Belarus Bound 2012

Ashley Moon's Journal (1 April 2012)

3rd day in Belarus, it was a long day, but a good one. Woke up, had breakfast, and got ready to go to church. Our team was going to perform two songs after being introduced at the church. When all our team got there, we didn't have much time to rehearse, so we panicked a bit. However, during the performance, all of us didn't think about how we would look, but set our focus on God, and the performance was a success (I think I did well for my first time performing on the drums^^). We worshiped God and that was what mattered. The service was of course in Russian, so I didn't understand much, but during worship I was filled with the Holy Spirit whatsoever. I had never felt that before when I couldn't understand the words and didn't know the song. It was amazing how God touched my heart. My nervousness of performing was overcome by peace and joy from God, and that stayed even after the performance. After church, we went back to our host families' homes, ate lunch, and rested for a while. Then, we came to the community center to practice for our second performance, which was for a youth ministry that was going to be happening there during the evening. Before that, we had our team meeting and I had prepared for the devotions. I talked about love, how love is from God, how love is like water and if we don't share it, it just sits there and becomes "dead", and how He is the one that breaks the barrier, the wall between people. I wasn't in the second performance, so I helped the other teens to set the place up and just hanged out with them. I got to know them a little more (they are from the LOGOS middle-school youth group, and USEE high-school youth group) and God did break the wall between us: it wasn't awkward to talk with them and hang out with them although they spoke little English and we didn't speak any Russian at all. It was the same for the host family me and Esther was staying with. After the ministry (the ministry was good: our team performed music, did the skit, other teens from the church did some things as well, and there were activities) we came home and ate dinner, and after dinner, we were able to make a deeper and longer conversations with them more than we have had yet. We got to know them and Belarus more, and they got to know about us too. I've realized that perspective is what's important, not what we are doing. When we set our focus on God, things that might be embarrassing or nerve-wrecking becomes a joyful and a good event.