It Was The Best Summer of My Life: Part II

Sorry it has taken so long for the second part but everyone knows how great Telus' service is. Peru was probably the best thing that has happened to me so far in my life. I am trying to find the proper words to portray what God did in my life but, to be completely honest, I do not believe I have discovered everything that God taught me on this trip. So as I blog I believe that God will inform me just as much as I will inform you.
The first thing that I realized God had taught me on the trip was how important prayer is. Prayer is one of the most important thing in the Christian faith. I had always heard about how stuff always went wrong on missions trips. Events that range from small things like the airline losing your luggage to major things such as severe illness. However, none of this affected our team and I believe that is because of the amazing support that this team had. I used this lesson in Peru and have now applied it to my life daily which is really cool. I have realized how important prayer is and that there is no limits on it. I just love praying now because I can pray with expectation. That is my prayer for all Christians that they will pray with expectation it has been so awesome in my life and I would love it if you guys would try it in yours.
The second thing that God showed me on the trip is something that has really made an impact on my life. He showed me that the bond between Christians in the world, which is basically him we are sharing, can span any gap. The friendships and other relationships that were formed between us and the people of Peru were and are incomparable. God broke through many barriers in order for this to happen the major one being the language and cultural barriers. The bond that I now share with these people is just awesome and I believe that God does this on every missions trip. If he did not I believe that there would no longer be any missionaries because the way he works is that he makes people fall in love with the country and the people in it and that is exactly what happened to me. I do not think that there was one person on the team that would not go back if they had the opportunity. These people will forever be in my heart and thoughts and I thank God for that.

I believe that another idea that God kind of kindled in my heart while I was in Peru was of him as a father and how the image of a father suits him perfectly. There was a father on our team with his kids and it was just an amazing experience to see the way that they interacted because I realized that God interacts with us the same way. The epiphany that I had went even further in September when I read a book by Donald Miller called To Own A Dragon. There were many different things in this book that related to Peru and I think that it is awesome that God can still use Peru to teach me things further down the road. The part of the trip that most stood out to me is when the father is trying to teach the son something and the son can put up the biggest fuss and complain and whine and nag; however, the father is always patient and calm until what he is trying to teach the son is accomplished. I look at my own life and the many times that God or even my own father was trying to teach me stuff and out of my childish stupidity I put up a big fuss when there wa son need to. The part of the book that stuck out most to me is when Miller was talking about the love of the father. He looked at different types of love such as when you love your brother or when you fall in love with a girl but then you look at a fathers love and it is just there and it is automatically unconditional. As soon as the father sees that little ball of skin he will easily lay down his life for it without question. I thought this was so cool because the love of God had never been explained to me like this before and now I seem to understand it that little bit more.

I am sure that there is even more that God will teach me from Peru and I hope to relay it to my Blog when he does. I want to take this time to once again thank all the people who were on the team and the even more amazing people who were praying for us. I am excited for everyday of my life because God is teaching me something new everyday and it is so awesome to have a personal relationship with him. Make sure you tune in for the final part where I will catch you up on the awesome adventures in Jasper and starting back up school which is freekin' awesome fun.

PS I have some super exciting news to reveal in my next blog!!!