Summer Summary July - August 2023
— September 2023 —
Be diligent to present yourself approved before God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly expounding the word of truth.-2 Timothy 2:15
This summer consisted of 7 interns. In particular, this time was something special and unique.This is the first experience where all interns were from different places and prayerfully traveled here. Each took a risk by leaving their homes, their families, their friends, and their comforts in serving here. By week 2, all of them united so beautifully. Regardless of language barriers and cultural differences, they created lifelong bonds. We have never seen a group more tight knit until this group of interns.. Not only was their connection so impressive, watching them serve the Lord together was impeccable.
Over these past 7 weeks they developed healthy and holy habits. They woke up early each morning to seek and offered God the first fruits of their time. They shadowed each staff member in every ministry on base and immersed themselves in all aspects of ministry. We learned about God’s heart for all nations in our weekly study through a missions curriculum called Xplore. We learned about godly leadership through our study through Nehemiah. They ministered to the local neighborhood kids twice a week and how to preach the gospel through art, just to name a few. What made the greatest impact was our book study on Radical Prayer by Manny Mill. During the first week of discussing the book, everyone was shy and a little uncomfortable. However, by week 7 we sat and discussed for 3 hours straight! By the end of our discussions we were all in tears. God moved through each intern to say the least.
We are so proud of this group of interns. They all adapted so well and never refused to do anything even when it meant sacrificing their sleep and their comforts. Truly, the Holy Spirit carried this entire summer just as He always does. All the fruit that was made this summer was all from them abiding in the Father. God, without a doubt, started such amazing work in each of them. Please pray for them that the Lord will complete the good work He started.
This summer we had our annual Church Planting Course called Colectivo with 11 students from Mexico and 1 from nicaragua, which began on June 26th and ended on August 11th, 2023 with a total of 7 weeks, they had a total of 12 classes with great teachers, 2 workshops and 2 outreaches.
This year, a totally new modality was incorporated for the first time, called Approved Worker, which began in the middle of summer on July 17 and culminated on August 5. This course is designed for people who did not have the opportunity to take the full course. . of 7 weeks. Thank God we had the joy of starting with our 6 pioneer students taking classes for two weeks intensively, although two weeks is only a small part of the total course of seven weeks, but it is impressive to see how God speaks to them even in this little . time, and even encourages them to want to return the following year to take the full course.
This summer we were very blessed by each of the students to see them perform in each of the classes and see how the Lord was showing them his plan for each one of them, it was an enormous blessing for us, each of the students was tested and confronted by the Lord during the course.
We are sure that each one left with a new vision of what God wants to do in their lives and we know that the Lord has great plans for the life of each of the students of this year 2023, we cannot wait to hear from them in the future and see how the Lord is going to use them for his honor and glory.
I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in me, and I in him, this one bears much fruit; because apart from me you can do nothing.-John 15:5
Thank you so so much for your prayers for this summer with the Bridges Ministry (Short term mission teams). God really blessed the community with outreaches and opportunities for the Gospel to be shared. We hosted 11 teams from different places in the US from all walks of life. We were able to accompany teams to children’s homes, visiting and encouraging the elderly, local outreaches, family visits and so much more. Our prayer this past summer was that the Lord would speak to the hearts of the team members to show the need of spreading the gospel in the world and we believe he has done that! Through debrief times after outreaches, fellowship between the teams and our Collective Students and Vastago Interns the Lord really opened eyes for the harvest field.
"Awake, you who sleep, and rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you."
-Ephesians 5:14
