International mission trips provide amazing experiences. It is highly recommended that youth groups provide the opportunity for students to go on a international mission trip. However wonderful it may be, may young people can’t afford to pay their way. On the other hand, those who “really” serve others less fortunate, will find a way…
Support letters are a wonderful way of allowing God to provide for you through family members and friends. Following is a Mission Trip support letter I sent out before our mission trip to Chiapas, Mexico.
Please allow me to share with you something I have been dreaming and praying about for quite some time now. It’s actually a desire I’ve had ever since I became the youth minister at Redeemer five years ago. God is making it possible for our youth group to take a foreign to Chiapas, Mexico this summer! Our desire is to help Nathan and Julie Terrell, a young missionary couple our church supports and take the good news of Christ to the Ch’ol people of Mexico.
The Ch’ol people are one of the indigenous groups of Mexico (Mexican Native Americans or Indians). Their roots are Mayan. A vast majority of the population speaks only Ch’ol. They speak Spanish at the same level of a US high school student. The Ch’ol people have an agrarian subsistence living (corn, beans squash, cattle, sheep, goats and some vegetable) and they cook their food on open pit fire, usually with no chimney.
In April of this year (2009) I had the opportunity to go on a scouting trip to Chiapas, Mexico. It was a life changing experience! You can see pictures from that trip on Redeemer’s website www.rbcaurora.org. I can’t wait to take our six (6) students to the jungles of Mexico where we will help install water filters, and assist dentist Randy Sanders. (Date: July 25-August 1st, 2009)
The water the people in the jungle are drinking is unsafe. They try to purify it by boiling it on an open pit cook fire. Our goal is to install the filters in their homes and during that time play a gospel message already translated in their own language. Since 80% of people are illiterate in Spanish or their own language, we will leave with them audio Bibles made available by Nathan Terrell (www.terrelltimes.com/njthome.html).
As we prepare for this upcoming trip, we ask that you lift us up in prayer. We will leave Colorado on July 25, 2009 and we will return on August 1st, 2009. Colossians 4: 3-4 says, “And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains. Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should.” Please pray also for group unity, safety in travel, and for the hearts of the Ch’ol to be prepared for the message.
