the call and the
funds.
It didn’t make any sense to go to Brazil. $3,000 to go to a
country I was not interested in, where I did not speak the language and when I
could have gone somewhere else where I did speak the language for less than
half the price. I did not want to ask for people’s money, I did not want to
tell the practical people in my life that I wanted to do this and I did not want
to ask people for money to go to Brazil when just eight months I had asked for
funds to go to Peru for a medical service trip. I did not want to seem like a
shameless wanderlust trying to leech on others to pay for his travels. But at
the end of the day I knew I needed to go. Because God said so.
My first glimpse of hope that this trip was truly “meant to
be” came the weekend of our first trip meeting when I had several seemingly random
events provide me with enough money to make the $300 down payment for the trip
(I committed to paying $1500 of the trip’s cost myself). The second glimpse of
hope came a few weeks later when I received an email saying two different very
good friends had contributed a total of $300. It seemed God was in fact going
to provide.
Then I received nothing…
For weeks… and weeks.
10 days before leaving I was $1,000 short of what I needed
to go and I told God that if he didn’t provide the money like he said he would,
then I wasn’t going to go. But then that night I saw my chiropractor and he
offered me $350 to do 4 hours of work. And then a few hours later a good friend
got in touch and offered me another $240. The following Tuesday I received an
email saying an anonymous donor had given $500 to my trip along with a few
other smaller donations from other friends and family. At the end of it all God
provided $250 more than he initially promised. So Monday the 13th of
August I was on my way to Brazil.
the value of it all?
The first week of our trip was “successful” for all intents
and purposes. We all arrived safe, we all got along splendidly, we were all
excited, we had unimaginable doors open for us and we saw people praying to
receive Jesus. It was all fine and good, but soon I found myself wondering why
God wanted ME there. I was not essential to anything that happened. I was not
the one who prayed for anyone to receive Jesus, or be healed. I was not even on
the teams that God used to open the unimaginable doors. I started wondering why
God wanted me there.
It was obvious he told me to go. It was obvious he had
provided people to fill in for my work and donors to pay the cost of the trip.
What was not obvious was why he wanted ME there. I was already a few grand in
debt and in addition to costing me $1250 the trip would have me out another
$1500 from all the work I would miss. But then I met Henry.
henry & co.
Our main outreach tactic in Brazil was to perform a dance,
followed by a drama1 about God’s love and then a quick sermon. One
day when we had the chance to do our little “routine” before a school I met
Henry. We performed once in the morning and once again in the afternoon. After
our second performance when we were being hauled out of the theatre and the
students were being hauled back to class, Henry approached me and introduced
himself. He said that he had been at both performances and had really wanted to
meet me but was really bummed that he had to go and could not stick around to
talk. As soon as he walked away I began to internally, verbally abuse myself.
How could I have missed that? A “divine appointment,” so to speak, that I was
completely unaware of. I spent several minutes treating myself like trash. Then
I was informed that we would be going to a different part of the school to wait
around while our leaders talked to the school’s principle. During our wait, I
spotted Henry! Henry had about ten minutes before his next class started. The
conversation and prayer that ensued were not remarkable in the usual sense, but
they felt exactly right. He told me about his dream that no one believed in. I
prayed for him to have a fulfilled life. It was simple but it was my first
inclination that I was in Brazil for some very good reason.
A few days after Henry and the school, we performed in a
rather large park where I met Luna and Clayton. Luna said she did not believe
in anything while Clayton said he had a little belief, whatever that means.
They would not let me pray for them but the conversation we had led to an
excellent connection and I left feeling that I had made friends. That same day
I met another fellow named Felipe who spoke enough Spanish to chat with me a bit.
My conversations with Luna, Clayton, Felipe and Henry were my first inclinations
that God did want me in Brazil. Not just “me” as in another person or another
believer willing to pray. God wanted me, Kendrick Barnes, from Lake Stevens,
Washington, to be in Sao Paulo Brazil at that time, with those people, doing
those outreaches.
my first time.
Early on in our second week, as the realization that God
actually wanted me in Brazil sank in, I did something I had never done before.
I prayed with two men as they received Jesus2. Leondo and Jorge.
Right after doing the usual “routine,” I approached Leondo and Jorge to chat
with them. They didn’t speak English but one of the women who had seen the play
translated for me as I talked to them. They said they wanted to receive Jesus,
so we prayed. Then I asked the woman translating for me if her and her friend
would like to receive Jesus. They said they did and we prayed. As I prayed for
Leondo and Jorge I laughed several times, I fumbled over my words, and was completely
lacking in evangelical suavity. But that was my favorite day.
The point of a mission trip is not to come back with the
biggest possible number of people who “got saved” or “prayed to receive Jesus”
or “were added to a church.” The point is to be used by God to spread his love
in a situation you would never have found yourself in if not for the fact that
you were on a mission trip. The reason that that was my favorite day is this: I
knew beyond a shadow of a doubt (even more than when I talked to Henry and the
others) that God had used me to make changes that will resonate in eternity.
That’s the point of a mission trip.
impossible things.
The prayers I said with Leondo, Jorge, and the two women
were not the only things done to spread God’s love in remarkable ways. Right
after I met the four of them I also met a boy named Gusto. I do not know what
physical or mental handicaps Gusto has but suffice it to say he is fourteen
years old, about three feet tall, drools and was hard for the translator to understand
when he spoke. He may also be the most beautiful child I have ever seen. Gusto
couldn’t walk by himself so some others and myself helped him walk by giving
him two hands to hang onto. Periodically we would help him jump and every few
seconds a laugh would joyfully burst out of him. It was beautiful. Especially
once we found out that his parents had rarely ever seen him so joyful. Broken,
small, and hard to understand, Gusto was not a sight to behold. Despite this,
joy bubbled out of him in an infectious manner and I could not help feeling
that God saw me that way.
Despite an abundance of prayers, Gusto wasn’t completely physically
healed. I, however, am confident that the joy he found that day was miraculous in
and of itself, and may have even been more important than any physical healing.
A few days later we headed into one of the poorer
neighborhoods of Sao Paulo to do the usual routine, which, it is probably
obvious at this point, never had a usual routine for what occurred afterwards.
We usually worshipped musically before performing the dance and skit and this
day was no exception. Curiously enough, we usually had an audience form during
our worship as well, though the intention was never that that would be a
performance. That day in the poor neighborhood we had a much larger crowd than
usual gather while we worshipped. They even clapped along with us. As soon as
we finished worship we did the dance, skit and the gospel presentation. As soon
as it all ended two of my friends made a beeline for one man who had been
visibly affected by the skit. They talked with him for a while and soon asked
if they could pray for his bandaged and broken knee. He consented. After their
first prayer the pain reduced but he could not stand without feeling pain. After
the second prayer he was running in place and was back to one hundred percent. He
understood that God had healed him and he and the twelve people around him who
witnessed the healing all prayed to receive Jesus. God set that one up nicely
but it was not the only nice set up
It was early on in the trip that we had the chance to
perform in the school where I met Henry and I would like to relay for you how
that all transpired. In the process of inviting people to come see the skit one
group happened to invite a school bus driver who was sitting outside of a
school. He told them they ought to talk to the school’s security guard. The
security guard told them they needed to go inside and talk to the secretary.
The secretary told them they needed to talk to the principle and then called
the principle down to see them. After my teammates explained why they were
there the principle asked if they would be able to bring the drama to the
school to perform for the fifteen to seventeen year olds. A drama about Jesus.
To a public school. A school that happens to be one of the most prestigious in
Sao Paulo. And after we performed the next day, twice, for well over 300 students,
the principle told us it was the best assembly they had all year. You can’t
make that kind of thing up.
a lion and a
birdhouse.
Over the course of our trip we were expected to spend an
hour a day with God by ourselves in the morning, this was a new and life giving
practice for me. We were also expected to write an encouragement to someone
everyday. On one particular day I received an encouragement telling me I was
like a birdhouse: a place where the timid felt at home. That same note also
told me I had a lion heart3. The trip started with me uncertain of
why I had put so much money and effort into getting to Sao Paulo. The trip
ended with me knowing that God is directing my steps and has set me up to be a
courageous, lion-hearted man while simultaneously being a refuge for those who
scare easily. God took me thousands of miles and dollars from home to use me
for his purposes and to show me had a purpose for me. God asked me if I was
willing to listen and when I said yes he taught me to be bold. God showed me
that being obedient to him, even when the requests are rather audacious,
results in lives changed, our own lives and the lives of those around us.
epilogue: holy
romantic communism.
During our second week in Sao Paulo we visited two life
groups.4 At one of those life groups God showed me two pictures. In
the first I was standing before God’s throne, where he sat, looking quite
approachable, and I was offering him everything I had. All my love, resources,
talents, time… all of it. He said, “Thank you. I am going to take all of this
and give it away.” I found this to be hardly an appropriate thing to do with
such a generous gift. A few minutes later he showed me the second picture. I
was before the throne again and he told me to come sit with him. As soon as I
reached the throne I began to see a whirlwind tour of my life. First, I saw
myself as an infant in my grandfather’s arms. Then I was a little boy sitting
on the couch next to my dad while he read to me. Next I was talking about life
with my sister Tara. Then I was sitting at a bar with my other sister Karissa
as she bought me a beer. During the last part of the picture, I was in Brazil
being prayed for by my friend Pete. I instantly recognized that each of these
moments was God taking the love that people offered unto him and giving it back
to each of his children. The picture I saw was a glimpse of how that had
happened in my own life but I also understood that each person received enough
love to last them through their life. He gave it back whenever he received it
and the more people gave their love the less need for love anyone experienced.
Communism may never work in a political sense, but when the
king of kings is dishing out love to every person to meet their needs it is a
beautiful thing. It was in that moment, as I saw myself receiving love from all
different people, that I realized my life was just one tile in the grand mosaic
of the ebb and flow of the love of God. And now, in a totally new and different
way, I know that I have received that love. And that I have plenty of it to
give away.
p.s.
To the anonymous donor of five-hundred dollars,
Thank you. This trip
probably would not have happened with out you.
11 Specifically the Lifehouse “Everything” drama.
Youtube it if you haven’t seen it. I watched it ten times in Brazil and it
never got old. I nearly cried more than once.
22 Some people call this “getting saved” but I do
not. Praying a prayer to receive Jesus into your heart and “getting saved” are
hardly the same. No one really knows
if they are saved. If someone tries to tell you that they are “saved” their
theology is broken. Why do I say that? Faith and knowledge are not the same.
33 This was not the first time I had been told
this, but it was one of the first times it had really sunk in. Thank you Michael
Richards.
44 If you’re not familiar with the term life group,
it is basically a small group. A gathering of usually 10-20 people that
worship, read scripture, and “do life” together.
