COUNT IT ALL JOY

"¡Somos Misioneros!” (“We are missionaries!”) was what the Go To Nations National Honduran Team yelled as we tried to decide whether or not we should continue our last hour and a half of our journey home in a hot and humid windowless bus that had caught fire and lost all air conditioning.

As smoke was blowing out of the air vents, I stood in awe and amazement of the team's enduring attitude! We were on our way home from a week long retreat where unexpectedly around 20 of the team members, including our whole family, had become very ill. Five of the National Team had been hospitalized. Even with a hot humid bus, this group of mostly sick and recovering ministry leaders didn’t complain, they didn’t want to stop to switch buses, they just cheered joyfully, "¡Somos Misioneros!” and piled back onto the bus.

It brought back to me the verse I had read to our kids that morning… James 1:2-4.

“Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.”

God had put those verses on my heart that morning because I had never seen our family’s faith tested in such a way before. All of us had bacteria in our stomachs that caused extreme symptoms of vomiting and diarrhea. We had headaches, sore spines, tingling extremities, fatigue and dehydration. There was someone running to the toilet non-stop for days.

Jesse did an amazing job staying strong and trusting the Lord for God’s plan and will. I (Sara) slept for 37 hours and was pretty incapacitated for 3 days. Again, I was blessed because I never once heard my kids complain or cry to go back home. They were strong and pushed through the pain and discomfort to even help comfort each other through the ordeal. Even little Amelia eventually had to go to the hospital when she got a secondary infection on top of the first. She never complained… she was strong and brave. Many troubles came our way and yet, we considered it great joy because our faith was tested and our endurance had a chance to grow.

What the devil meant for harm, God used for His Kingdom. Spiritual warfare became so real for our kids. During those days of sickness, Makai saw in the spirit realm and got a huge breakthrough in overcoming a spirit of fear. Amelia, opened her heart and received Jesus into her life and made Him her Lord and Savior for the first time! Something Jesse and I had been praying and believing for. Yay God! The Honduran Team also was awakened to spiritual warfare and received revelation and passion to pray more deliberately in the future around their team events.

God is raising up Honduran missionaries who are reaching not only their own country with the gospel, but also the countries around them! No amount of sickness and no amount of the enemy's wickedness could stop what the Lord was doing in his people and in our kiddos.