Mission Colombia

//RHEMA’s Youth Invade Bogota

Jesus said, “ ‘The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free’ ” (Luke 4:18 NIV 2011). A team of 34 RHEMA Bible Church youth and their leaders invaded Bogota, Colombia, with that same message and saw amazing results!

 

The team performed dramas and shared the Gospel in five schools, on the streets, at a youth conference, and at five churches in Colombia’s capital. After five days of extremely early mornings and very late nights, the team looked back on what the Lord had done through them: more than 3,500 people had chosen to accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior, there were countless healings, a blind eye was opened, and many were set free by the power of God.

Brent Bailey, former senior high youth minister and current singles minister at RHEMA Bible Church, said, “Anytime we do something like this, the big thing for me is to see the kids actually doing the ministry. Seeing them share their testimonies and doing the skits was awesome, but seeing them lay hands on the sick and having feet grow out and a guy put his crutches down was tremendous. Seeing kids respond to what you’ve put into them is always special. I’ve been putting this into them for 10 years, so it was good to see that come out of them.”

Matt Shirley, current senior high youth minister, echoed Bailey’s comment. “The highlight for me was the personal impact with the students . . . actually stepping out and acting on what they believe to the point where they applied their faith,” he said. He also was excited about how RHEMA’s youth encouraged their peers in Colombia. “To see them be able to impact people their own age was hands-down the greatest pleasure I could have gotten from the trip.

Here are testimonies from three youth on the RHEMA team:

“Before the trip God told me to pray and prepare myself, so I asked Him to work through us. In one of the services, Brent was   speaking, and you could feel the presence of God. Brent started ministering to people and called for people who had one leg shorter than the other. I was excited to see it, because this is what I had been asking for. Two girls game forward. Brent called for me, and God gave me a confidence. I grabbed the girl’s feet and started praying. I got a tingling feeling in my hands and it started flowing through my hands. When I said, ‘In Jesus’ Name,’ her leg immediately popped out. It was awesome! Glory to God!”
--Jared C., 17 years old

“From the start of the trip, I was praying, ‘Lord, I want You to use me and work through me in any way there is.’ In one of the services, they asked us to pray over a group of people who were war veterans. There was one guy in particular who was on crutches. I laid my hands on him and at first I didn’t feel anything. But as I continued to pray for him, it was like power shot through my body and into him. After everyone had been prayed for, he went up on the stage and started dancing around and saying, ‘I’m healed! I’m healed!’ It was a great experience.” --Kelsie B., 17 years old

“I had the opportunity to speak to about 40 third- and fourth-graders at one of the schools we went to. I just shared a five-minute story with them and gave an altar call. They all raised their hands to accept Jesus. That’s the awesome thing about it. We gave them the opportunity, and they chose Jesus. We saw over 3,500 accept Him on this trip. That is impacting a generation. Every day we have an opportunity to affect our world for Jesus. You can be a missionary to your world. You can give people the opportunity every day to choose Jesus.” --Kelsie B., 17 years old

Visit www.khm.com/axiscolombia to see a video recap of the trip.