we took the truck
crossing instead of the Peace Arch, we were able to get through the
border in only 20 minutes instead of the reported 90 minutes at the
regular crossing.
We arrived
in Seattle at about 6 PM. Since it is Debbie Lock‚s birthday and she and
her parents wanted to invite the team to celebrate her birthday, we all
ate at an all-you-can ˆeat Chinese buffet. After a long dinner and cake,
we went to our new Seattle hosts home for a good sleep. At this point in
our travel, most of those who were sick and stayed home for a day or so
are reasonably healthy. Only Thomas, Kendrick, and Gloria are a little
sick. James had his stitches taken out a couple of days ago and looks to
be healing well.
Friday, July 4
We met at 10 Am at Hope Central, a faith based ministry working with
Operation Nightwatch (for the homeless). Hope Central runs a children’s
ministry and day care program. We got there at ten in the morning to
help clean up the homeless shelter, buy and cook lunch for the 30-40
kids who were there for Hope Central, played with them, fed them and
sang a short program for them. Then some of the Vision guys lighted
fireworks which the children enjoyed. We left at 3 PM to drive to a park
close to Pastor Sam’s home. Sam is the English pastor at ECC where we
will sing on Sunday. We played softball and basketball and soccer with
the high schoolers and college students from ECC and had a B-B-Q dinner
at Pastor Sam’s. Because debriefing is early on Saturday, we returned to
our hosts to get some sleep before a long day of debriefing and concert
tomorrow. Since the sun sets almost at 10 PM, it will be quite a while
before it gets dark enough to see any fireworks here, unlike LA, but we
had a mini-fireworks show already earlier at Hope Central.
Saturday, July 5
We all went to Pastor Tom's cousin's home and spent the whole day
debriefing, sharing lessons of what God has taught us on this trip and
what we want to bring back to LA. We started at 8:30 in the morning and
got through a little before 4 PM. Many tears were shed as we realized
how much God has blessed us and how much we need Him. Some of these
sharing will be sent in the final report. At 4 PM, we all drove to the
condo of Pastor Tom's sister and brother-in-law. Although three
different doctors said he would not survive through last weekend, he is
actually feeling stronger this week and Pastor Tom had a chance to visit
him and we went to his place to sing a couple of songs to him. Then we
headed to Lake East Chinese Church for our evening concert. We showed up
a few minutes after 4:30 to find all their choir waiting for us. We
practiced "Majesty and Glory" together and then shared about the music
ministry and vision we have in Vision. After dinner, we sang to about 50
people, including long time former FEC members David and You Huei Ni and
their sons, Alex and Brian and Larry and Grace Li. The concert went
beautifully with Vision and the joint choirs singing their hearts out.
Pastor Tom gave the message and 7 people total responded with decisions
to live lives of eternal significance. Before we left, Larry and Grace
invited us over to their place on Mercer Island for lunch tomorrow after
service at ECC. We then returned home for rest since we have to meet at
ECC at 9 AM tomorrow all packed and ready to leave. The LA return team
will be leaving directly to the airport and missing the last performance
at ECC on Sunday.
Sunday, July 6
Seven of us, all basses and tenors, left to return to LAX on the 10 AM
flight since the long July 4th weekend had prevented those who were not
sure about their travel plans earlier from finding seats on the later
flights. This left us with only 18 singers , basses and 5 tenors (2 with
bad throats) but we sang a full 30 minute program at the English service
at ECC with Pastor Tom speaking for another 20 minutes. Tina gave her
testimony and we presented the Dear Mr. President skit, a skit about how
we pray. Tom met so many friends at the church he used to attend it was
difficult to tear him away, but we eventually left for Larry Li’s for
lunch. The Ni’s also joined us for lunch and Marshall and Meiring had a
good time remembering the early days of FEC with these old members.
We left at 3
PM to return to the airport, return the vans and checked in with no
major problems, the only issue was Tina having bought the ticket in her
nickname and her passport and all her ID’s had her Chinese name, but the
agent was very helpful and got her through security. We were met at
Burbank by most of the team that left early that morning along with many
of the parents of the arriving group. As in past tours, we have seen God
working in marvelous ways. He pours out His special grace on us to
enable us to do things we never thought possible. Thank you all for your
prayer support.
Here are just some of the comments from the debriefing:
- Two
people ( a homeless and a prisoner) told me I should be a full time
minister. I thought this year would be the easiest but it turned out to
be the hardest.
- When I
got sick, God taught me a lesson. Got me thinking that I couldn’t do
anything. I wasn’t happy that I had to stay back. I was thinking that I
got to get my mind set right. God is in control not me. Do whatever I
can do and let God do the rest. Being on tour, it took me out of my
comfort zone.
- Close to
home, and a beautiful city. Hard to keep focus. Great ministering to the
prisoners (most enjoyable of the time) my favorite because I felt that
they wanted us to be there. Learned a lot about myself, more than he
dreamed of (or thought). One thing I learned was I was living under a
false image of my God, living under that false image for 4 years!
- One thing
I learned the most was forgiveness. Being a leader, you have to forgive
people and to ask for forgiveness. You’re going to be in a group with
people you don’t like, or vice versa, I have to ask for forgiveness and
forgive them.
- This tour
showed me how much I loved living a missionary’s life. And I love
serving all of you and it also showed me that I loved serving people
through worship and music. I think that is what God is giving me
(musical abilities).
- Before
tour, I was ok spiritually but the night before I had to leave I had a
lot of problems with family and friends. God taught me a lot through
tour, especially through the circumstance and problems. It has been hard
but I have been focusing on serving others and showing God’s love and I
felt that was more important than my problems. I went through these
circumstances so God could teach me a lesson. I learned a lot on tour
than I had on any other mission.
- I don’t
feel like I spent enough time with everyone but it’s good to realize
that he will teach me in other ways. What I also learned was how
praiseworthy God is. “God is so awesome” Showed me that God is most
worthy of our praise even when we are distracted or upset.
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