Open the eyes of my heart, Lord!

It is beyond a shadow of a doubt that I had my eyes opened this summer.
I just don’t know where to begin to relate to you just what an incredible mission trip I participated in.
After much thought I think I will do a series of entries so that I will not overload you or begin to ramble.

This trip in and of itself was a treat to me. You see for years I have answered the question, “If you could go anywhere in the world, where would it be?” with the same response…The Mediterranean Sea. I never had a specific place just wanted it to be on THAT Sea. Little did I know that God had a plan to delight me with a trip there and combine it with doing His work. Many places in the Bible tells us that God delights in us and even gives us the desires of our hearts but this…this took my breath away.

I traveled with a group of 13 other ladies from all across Arkansas (one being my mother) to France.
Our main agenda for the trip was to distribute Bibles to North African Muslims that lived is France but traveled by ferry to their homelands. Please don’t get the impression that this was an easy task because of its location. It was long and sometimes very early days, lots of walking and a good amount of rejection…BUT well worth every minute!

Let me lay a little groundwork.

Here’s an interesting fact: Within the world population, 1 in every 10 is a Muslim women.
That fact set me back a little. I kept asking “within what population?” and kept getting the same reply…world. Being from the south, that one was hard to grasp. If you live in this region you will understand why…my goodness we live in the “Bible belt”.

Another interesting fact: While it is not illegal to own a Bible in Northern Africa it IS illegal to give them out. There are stiff penalties for such offenses so that is why the distribution is in European countries.

My eyes were quickly opened to the oppression and deception that these people are under. Even though so many were rejecting our packet, you could still see the hunger in many eyes for the truth. There was a desire of some to take the packet when someone with authority would demand that they not. Some of these stories I will share soon.

For our first days we underwent some very beneficial training. The one thing that stuck with me the most was a definition of successful witnessing. That definition is:

Successful witnessing is taking the initiative to share Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit and leaving the results to God.

That was exacting what was called upon us to do daily. Over the next few post I will share with you how that definition became something we took as our own. How we learned to take the initiative and how we had to completely surrender the results to God. You will be amazed at how we were called out of our comfort zones to get God’s word in the hands of others.

For now I will leave you with this to intrigue you and not get too lengthy. One of the best things about a mission trip is what you bring home. I traveled many miles away to learn something that I know that I need to learn to apply to my life here at home. While it is easy to take the initiative on foreign soils, it needs just as much to be done here at home. Would you join me as I lean on the true meaning of successful witnessing?

Please pray:
- that those that did accept the packet will read the true Word of God and accept His give of salvation.
- That those that wanted a packet will find one and begin to read.
- That many packets will be distributed by the other groups that are taking part in this project.

Looking forward to sharing more soon!

Cynthia