Seeing God in Culiacan

These past two weeks have been some of the most difficult but sweetest days of my life. We had so many funny adventures, some that were not so funny, and some that just bring tears to my eyes when I think about it. These two weeks consisted of over sixty mosquito bites, finding a lizard in my room, getting stuck in the shower for half an hour because the water ran out, finding pieces of chicken (i.e. its foot and heart) in the sink, barely eating because the food hurt my stomach, praying without ceasing against spiritual attack, having to communicate in my broken Spanish, loving on hundreds of children who are growing up in the camps, being broken before God consistently every day, and giving up my fears and insecurities to him every time they surfaced. It’s been awesome!

Not that I was always in that mind set…it was a really hard time. I missed my family, especially Dad, more than usual and it made things difficult. God really spoke to me about some of my anxieties and I was "forced" to let go of them little by little. There were many people (by the second week, we had 83 team members from Canada, the U.S. and Mexico) that were with us to help with the outreach to the camps, and most of them were Spanish speakers. My team of Ventana students and I all felt insufficient in our Spanish, and it was hard to take a back seat when we were out in the camps. Since we couldn’t actually be evangelizing with our words, we had to rely solely on our actions to relay the love of Christ, which meant holding the supplies, cleaning up tons of messes, and smiling welcomingly at all the people in the camps; thats pretty much it besides praying for people when they asked us to, even though we did it in English. But it turned out to be a beautiful thing, watching God work through even us English speakers. Even though we felt useless most of the time, we learned how to be servants, and that's all God asks of us in this life: to be servants and do exactly what he tells us to do, no matter how unglorious.

The schedule of a normal day went like this: wake up at 6:40, devos with Ventana at 7:00, breakfast at 8:00, devos with all the people at 9:00, clean cars and organize everything after devos, lunch at 1:30, prayer at 3:15, leave for camps at 3:30, come back to base camp at 9:00 or 9:30.

The camps are full of Indigenous migrant workers. They are hired for a certain amount of months to come and harvest certain crops such as tomatoes, peppers, corn, etc. Most people who are hired bring their families with them and they all live in a little room that is right next to another little room. They are like long houses with tin walls separating the rooms within the big building. Some of the camps had bigger rooms, and some had smaller ones. They had no running water in the bathrooms or their cuartos (rooms). Most families were made up of young men and women and their two or three children. Many of the mothers were as young as fourteen. Noah, a nineteen year old boy that was part of our team, grew up in the camps and he said that sometimes girls will get married when they are twelve or thirteen. I was shocked.

There are over three hundred different dialects spoken in Mexico, and part of our ministry was to go around to each cuarto and diagnose that specific family’s dialect. We had maps, tape recorders, and other devices that helped us do this. We then wrote down their name and dialect and burned them a CD or cassette with a message on it in their own language. These tapes have been so successful in leading people into a life with Christ. We had children’s programs while teams were out diagnosing. During that, we would sing songs, tell Bible stories, and play games. Some teams would do skits, and some would show movies…it was really fun just to be able to play and laugh with children who often don’t get enough love at home because of the stressful situations their parents are in (working all day every day so they can provide for their families). Then, we would invite the whole camp to come and watch a movie about Jesus and how he can change their lives. After the movie was finished, one of the Spanish speakers from our team would go up and give a short invitation, inviting people to give their lives over to God. Hundreds of people responded. I know it’s not always a good idea to look at the statistics…but after the first week there had been 665 decisions made for Christ. Many people that were working on Proyecto Culiacan with us Ventaneros are staying there for a whole month. We just got to stay for two weeks, but they were life changing. Please keep these people in prayer since they are still out, fighting for the Lord and bringing souls to him each day. Even one of our own Ventana students, Shannon, felt called by God to stay for the rest of the month. God worked things out for her that should have been much harder…and we left her there and will see her in two weeks. We miss her, but are trusting that God knew what he was doing when he told her to stay. We are so excited to hear about what God is doing and is going to do in her life.

I met so many sweet children, so many innocent sons and daughters of God….they were all so precious. Many of them were dirty, some didn’t have proper clothes. But they were just children, so excited to hear and see new things. Here is a very special story that my friend Jason told me; it just really touched my heart. Jason said that he was at a camp with his team one night, and he felt the Holy Spirit prompt him to talk to a young boy. The boy said his name was Arturo, and that he was twelve years old. Even though Jason has very limited Spanish, Noah (who speaks Spanish, English, and an Indian dialect) helped translate for them. Arturo said he had no father, and his mother left him and his two younger siblings so she could go and live with another man. Arturo had to take his younger siblings to live with his uncle and aunt. They sent him to work in the fields to help pay for their support. He is living all alone in a camp with a bunch of strangers for the next few months, going out to work in the fields every day, having to worry about his family and if they are being provided for. Jason prayed over him, with Noah and another man named Chucho. Arturo said he felt so much better, and he made a decision for Christ. It was the sweetest and saddest story. So many of the people there had stories like that, and no one to listen to them. They were just thirsting for God. We just reaped the harvest that God had been preparing. I wish I could tell you about all the special children I met, and all the people I got to pray for, and all the miraculous stories that took place; I wish I could tell you what it felt like to see the Holy Spirit move through the crowd, drawing people to him. But this is already a really long entry. I can’t wait to tell you all more about this amazing trip and how God moved and showed himself to me…but it will have to wait till I can talk to you face to face. J

Thank you for your love and support and I just want to let you all know that I love you! And God loves you…more than you know…yay!
Love,
Mikaela