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I am an Addict

So there I was an eager and naive college student in my second year at Oral Roberts University. I saw a sign advertising a week long, short term missions trip to Mexico. Having never been on missions before, I knew it was time to take my first trip. So I went, and that week changed my life.

God told me when I was twelve years old that I was going to be a missionary. Sitting in church one night, I heard, very clearly, God call me to full time missions. So there I was eight years later about to take my first ever missions trip.

The weeks before the trip our team spent several Saturdays learning our evangelism dramas. We were doing "Toymaker" by Impact Productions. My character was the soldier. So in my backpack, along with my toilet paper, pepto tablets, flashlight and Bible, I packed some camo paint, a set of BDUs (battle dress uniforms) and a toy machine gun.

Our ministry was the "street gang" method of street evangelism, made popular by Teen Mania Ministries. We would set up in a public place, attract a crowd through funny skits, and then "bring the hammer down" with our main evangelism drama, Toymaker. After the drama we would canvas the crowd, sharing the plan of salvation.

This scared me to death. I had never EVER witnessed to someone before.

We were at our first evangelism event. We did all our funny skits, then we did the Toymaker drama, then it was time to hit the crowd. The moment I had feared the most had come. At first I thought I would just stay back and do prayer support, and just wait and see if anyone needed help.

Then I saw him.

What struck me most were his eyes. I will never forget the look of his eyes, I can still picture them over twenty years later. His eyes betrayed many emotions. He was angry, he was confused, he was hurt, and he was crying. He needed Jesus, and he knew he needed Jesus. I asked him in Spanish, "Do you want to receive Jesus?" and he broke down. And through tears he prayed the Sinner's Prayer.

So in that mountain village in Northern Mexico, he found Christ. Using me with my broken Spanish, Jesus Christ, Creator of the universe, King of all the kings, reached down from Heaven and knocked on the door of this guy's heart, and this Mexican invited Christ in.

That moment changed my life. I will never forget how I felt, and I became addicted to that feeling. I became addicted to the feeling of being used. That somehow a weak and imperfect life could be used by God Almighty Himself to reach down from Heaven and touch a life.

I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life feeling that way. I wanted to spend the rest of my life being used.

I am still addicted.

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