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All Good Things Must Come To An End

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 04:39:37 -0500

Wow! Thirty-two days have flown by. It seems as though we just landed in Amsterdam to start the YHM 2009 trip, and here I sit on the plane somewhere over the Atlantic headed back to Mobile. The moment is bitter-sweet. I am excited to get home to see family and friends, yet sad that this experience is over. The time I have spent in Europe this past month is unexplainable. I have made feeble attempts at explanations in the past blogs, but the real experience cannot be put into words completely.

I have seen God work in some amazing ways on this trip. From the Red Light district of Amsterdam, to the Eiffel Tower, to the beaches of Nice, to the Louvre Museum, I have seen Him order the steps of my team and have us cross paths with people that needed to hear about Him or just needed some encouragement in their lives. I have literally met people from all over the world, from all ages, and from all stages of life; people that I will never forget. God opened up so many doors for us to talk to people and share our story.

God has taught me so much over the past month. I wish that I could write my journal in this blog, but that would be way too long...and probably information overload. Honestly, it’s hard to put into this last blog the things I have learned, but I do want to share a few things.

I learned what it is really like to live in community. I have spent just about every waking minute with Kristin, Laura Ashley, TJ, and Chase. We have experienced “life” together these past 32 days. We encountered the high points, as well as the low points together. We have had the chance to share together what God was teaching each of us individually. We have talked to people together, and we have visited places that we may never visit again together. Our prayer as a team going into this trip was that God would make us “one” so that the people we met would see that. We prayed that everyday as well. Just about everyone we met said that there was something about us. They questioned how we could spend a month together and still like each other.

I have so many good things to say about Kristin, LA, TJ, and Chase. I could not have asked for four better people to share this experience with. We literally have formed a bond unlike any other. I wish that I could write something individually about each of them, but this blog would get longer that it already is. But know that these are four Godly people whose heart’s desire is to see people who do not know Christ, know the love that they have experienced. I have watched these kids give their all this past month with a passion to see people changed. They have encouraged people, listened to people, and shared Christ with so many. They have cried over people who need Jesus. I can honestly say that they were Jesus to people who needed an encounter with Him.

God has given me a new love for people. I had gotten so comfortable with my everyday life in Mobile, that I had forgotten what it was like to love people the way Jesus does. I was so busy living my life that I really had no time for anyone else’s. This month away in Europe, focusing on meeting people and hearing their stories, has given me a new perspective. I have met some people that really needed to be listened to, or who had never even heard the Gospel, and it made me stop and think about those that I encounter everyday in Mobile who are in the same position. I know that God has changed me; it’s what I prayed for. I honestly want people who cross my path each day to walk away saying that they had just spent time with Jesus.

I am sure that you are going to hear many stories from all of us for a while. There are many to share. Just remember, for every story that you hear, there is someone in that story that crossed our paths somewhere along the way as we visited the Eiffel Tower, the Vatican, the Jungfrau, or the Colosseum. Someone, who now has all of us praying for them. And for that person, we may be the only someone in their life that is praying for them. And for that person, we may have been the only Jesus that they will ever see.

So to all of you that gave of your money that allowed me to go on this trip with these students, I say thank you! To the many of you that have been praying and are still praying for me and this team, I say THANK YOU! To all of you who sent me encouraging letters, Facebook messages, and emails, I say thank you! There were times when those came just in the nick of time. You may never know, and I may never know the full impact of what God was doing and continuing to do with this trip, but I can tell you I saw Him move first-hand. Thank you for being the 6th man or woman on my team. This would have been impossible without you.

....and on the 18th and 19th they rested

Thu, 4 Jun 2009 08:46:24 -0500

It is now day 18 and 19, and we have made it to Monterosso (Cinque Terre), Italy. Monterosso is a small little town in the mountains of Italy. There is so much culture here, not to mention the spectacular views and an amazing beach. We really needed the rest that we are getting here. Everything is at a slow pace here and all the locals know each other. It has been a time of recouping and relaxing for us.

We have done a lot of catching up on our sleep (Laura Ashley said that she has never slept so much in here life). We have walked around the town and ate a lot of real Italian pizza and gelato. Our first night here we met a guy who owns a pizzeria. He may be one of the nicest people we have met on this trip so far. Since then we have eaten at his pizzeria every day for lunch and dinner. He makes the pizza dough from scratch from an old family recipe and makes his own tomato sauce for the pizza. It is probably the best pizza I have ever had.

Although there is nothing too exciting to write about from Cinque Terre, I can say that our group had an incredible time of just sitting around and sharing what God has been teaching each of us on this journey. God is working in each of our lives individually but together we have learned so much. We all agree that none of us will be the same after this trip. God has really taught us what true evangelism is, and that is something that we cannot wait to bring back to Mobile.

The rest here has been wonderful and much needed. Tomorrow we leave for Florence and start the last leg of this trip. Thanks to all of you who have been praying for us. Keep praying that God will give us many more opportunities over the next few days. I can’t wait to share all the stories of what God has done!

More Than Just A Story

Sat, 30 May 2009 02:01:41 -0500

As I sit here and reflect on the past two cities we have visited (Barcelona, Spain and Nice, France), I am continued to be amazed at what God is doing with this group. Needless to say we have met some interesting people along the way and some that will we never forget. Our group talked the other night about how looking back we can see how God deliberately had us cross paths with the people that we have. I believe not only for them to see Jesus, but for us to be changed as well. And I think the group would all agree that we have been changed!

Barcelona was an amazing city. It was quite different from Madrid, in that it was larger and seemed to have more activities going on. That’s why so many people travel there. In our hostel there we were able to meet some Irish college medical students who had just finished the semester and were on a break. We got to spend some time with them, talk with them, and even went out for Gelato with them. The one person however I believe God specifically had for us to meet was Ron, a college student from Philly. He hung out with us the night we go to Barcelona, and he like some of the other people we have met, told us that he could sense that there was something different about us. We didn’t see him again until the night before we were to leave for Nice, France. He said he was going to Nice as well and wanted to go to the train station with us the next morning. The next day we were going back to the train station that we came into Barcelona, and Ron said that we had to go to another station to go to France. We listened to him, and thank goodness we did or we would have missed the train to Nice. Once we got to Nice, we parted ways with Ron. Please pray that God will invade Ron’s life with Truth. Ron is a really good guy, but has just lost his way in life and needs to encounter Jesus.

When we got to Nice, the five of us were put into a six-bed room at the hostel. When we got to the room, we found another guy sleeping in the room. The next morning we found out that it was Cameron, an Australian, who was traveling Europe as well. Cameron spent all day Tuesday with us at the beach and walking around Nice. The two days we spent in Nice, Cameron literally became the sixth person on our team. It was amazing how God just let all of our personalities click. Of all the people we have met on this journey, Cameron will be one we will never forget. He felt so comfortable around us that he told us all about is life and travels. It was like we had known Cameron for years. Our last night in Nice, we had been down to the boardwalk on the beach and were heading back to the hostel. Cameron told us that he didn’t understand how the five of us got along so well after spending so much time together over the past few weeks. My prayer is that Cameron experienced Jesus the two days that he spent with us.

I read an article a few months ago by Francis Chan that said his prayer was that everyone that he has an encounter with will walk away and say, “I just spent time with Jesus.” That has been this group’s prayer this entire trip. I want the people that we meet, whether they be from Canada, Australia, the U.S., Europe, or wherever, to walk away after spending time with us and say, “I just spent time with Jesus.” That is something that we can’t do on our own. We must be listening to the Holy Spirit and let Him live through us as we site see with these people we meet. I believe that the people we have met so far have seen that in the way we encourage and interact with each other.

Yes, when we get back to the States in a couple of weeks, we are going to have many stories to tell (so get ready). Some of them funny stories of things that have happened. Some of the stories of amazing places we have visited. Some of them stories of when we missed home. But I want this experience to be more that just a story. I want it to be four-and-a-half weeks that changed my life and the lives of the other four with me because we listened to the Spirit and acted when he said to act. I pray that it is a journey where God put us into the lives of people that needed to hear from Him, and we were there to tell them. I pray that it is a journey where someone who needed to meet Jesus, met Him.

Answered Prayers

Fri, 22 May 2009 09:41:13 -0500

Well today we are 12 days into this youth hostel trip, and the time has flown by. We left Madrid this morning on a train headed to Barcelona. What an amazing time it has been so far. In these past 12 days, God has taught me so much more about Himself and more about myself; lessons that I wish I had learned long ago. Our team has seen God answer prayers literally within minutes of praying. We have seen Him prove Himself faithful just as He says He will. I want to share just a few things with you that God has done over the past few days (so this may be a long blog).

We left Amsterdam last Saturday with such excitement after having great conversations with Jerome and John. We were splitting from the other team heading out on our own adventure. Next stop: Paris. Paris was rainy and cold the two days we were there, and we never really got to talk with anyone at the hostel. The team began to get a little discouraged, and a little bit of homesickness started to settle in. Our last night there, we went out by a canal and prayed together, asking God to bring some people across our paths that we could converse with. Literally when we got back to our rooms, we met a girl from Canada named Laura. She is a reporter for a newspaper in Ottawa, and the five us started talking with here for about 30 minutes. She agreed to hang out with us the next morning before we left for Madrid. We never had the opportunity to share the gospel directly with Laura, but I am certain that she saw Jesus through all of us as we walked around Paris. Kristin and Laura Ashley exchanged Facebook information, so pray that God will allow them to keep in contact with Laura.

On the flight to Madrid, TJ shared with our group that he had been reading John 17, where Jesus prays for those who will believe in Him. We all read through the chapter, and what really hit home with me was verse 21 and 26:

“..that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.”(21)

“I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love
you have for me may be in them, and that I myself may be in them.”(26)

As a group we prayed that we would be unified as one so that those we encounter in the hostels or on the street will see it and wonder why that is. Our first day in Madrid, we went to a city park to just relax and have lunch. We spent time again praying that God would send people across our paths to have conversations with. Later that night when we got back to the hostel, a girl named Steph from Australia and a guy named Nick from Wake Forest sat down with us in the main room, and we all just started to talk about life. Steph told us that she had to leave the next morning for her next city (again Kristin & Laura Ashley got Facebook info), but Nick agreed to spend the day with us.

Yesterday we had lunch with Nick and just walked around Madrid looking at the sites. When we got back to the hostel in the afternoon, Chase had an opportunity to sit down with Nick and share the gospel (see Chase’s blog for more info). However, one thing Nick told Chase was that there was just something about the five us that he envied, and he really liked hanging out with us. In fact this morning as we were getting up and getting ready to leave for Barcelona, Nick left us a note that said, “Thanks for hanging out with me yesterday.”

Again, within minutes of asking God for people to talk to, He put those people there. Had we not been expecting Him to answer or been so busy site-seeing, we would have missed the opportunities. Through both of these experiences God has taught me that I must depend on Him to provide the opportunities to share the gospel. If I try to do it on my own time, it will be for nothing.

I ask you to keep praying for this team. Pray that God will keep us unified as one. Pray that we will continue to make Christ known in every city so that the love we have experienced will be in them. Pray for Laura, Steph, and Nick. Pray that God will make Himself known in their lives from just the small seeds that we have planted along the way. Thanks for all the prayers so far, you have no idea how we have needed them!

I’ve Never Seen A Bible

Tue, 19 May 2009 07:32:37 -0500

As I sit here in a park next to the Eiffel Tower I can’t believe that one week has gone by already. So much has happened in this past week. On Saturday we had to say goodbye to Team Neal and start the adventure on our own. We headed to Paris where it has been cold and rainy. Yesterday we toured the Eiffel Tower, which is an amazing site, and got to see a service happening at Notre Dame. It is funny, at Notre Dame that we actually ran into another group of five from Alabama traveling Europe as well. After getting frustrated at trying to find good food (and good service), we found the promised land last night, McDonalds! It was good to eat a cheeseburger and a Kit-Kat McFlurry!

In my last blog I asked you all to be praying for a guy named John that I met in the hostel in Amsterdam. Well on Friday night John had gone to get some dinner and brought it back to the hostel. He sat at a table by himself, so I went over to talk to him. We were just conversing about life in general when he looked up and saw a sign in the hostel that said, “Bible discussion tonight at 7:30pm.” He asked me if there was a discussion at 7:30 and I told him that happened on Wednesday night. I then asked if he would be interested in that. He said he would since he has NEVER looked at a Bible in his life. He had told me earlier that he had no religion. I asked him if I could tell him the story of the Bible and I began in Genesis and went through the whole Bible. He paid close attention to every word and even asked questions. After we talked for a while, I gave him a Bible and my email to send me any questions.

Later that night I was downstairs at the hostel journaling and saw John talking to a girl from Colorado Christian University asking her questions about how to find books in the Bible. I just listened as John was so intent on knowing more about this Bible that he just received. I heard him tell someone who asked him what he was reading, “This is my new study, my new hobby.” A few minutes later the group from CCU asked John to pray with them, and he looked my way and said, “Rusty, will you pray with us?”

I am so glad that God let me cross paths with John in Amsterdam. My prayer now is that John will read the Bible that he now has. I hope that he will send me questions that he may have.