Just for Starters...

Hello!

I'm so glad that you have decided to follow Lifeline's mission trip to Miami, FL. The last couple of weeks, I've been debating exactly how I wanted to share the great things God has done with you all. Recently, a good friend that I really respect suggested blogging. I really felt like blogging the mission trip would be amazing because I can share with so many people exactly what God is doing in real time as well as have a personal account of what happened in a place that is easily accessible.

God is already doing some great things with our mission group. I wanted to share some of them with you.

Our group was originally intended to go to Phoenix, AR. We had been planning since last summer on doing a VBS with the kids in the local area as well as other outreach with the church. Over Christmas break, God closed the door for Phoenix. Our contact, the pastor of the church, moved to Mexico, leaving our campus director (Patrick) confused about where God would take the Lifeline ministry instead.

After a lot of prayer, Patrick began making phone calls to see where our group could go next. He wasn't sure where God wanted us to go, but he didn't want to miss any opportunity. He felt strongly that God was wanting us to work with a Hispanic church. Around two months ago, God opened a door with a Hispanic church in Miami! All of us were so excited that a door had been opened!

The church that we are working with has many needs. The churches in the area that we are working with are teaching the prosperity gospel (which is no gospel at all). Because of this, many people in the area are completely closed off to anything someone representing a church has to say. The church is also located in a no-soliciting neighborhood, leaving many at a loss as to how to reach out to a lost community. Our goal is to put into practice a doable outreach program for the church that will help them reach those in the surrounding area. As I said in my support letter, Miami is in need of Christ. If every one of the 1300+ congregations in Miami were to double in size overnight, the percentage of evangelical Christians in Miami-Dade County might still be less than 10%. That’s a very dismal number. This March, we hope to plant seeds and lead others to Christ through relational evangelism. It’s truly exciting that we can be a part of a mission where we can shine the light of Christ in such darkness.

Our goal is to make disciples. I hope that you who read this will join us in Miami through prayer.

Current Praises:

-Patrick (our campus director) was able to find a hotel that was gracious enough to give us prices that were similar to our original hotel prices for Phoenix. This is a HUGE praise because while Miami is much more expensive, Patrick did not raise our price for the trip. I think that the hotel prices were $50 less per room per night.
-We are only $1800 dollars away from paying off our trip! This was accomplished through cookbook sales and donations! THANK YOU SO MUCH TO ALL WHO DONATED.

Current Prayer Requests:

-Pray that God would prepare the hearts of the team for what He has in store for them.
-Pray God will go before us to Miami and soften the hearts of those we will come in contact with so that we can lay seed on fertile soil.
-Pray for trust with the remainder of God's financial provision for the trip.
-Pray for our mission team to be of one mind as we are preparing for the trip. There is no way that we can do anything unless we're of one accord, listening to the Holy Spirit's guidance.

If you have made it this far, thank you so much for reading. I hope to post again sometime this week with a loose itinerary and a list of names of the people who are going so that you know how to pray/who to pray for each day we are away. :) Feel free to shoot me a comment!

Katie

PS: I have this blog set up so that if you don't have an account with blogspot, you can still comment as an anonymous reader if you want to. :) Thanks!