This past weekend, 60+ college students from Antioch Baton Rouge took a trip to the great city of Ft. Worth, Texas! We were in Ft. Worth from late Friday night until mid-day Tuesday and in these short 4 and a half days we got to see Jesus move!
We started off Saturday morning pretty early with some great Holiday Inn breakfast and then loaded up the bus to make our way to our first morning session. We got to hear an amazing word from Jamey Miller, the pastor of Christ Fellowship in Ft. Worth. He talked to us about the father heart of God in a way I've never heard before. He really took the time to explain to us that God IS a father. He loves us like a father and wants us to know it. Jamey really got us pumped up to go do our outreach that afternoon at a park in Ft. Worth called Foster Park.
Foster Park is located right by a low-income neighborhood, so we were super pumped to have a huge cookout to give away some free hamburgers, make some new friends and share the love of Jesus! Before the cookout, we got in small groups and went door-to-door inviting people to come eat with us. We had such an amazing turnout. So many people came and got free food. We laughed and ate together. What an awesome time.
That night, we got together and did what true Texans do best, attend a rodeo! We all put on our plaid shirts and cowboy boots and had a boot-scootin' good time!
Sunday morning, we got to attend the service at Christ Fellowship and hear another great word from their pastor Jamey. Jesus was definitely moving in that place! We also found out that before we left for church, a couple of boys from our group met a boy at the hotel who was also from Louisiana! This boy was in a wheelchair and our amazing men of God prayed over him and saw him get out of his wheelchair! God was doing some major healing that morning. So as a church we got to pray for this boy that God would give him complete healing!
After church we all got to chow down on some Mexican food to get us ready for our next outreach at La Gran Plaza, the hispanic mall in Ft. Worth. This was one of my favorite things we did on the trip. We walked around the mall meeting people, praying for them and sharing the gospel. I was in a group with two great men of God, TJ & Cameron. We got to pray for so many people, and it was so encouraging to see how receptive and open some people were for prayer. At one point at the mall, I went to the restroom and prayed that I would get the opportunity to pray for someone and completely rely on Jesus. Before that I was really relying on the boys to do most of the talking and praying, but I really wanted to make sure I could stand out and be bold. Not even 30 seconds after praying that, a teenage girl walked into the bathroom with tears filling her eyes. I couldn't ignore her, knowing right away God wanted me to talked to her, and asked if she was okay. Thankfully, she wasn't crying, she just had bad allergies but God really used this opportunity to make sure that I would be able to pray for her. Her name was Jocelyn and she was so sweet! I just got to talk to her and get to know more about her. She even let me pray for her and was so thankful. I felt so encouraged by God, because He didn't ignore my prayer! He knew Jocelyn needed prayer and He knew how badly I wanted to pray and share with someone. Jesus is so good! After that we all walked around and kept sharing the love of Jesus, while exploring through this hispanic mall. It was so much fun. Afterwards we went back to the hotel and shared our experiences together. So many people gave their lives to Christ that day!! One person in our group, who barely knew Spanish, was having a full conversation in Spanish with someone who couldn't speak English. Language can't hold back the power of God!
Monday morning our very own Jake Griffin, pastor at Antioch BR, shared the word with us! He told us about being holy and how to do so. We have to be 100% ready to follow Jesus, we can't just be 99% ready, because that 1% of sin would be holding us back from Him. God really showed up that morning, and made us so excited for our last outreach at TCU. We got to go share the gospel again where we saw even more people give their lives to Jesus! Completely amazing!
One of my favorite things that happened on the trip, was the transformation we saw in our bus driver, Joe. At the beginning of the trip, Joe really wouldn't speak a word to any of us. I remember a talking to a few people about how it really made us sad to see how unhappy he was. One of my roommates, Sara, said right away that Joe was going to give his life to Jesus by the end of the trip. She took every opportunity to talk to Joe, even when he really did not want to talk. She never gave up. God put a fire in her heart to see Joe give his life to Him, and she was going to make sure it happened. Sunday night, we all went and ate at a BBQ restaurant and we got Joe to come eat with us. He sat with Sara, Don, Bridget, Alex and I and we really got to know him. He is one of the funniest people I have ever met. He was keeping us laughing throughout dinner. Jesus was already starting to soften Joe's heart. The next night, and also our last night, Sara and Brandon got to eat dinner with Joe and share with him the gospel and guess what?! Joe was completely ready to give his life to Jesus!! Brandon told Joe that heaven was having a party right now and asked if Joe was ready to pray to be saved. But Joe told Brandon, that he was not ready yet. He wanted to wait until after everyone ate so all 60 of us could be there to witness Joe saying YES to his new life with Christ!! He said if heaven was having a party then he wanted to be having a party on earth! WOW! It was such an amazing surprise to see Joe completely changed from being unhappy and not wanting to talk, to wanting to celebrate his new life with all of us!! I found out afterwards, that Joe was really wanting a way to get out of New Orleans, where he lives, for Mardi Gras. He didn't want to be around that environment. He prayed asking Jesus to give him a way out, and not even 15 minutes later, our college leader, Blake, was calling saying we needed a bus driver to Ft. Worth!!
 |
| Joe getting saved outside of In-N-Out! |
Lastly, we all got to see healing in one of our very own! One of my great friends, Claudia, has lived her whole life with a speech impediment, causing her to stutter. It's been a struggle for her, especially now as she is getting her degree to be a teacher. She's had a professor tell her that she couldn't be a teacher with her stutter and her doctor tell her that her stutter is incurable. Hearing Claudia tell me these things broke my heart and I really got the feeling that God was going to heal her stutter. I talked to our Pastor, Jake, about it and he told me to keep praying for it and see what God says. So I prayed that night and the next morning that God would heal her stutter. That next day I heard Claudia tell Blake, "It's better already!" and I turned to her to ask what she was talking about. She said that Blake had got the feeling that God said Claudia would be healed from her speech impediment and she was prayed over for healing. I was BLOWN AWAY. Not only did God tell me that Claudia would be healed, but he told Blake too. We all prayed over her again and her stutter was starting to go away even more! Claudia is not completely healed from her stutter, but she saids it's already 85% gone! We can rely on Jesus that it will soon be gone completely because He isn't a God that heals partially. He heals FULLY!
 |
| Claudia and I after her healing!! |
This weekend has been such a life changing experience. I wish I could tell every story on here about the way God moved. I can't wait to see these miracles happen in Baton Rouge, at home and at school! Jesus is so amazing and loving. He always shows up when asked to. I'm so blessed to have an amazing church community to experience life with and who love Jesus with their whole hearts.
With Love,
