We are ONE body

This is rather random, but I wanted to share one incident of our travels last week that was seemingly insignificant at the time, but has truly stuck with me.....

After our time with the national team working in Caracas, we had one extra day and night in Caracas (we = me, Amanda, Eben, and Elissa - from the Maracaibo team) before we headed out to the island of Curacao (right off the coast of VZ) for our final VISA renewal trip...don't worry, some of those stories are yet to come....Anyway, this story actually begins on the very first day we flew into Venezuela from Atlanta.....

On our entry flight, we were all separated into different seats in various areas of the plane. Eben was fortunate enough to end up sitting next to a missionary couple from New Tribes Missions (really cool missions organization, check em out!). This staff couple chatted with Eben and shared a little of their experiences and such with mission work. They were also kind enough to give him the name and address of a couple who live in Caracas and own a "missionary guest house". At this guest house, any missionary can stay the night, or several if needed, for only $25 (US) a night, with breakfast provided, and the house is only 2 blocks away from the airport, and there is an on-call taxi driver for any hour of the day...This place turned out to be an incredible blessing for us...not only was it cheap, close to the airport, safe, and comfortable, but the people were so encouraging to me.

First of all, we met Jim and his wife (oops forgot her name :S) who were taking care of the house. They are actually not the owners, but are watching it for a few months while the owners are back in the states for health reasons. Jim and his wife and their kids had served in the Amazonas region of Venezuela (pretty much just wild jungle) with a native tribe. While there they had basically constructed a written language for the tribe. Unfortunately before they were able to begin translating the bible into the tribal language, Chavez sent his army in to kick all the missionaries out of the jungle, and burn all of their belongings, and then stationed guards at the tribe with order to shoot any "gringos" that came back there. Needless to say, they ended up at the "missionary guest house" on their way back to the states to try and figure out what to do next....It was so incredible to listen to the stories of these people. I mean really...sometimes I feel like I'm really having a hard time for the God here in Venezuela (ie: parasites, no milk/flour/meat, riots, etc....) but it was amazing to hear all the things that these people had gone through to bring the gospel.....it sure helped give me some perspective!!

Secondly, we got to meet a guy named David. Now, David was from Tennesee and you could tell that from the moment he opened his mouth and tumbling out came a heavy accent, and very chipper tone. David rolled in at about 5:00 AM as we were all sitting in the living room (as to why we were all awake at that time...that story will come with the stories of travel adventures/nightmares at some later date) Anyway, from the moment David entered the room you could sense the Holy Spirit on him. Before he had known us for an hour, he has already launched into a sermon on the power of prayer, and told us all about this new prayer method that he and his church and his missions organization (Genesis something...) were promoting. It was pretty much impossible not to be inspired by the way that he talked and how passionate he was about prayer and serving the Lord. He was in Caracas to do a giant outreach with many churches together down there....only later on did we find out that he was one of the main speakers for the event. We sat and listened and chatted with David for at least 4 or 5 hours (again, travel stories come later...) and in that time I found myself so encouraged by the faith of this man and for his heart for fellow Christians to be called to pray. One more coincidence....David told us that he was only staying at the guest house while he waited for his translator to fly in....well, his translator's taxi pulled up to the house as our haphazard group was finally about to leave, and it turned out to be none other than someone we know from Merida! Ladimiro (the translator) was also the ex-pastor at Nueva Vida (a church we attend), he also owns our apartment, and teaches at English at ULA! What a small world??! We was very surprised to see us, as we were him, getting out of the taxi....but somehow it wasn't weird, just a God thing :)

Finally, we got to meet another missionary couple Terry and his wife (sorry, I guess I'm bad with wife's names!) who were also from the South (Alabama I think) and were also in town for some sort of outreach. I didn't get to speak to them as much, but did get to hear a little about the story of their marriage and their heart for Venezuela in general. Mostly I just enjoyed being present as David and Terry bounced ideas off of each other and shared visions.

It was a blessing for me to be in the presence of older and stronger Christians. That is something we have really been lacking this year, and I didn't realize how much I missed that until very recently. Because my team is only 6 people my age, we really all have about the same amount of life experience and can't really speak into each others' lives the way an older Christian can. As we finally grabbed out luggage and headed for the door to catch our taxi, David, Terry and his wife jumped up and asked to pray for us. I was so blessed by this simple act of 3 complete strangers, that it really made me think. It was so cool for me to think about, and realize that even though we all came from different mission organizations and churches, with different objectives and goals....we all truly serve the same God and we all truly want to see His great commission fulfilled. We are all ONE body. There's no competition, there's no hierarchy of organizations or denominations....we are just Christians, committed to loving the same God, and He is Good!

Caracas Outreach

Well folks I apologize for the neglect of this blog as of late...I attribute it to 2 things: 1). As usual, life is busy and 2). I believe I'm beginning to lose my use of the English language, and therefore writing has become more difficult than I remember it......The latter, while sounding laughable, is unfortunately truer by the day...I realized the other day that writing here more frequently would counteract these symptoms, so I am returning to the land of blogdom. Unfortunately, since it has been a while I can't remember much to report except for the rather scattered and busy events of the last two weeks.....The most exciting of which was our trip to, and time spent in Caracas.

Caracas is the capital, and largest, city in Venezuela. It is also one of the most dangerous cities in the world....But don't mind that, we all returned safe and sound, and I truly enjoyed my time in Caracas. We, (all of the CCC staff in VZ) came together for a few days to so a "blitz" of the city of Caracas. The ministry of Vida Estudiantil has just this year been "started" in Caracas. Unfortunately due to the
small number of staff, already been spread thin through the country, there is only one couple and their 2 year old daughter serving the ministry and trying to get it off the ground in Caracas. Try as they might, 2 people against a city of 5 million...is a big challenge for anyone. So, in an effort to give the movement a little push in the right direction, we all came together for a time of concentrated work in Caracas on the campuses there. We visited UCV (Universidad Central de Venezuela) the largest university in Venezuela at roughly 70,000 students as well as Simon Bolivar University, a private university with around 30,000 students. We all split into pairs and went sharing the gospel (through the use of the 4 Spiritual Laws), as well as asking students to fill out surveys, and sharing with them what Vida Estudiantil is and what they stand for. We invited each student we talked to, to a large outreach at the end of our time called "Why do we need God?"

Sharing in Caracas was a different experience than sharing in Merida. Caracas being a huuuuuge city (in fact, at times it even reminded me of Seattle) students are much more liberal (as is typical with large cities) and less willing to take time out of their busy schedules to chat with foreigners (who are also more common in the big city). I noticed that I was stared at significantly less most of the time....Almost every Venezuelan was amused at my antics when trying to board the Metro (subway system) however. I wasn't aware that PUSHING and shoving and tripping are pretty much required to earn yourself a spot aboard the train...but I found out quickly! Everything in Caracas was fast-moving and hurried, similar to the US actually. This made sharing with students more difficult as most were in a hurry to get somewhere and didn't have time to stop and chat. However, the Lord still blessed us with many many good conversations and we saw quite a few students accept Christ. I just wrote about the whole event in my prayer letter so I'm going to let you read that for the rest of the info...look forward to the April newsletter headed your way in a matter of days!

Training Day

Last Thursday, I took two dedicated students - Jatniel and Andrea with me to Santa Barbara, once again. This time, for a different reason. This time we gathered their potential student leaders together for a time of training and equipping. Up to this point, the Professors, Deisy and Alvaro, have taken on the complete responsibility of the catalytic ministry there at UNESUR. However, as they have been raising up leaders, we've decided it's time to take this responsibility and pass it on to those students who are committed to, and love, this ministry. While I was at Congreso I took some time to meet with Alvaro and Deisy, and they were completely on board with this idea. We set aside the entire day on April 10th to do some training for these students, asked Deisy and Alvaro to select those students, and have been praying for them, by name, since that meeting at Congreso. With the help of two really great students from Merida, we put together 4 "workshops" to teach about the most important "ingredients" for a movement of Vida Estudiantil (PRAYER, Evangelism, Discipleship, and Sending).

The day turned out to be incredible. We were blown away to end up with a group of 12 committed students show up!! That is more students than we have serving the ministry in Merida, that is significantly larger. I was incredibly encouraged not only by the number of students that showed up, but also by their attentiveness and true excitement at getting THEIR movement off the ground and serving the Lord in that way. They listened intently throughout the entire day, of literally, us talking at them. When it came time for questions they were ready and trying to figure out how to best make this work. We took a break in the middle of the day and took them to lunch at a nearby cafe, which was also a lot of fun, and great to get to know them a little better.

All in all, it was an incredible long day (there are almost 4 hours of travel time on both ends), but it was incredibly encouraging to see the Lord working in the lives and desires of these students.....At the end, we spent a time in prayer all together and I gave each student a contract, asking them to commit to being part of the Vida Estudiantil servant team for the next 8 months. The response was great:) I really believe that God is working on that campus, and will continue to do so. We are excited to have gotten the opportunity to pray with and for them, as well as train and equip them. Please keep praying for those dedicated students at UNESUR!

2 of 2 Congreso Videos

1 of 2 Congreso Videos

Prueba de Fuego!

Prueba de Fuego!! Our national conference for Vida Estudiantil has finally come to a close, and as we walk away, we walk away with a sense of triumph, exhaustion, and blessings. The conference was truly an incredible experience, both to take part in, as well as to be a part of the creation of the whole experience. I have just written my entire newsletter about the conference, so I'll let you read that for more nitty gritty details, but I thought I'd post on here a few of my favorite pictures, and captions to help explain a bit.....enjoy!

Prueba de Fuego! Amanda and the decorations team did an incredible job preparing the camp for the conference and setting up the theme.
The staff dressed up for a huge parade as the students entered the conference by their respective cities.
Ninive and I at the "inscripciones" table getting everyone signed in and registered....

Some Merida guys and Ivan just hanging out.
Jesus praising Dios!
A group of students having fun.
Awesome times of worship
All of the students and staff from Merida
Human tug-of-war really helps with the bonding :) Many students made new friends from other cities....they have at least one thing in common, the Lord!
My group of lovely daughters of the Lord at Women's Night.
Learning to be "sparks" in their/our world of darkness.

Help Send Leonel to Alaska!

Hello friends! Do you remember back towards the beginning when I "introduced" you to some of our students? Well, I'd like to give you the opportunity to get to know one of them even better.....His name is Leonel. Leonel has been given a great opportunity to spend the summer on a project (just like I've done twice!) in Juneau, Alaska. I personally know just how much this summer will grow, shape, and change Leonel and his walk with the Lord. For that reason - I'm asking for your help! Please check out his video and consider supporting him financially, and more importantly in prayer. We are so exciting to be sending a student from Venezuela this year! I know most of you are already invested in this ministry by hearing my updates and I hope this is an encouragement to you, as it is to us.....God is really moving in Venezuela!



If you have any more questions feel free to comment here, or email Leonel directly at leonel_nava@hotmail.com

Checks should be written to Campus Crusade for Christ and need to include a note designating "For Leonel Nava - Venezuelan Scholarship Acct #2768835, and sent to

Campus Crusade for Christ
Attn: Contributions
PO Box 628222
Orlando, FL 32862-822