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This was my third Ultimate Workout, and I have to say that I was excited. I had always wanted to visit Chile and now was my chance. Three days before I left, I found out that my site wasn’t able to build a church. Instead, we were going to “build people”. And I was bummed! I wasn’t sure how we were going to make a difference by only doing outreach. I knew that somehow God was going to make it work out and it would still be fun. But I was looking for a purpose, and wasn’t sure just how outreach was going to help me do that.
The group of us who were not building a church was called “Other”. Very original, right? We didn’t even have a real name! As it turned out, we didn’t really know what we were doing either. But God definitely knew what was going on. We ended up being extremely busy and even had to split up into different groups. Every night for a week, we held meetings at the Playa Brava church. Before the meetings began, the whole group went to the beach to invite people to come to those meetings. We were told to think of ways to connect with the people. Some pulled out their instruments, others juggled, and I did gymnastics with some others. We got some of the local kids involved and they loved it. After we came back from the beach, I felt so great! I felt like I had a place and that I actually helped. I wasn’t just there to be there.
I was able to participate in almost all of the projects that we had; prison ministry, church painting, garbage pickup and English classes. I was a little nervous about going into a prison. Who wouldn’t be? But God ended up using us to reach some of those teenage prisoners, and that was really cool. Painting the church was harder than it looked, because of rough, uneven texture of the wall. A few painted the local Adventist school as well. A group helped out at the Adventist school teaching English classes. For about a week we played games at night with the nationals, and became friends with many that we would never have met otherwise. Playing was so much fun, but meeting the kids made our time there so much better.
Even though we were not able to build a church, we were able to “build people.” My site leader, Steve, said that a lot. And for me, that was one of the best things that we could have done. I have helped build two churches in foreign countries, but both times I didn’t really connect with the people. Sure, I would see them and talk with them in my limited Spanish, but I wouldn’t connect with them on a deeper level. I could physically see a building, but besides that, I hadn’t done much. This mission trip really put the fire under me to witness for Jesus. Doing the physical work of building a church is very important, but the building won’t last forever. This time, I was really sad to leave some of the friends I had made at the church. It was something new to me, but I now realized what I had been missing out on.
During the two weeks that we were there, I grew a lot closer to God. It was a big step for me in my relationship with Him. I finally saw Him as my best friend instead of an all powerful God. I have done outreach before, but never had an experience like Chile. I loved it! I hope that I’ll be able to keep doing what “the Others” did there, here at home. Because when I build someone else, God builds me, too.
- Krista Tait
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