This is my favorite time of day. The house is quiet and dark and I have my delicious cup of coffee beside me! The three precious men in my life are sound asleep. This is the time of day where I can come before God and have an hour to study His word and be silent before Him. This morning is extra special. This morning I sit in awe of what we experienced last night. Our 8 weeks of planning lead us up to last night's special occasion. There is no other way to describe it other than it was a God-event and we were along for the ride! Let me take you back a little further to the idea Matt had for our ESL group.
Almost right away when we started back in September Matt said that we should plan an event for our ESL students. He didn't know exactly what it looked like but he envisioned a dinner and a speaker. Originally we thought maybe we could do a Christmas celebration, but the holiday season was quickly approaching and we knew we couldn't have things ready by then. We kept brainstorming possible speakers for this event. Matt knew it needed to be a Spanish speaker and we thought it would be so neat if we could get a "big name!" Our first thought was Marcos Witt, a worship leader and pastor at a big church here in Houston. I ended up mentioning this idea to Luis' wife, Jo-Ann. Luis is also on our ministry team and helped set up the ESL program in 2012. She mentioned that she knew Marcos Witt's assistant's assistant. Does that make sense?! Anyway, we had a "way in!" She said she'd follow up with the lead. A couple of weeks later, at ESL, Luis and I were brainstorming different things for the celebration. I mentioned Jo-Ann's idea. He thought that would be fine, but then thought for a moment and brought up another name. Alan Hernandez. He asked if I knew him and I said yes! We had his music and Matt had heard him at a church when he was training in Oklahoma City. Surely he was too big to be at our event! No way! How would we get him? Luis said that he actually knew him, grew up with him, was in his wedding! Well, what are we waiting for? Lets give him a call! There were a couple problems. Luis and Alan had lost contact with one another and he lived in Monterrey, Mexico. So there were two hills to climb! We needed to get in contact with him and we needed to convince our pastor that we should fly this guy up for our event! Luis said he would try to get in contact with him. So ESL ends at 8 and by 10:00 that night Luis forwarded Matt and I a response from Alan! Luis filled out the generic email from Alan's website and explained who he was. Alan's manager actually gave Luis Alan's personal email. Amazing that all this happened so fast! They were in contact and in deed, it looked like, depending on dates and other details, Alan would do our event. No, really?! Our next step was to go to Pastor Rick. We were a little nervous because we knew what we were asking! This was going to cost money to fly someone in from Mexico!
Pastor Rick was supportive, however, asking if there was anyone local we could get. Of course we could try, but if at all possible, we'd really like to have Alan. Pastor told us to go ahead and get all details and he would talk to the rest of the pastoral staff.
We picked a date and it was all good with Alan. We were unsure of what he wold charge in order to come, so that was something else that made us a little nervous. Well, Alan said he would ask nothing, only air fare. He was going to do this as a favor to us! He would be staying with Luis as well. Well, because Christmas season was under way, everyone at church was very busy. We were given the OK to go ahead with planning but details would be finalized mainly after break. Our students were also on break. Our worry now was, will we have enough people to come to this event? We were going to tell our students to bring a guest so surely there would at least be 60 people! We were going to also open it up to our Spanish Lifegroup.
Classes resumed January 9th so because our event was set for February 13th we needed to start advertising. Guess how many students we had January 9th? A whopping 15 students! What?! 15 students?! We need people! We're putting on this big event! How can we justify flying this guy up from Mexico and putting on a catered dinner for maybe 20 people?! Everyone assured me, oh, it's the first week, next week will be better. Next week you ask? The following week we had....13 students! My panic started to kick in! However, I should have known better! God was laughing at me, saying, "oh ye of little faith, Jaclyn! Do you not know that this is MY event and I am only asking you and Matt and Luis to have a hand in it? I have everything under control!" Yes, Lord, I'm sorry!
Fast forward.... Last night, we had about 150 people!!!!! Throughout the time leading up to our event, we had more people coming back to ESL, people sign up from lifegroup and opened our event to food pantry clients, Kids' Hope & Study Buddy parents (2 other ministries at our church). Because this was a catered event, we needed RSVP's. Now I was worried it was getting too big! haha....But how amazing it was to see those come in. I was amazed to see God at work in this ENTIRE event! From food, to childcare, to Alan, to guests! Everything was perfectly set into place. Everything we worried about was taken care of! We knew, however, the most important part to this event was the message they were going to hear. This is what it's all about, as Christians. Following God's leading to bring other's to know Him as their personal Lord and Savior. What an amazing opportunity to work with God in this. What a privilege, how humbling it is to be used by God. This was not our doing, this was God's doing. All those people in attendance were there because God called them to be there. As I sat there last night, looking around me, I was in amazement. We were experiencing God!
The night is over now, but our work is not done. It's all an ongoing process! This is our mission field right now. Matt and I are not doing missions in Mexico, Nicaragua, China and other parts of the world. Our mission field is right here in Houston, Texas. The people here are just as precious as those in other parts of the world. A quote from the Experiencing God study says it all: "If God has a great task for you, He will expand your character to match that assignment." I believe we are on our assignment and God is doing a work in us that prepares us for this amazing task he's called us to. Where's your mission field? What's the task God has prepared for you? Are you willing to embark on the journey? I assure you...it's worth everything! A reminder that those He called to do great things in the Bible, great tasks, were ordinary people. Their willingness and obedience made them be able to be used by God-they were available. Are we willing & available? Will we be obedient to the call?
Alan was also, obviously being used. Perhaps he had the greatest responsibility, the most important role of bringing the message.
ReplyDeleteAlso forgot to mention that on a normal class night, before break, we were averaging 30-35 students. Hence, the reason I freaked out about 15!! :)
Jaclyn, what an amazing outcome! God blessed all of your efforts and your hearts desire to be a blessing to those around you. So happy for you guys - and I'm sure that all who attended were impacted. Very cool.
ReplyDelete