We had planned for months and it was finally here. All the fundraising, prayer, and excitement had led up to this day. March 11th was an early morning; with Daylight Savings we were unsure what time it really was– 2 am? Or was it 3 am? We walked up to the kiosk, sluggish but excited, to get checked into our flight, and noticed the board showing that our flight was canceled. Our immediate thought was, “Why us? After all of our planning and preparation, our trip is just canceled?” Panicked, we tried to think of other options to get to the Dominican Republic, but were unsuccessful. The next available flight would have set our trip back three days. We knew we had to pivot to another option.
We started connecting with church leaders around the world, wondering if we could go to a different country to carry out our same mission. Those plans fell through as well. We started to really worry, but in time, the Lord provided a better plan for us– in Sugar Land, Texas. What could possibly be in Sugar Land, 45 minutes from WoodsEdge?
In Sugar Land, we met a missionary named Kevin. Each day he trained us to share the gospel with people of other religions respectfully and easily in our day-to-day lives. Kevin’s lessons included how to share the gospel in 15 seconds using a henna tattoo on our hands and relating the beliefs of different cultures to ours when evangelizing. Over time, a sense of confidence began to settle into the students. They seemed ready and excited to get out into the city to share the Lord.
We traveled to Muslim, Sikh, Buddhist, and Hindu temples, learning about each of their cultures and planting seeds in Gospel conversations that the Lord watered and grew. We all noticed a weight that the enemy was trying to put upon us, but we knew that our Father was protecting us from this burden while visiting these temples. At the end of each day, the students were excited and ready to wake up the next morning and do it all again.
After a few days of learning, Kevin gave us a new task to challenge our faith. We were instructed to go door-to-door in an Afghan apartment complex to hear the tenants’ stories – how they came to the US, the stories of their religions, even personal interests. With this opportunity, our students were truly tested. Through the awkward silence and the really uncomfortable conversations, they got out of their comfort zone to share the Gospel.
It took a few apartments to get comfortable with it, but the students were planting seeds in each home. To get us further out of our comfort zone, Kevin had another idea for us: having a meal with these Afghan families on the floors of their homes. It was incredibly awkward at first because we were tasked with serving them when they wanted to serve us. But when we broke past that wall, it was easy to start a conversation.
Students shared the Gospel openly to these families, telling them their stories and explaining to them what the Lord has done in their lives. It was remarkable and beautiful to see these students take this large step of faith to share the Gospel to complete strangers through language barriers. We were sad to leave these households. We wanted to stay there for hours! But we knew it wouldn't be the last time we’d see these families.
Finally, we got to host the Afghan families at our host church for games, crafts, and a lot of fun! During that time, we also offered our help to parents who needed household repairs. From fixing wifi connections and TVs to putting up curtain rods, these small acts gave us even more opportunities to serve the Afghan community and talk about Jesus.
After our last minute pivot from the Dominican Republic to Sugar Land, we didn’t really know what to expect. We just knew we were going to share the Gospel. However, these students trusted God’s faithfulness through this week and did it with such excitement. The Lord was gracious to use this trip as a reminder that we don’t need to go to different states or different countries to be vessels for Him. We can trust that God will work through adversity to reveal places that need His Gospel – even if the mission field turns out to be our own backyard.