Stopping to Look Back - Part Two
Lumerit Scholar Unbound: Ecuador
It wasn’t where we were supposed to be that day. We had scheduled a kids’ program for a nearby village, but plans fell through. A local Christian family offered that we could use the next-door community center and volleyball field and they would call the neighborhood children to come to a kids’ program for a couple days. Sure! Why not? So there we were on the edge of a mountain in the Andes, surrounded by breathtaking scenery, with far more children than we expected, and a collection of interested parents. It all had the feeling of a church picnic. Parents had blankets spread out on the edges of the field and watched as their kids participated in games, crafts, and stories. Good start! We had no idea how awesome it was about to become.
We were teaching about salvation that day and had enlisted the help of some Ecuadorian pastors to pray with any kids who wanted to respond to the gospel. The first story team was finishing up their lesson and I walked up to ask if any of the kids wanted to talk to a pastor. The team leader looked up at me and said, “Ummmm… I’m not quite sure how to sort this out, but most of them want to receive salvation.” Awesome problem! About 10-15 kids followed me over to the pastors, who thankfully were quite happy to be busy talking with kids about salvation, because we kept them swamped with children for the next two hours! By the end of the afternoon around 80 children had prayed to receive salvation. That wasn’t the end of the story, though. After we wrapped up the kids’ program and the team headed out for dinner, ten moms stopped the pastor. “We’ve been listening to what you all have been teaching our kids and we have a question. Can we receive salvation too?” This is not a normal experience for a team. We often see kids, and even parents, respond to the gospel, but not usually 90 of them in one day. Sometimes, though, God sends you to a different mountain than you’d planned on so you can watch him work miracles.~Liz Fox, Lumerit Scholar Unbound Team Leader
Spanish Language Team
O the joy and excitement that comes when you look across and see your 
teammate speaking Spanish to an individual… It’s a reminder in life, we don’t always see the results until sometime later. This is the story of language team! Some days we come out of class asking ourselves, “Why did the tower of Babel have to happen?” It’s like we weren’t there, but is this the same confusion they felt like? We're just learning Spanish right? Other days we come out of class like a big light bulb just turned on as three weeks of classes just made sense. We can see from Genesis, the tower of Babel, to even different languages such as Spanish that He is the God of order! Nothing catches Him by surprise! From the medical clinics trying to understand and communicate, to the restaurants trying to order our food or what we thought we ordered, to up and going to an orphanage, to Spanish worship services, to more studying, to talking with the little kids you’ve known for years, but never been able to get past his name and favorite color to being able to share the Gospel. This is language team. This is GOD’s faithfulness! ~John Shoemaker, Spanish Language Team Leader
India Team
Bright colors, flowing scarves, water buffaloes mixed in with overloaded rickshaws, curry that you eat with your fingers… a trip to India is a sensory overload. Everything was so different from home. The first day of teaching photography felt… awkward. Most of us on the team had just met each other and now we found ourselves in a slum teaching photography through a translator into a language none of us understood, interacting with a culture like nothing we had ever seen before. Two weeks later I stood watching a team member and pastor pray with the largest group yet to respond to the gospel presentation. Ten young men and women were saved that day! For all the differences between our backgrounds, God had worked into the team themes that would resonate despite the culture gap. Stories of rejection replaced by love, abuse and bitterness replaced by forgiveness, connected with the teenagers even as we built bridges by teaching photography. One of my favorite activities each day was taking a small group of 5-10 kids and teens out to work with cameras and practice the various techniques. I tried out what I hoped were the Telegu phrases for “rule of thirds” and “fill the frame,” as well as “which picture is better?” and then enjoyed the laughter from my students as I tried to communicate. They got the point! The point wasn’t to take amazing pictures, it was to communicate that each of them is loved and valued by God and redeemed by a Savior. Most days we saw anywhere from three to eight teenagers respond to this love and step outside to pray with someone and receive salvation.God is at work in this country of vibrant colors, intense flavors, and thousands of deities. 
His people there are passionate about obeying the Great Commission, even in the face of persecution. One afternoon we sat down with a group of ten pastors and evangelists who had traveled for hours to attend our photography/communication workshop. “Many times when we share the gospel with someone, they beat us. Is there anything in this workshop that can help with this?” they asked. I already felt humbled in the face of such determination… and sad that I couldn’t do anything to alleviate their pain. “No.” I said. “Nothing I can share with you will stop the beatings, but we can teach you to make your message unforgettable. They might beat you now, but they won’t be able to forget what you said.” The nods of assent surprised me. “Ok. We can go with that.” These men and women thought that was a fair proposition. How many of us would be willing to share a message, no matter how unforgettable, if we knew a beating would follow… and then get up and do it again, and again, and again. Pray for these dedicated Christians as they work to reach a tribe of 2 million with only a few hundred Christians. It was an amazing privilege to join in God’s work and come alongside Christian brothers and sisters who are working toward the same goals.~Liz Fox, India Team Leader