“So Barnabas and Saul were sent out by the Holy Spirit. They went down to the seaport of Seleucia and then sailed for the island of Cyprus. There in the town of Salamis, they went to the Jewish synagogues and preached the word of God” Acts 13:4-5
On Saturday, March 25th, we got to the airport in Norway at 4am and opened an envelope telling us we were going to Cyprus! Cyprus is a small island off the Mediterranean Sea, in the Middle East. The envelope told us we had a place to stay for two nights and after that we would have to figure out where to live by ourselves. Getting to Cyprus we had no contacts, no ministry planned, and no idea what our purpose was there, but we had such a peace that God would without a doubt take care of His kids. We did know that Paul´s first mission was to Cyprus and he began by connecting with the local church, so after God told us that, we found a church about five minutes away from where we were staying and went to their service the next morning. After going to church we got connected with YWAM Cyprus along with a YWAM team from Scotland on the last two weeks of their outreach. It was awesome to see how God guided us to that specific church to find these fellow YWAMers and to connect with the Scotland team for their last two weeks of outreach. By God´s grace we found a place to stay within our budget for the remaining two weeks we have here. After much intercession, worship, and prayer walks, our team felt like God brought us to Cyprus to refresh and support the long term missionaries and the Scotland team who have been here for 2 months. We were excited to join forces with them and work alongside what they have been doing, motivating them and doing the dirty work they did not want to do or did not have time to do. As a team we gave up our rights to do ministry the way we wanted and our rights to see the fruit of what we were going to do because we were expecting to be behind the scenes.
We started working with a group called Oasis which is a Christian organization who reaches the refugees and migrant workers in the area. We have been helping them fix up the yard of their facility by doing yard work for hours at a time, but because God is awesome, He has given us such a joy and a heart for doing the dirty work, the stuff people normally do not want to do. We so enjoy helping and supporting these inspiring long term field workers. After helping with them we quickly got connected with the YWAM Scotland team. We partnered up with them in intercession, prayer walks, evangelism, and worship all around the city. One cool thing that God has blessed us with is connections and friendships with some African refugees and Indians who were either hindu or muslim! We had a day in the park with them where we did some worship and some people shared testimonies. Then the next day we continued with these connections by doing a sports day on the beach with them. After playing for a while we all gathered and worshipped together and then more people shared testimonies. Mind you, at this point my team and I are fully okay with not seeing any fruit because we gave up that right and we still had confidence that we are doing God´s work here whether we see the fruit of our work or not. After some of our team shared testimonies we asked the Indians and Africans if we could pray for them in any way: healing, to receive Jesus, for peace, and to our joyful surprise many asked for prayer! Almost instantly one African man was healed of a knee injury and then I heard a group of Indians praying to dedicate their lives to following Jesus. The Holy Spirit was there so mightily and He was just touching each heart there in such a unique and beautiful way. It was incredible to see God reaching His beloved children with refreshing peace and love. Everywhere I turned I saw our teams praying for them, people getting healed, people accepting Jesus, people feeling God´s presence, and people sharing the gospel. It was indescribable. God is so personal it´s insane. I got to speak to an African man about Jesus and our lives for about half an hour and it was so special to hear his story about how he got from Africa to Cyprus. Some of the refugees wanted to know more about Jesus so we will be holding bible studies together with them for the remaining time we have here. It was just so astonishing to see so many people meeting Jesus and His beautiful life changing love. He met them personally right where they were. So good!
“For The Lord your God is a consuming fire” Deuteronomy 4:24
God is insane, is He not? He is bringing His kingdom here in Cyprus in such a breathtaking way that I cannot help but be in awe of His glory and wonder all over again. My heart is to see the lost and hurting meet the Perfect Love that changed my life forever. I have something valuable in me called Truth and it is such an honor that God has trusted me to relay that message to His precious people. God has been so faithful to take care of us from giving us a place to stay, to finding the other YWAMers, to ministering with His people and even getting to see some of the fruit from that! God has taught me so much this week but one thing I think that He has constantly been reminding me of is the importance of being completely reliant on Him. It´s so insane that due to our circumstances we have become fully dependent on God because we had no plans, no connections, and no where to stay when we got here, so all we could do was seek God first and let me tell you, He is taking care of His children more than we could have ever imagined. He is truly such a good Father.
Someone told me upon leaving Norway to expect more of God and to ask for bigger things, at the time I did not know what that meant or looked like, but now I do. I want to bring God´s Kingdom wherever I go with the unique story and giftings He has given me, whether I see the fruit or not, whether it´s the way I expected or not. I trust God will be working every step I take, with every heart I encounter, and with every country I go to.