Nine high school
students and three leaders with an immense desire to spread the love of Jesus
jumped onto a plane in the middle July to travel to Pucallpa, Peru to be
missionaries. My earlier thoughts of this trip were just about how much fun it
would be to go do something crazy and different! I was expecting God to do
something. I was expecting some great miracle. I was almost putting pressure on
God to make sure He made something glorious happen.

My thought
process was all wrong. My hope to have God show up in a outrageous,
awe-striking, miraculous, out-of-this-world way was not what I should have been
anticipating. I learned right from the beginning that God displays his glory
and his wonder in every day.

I vividly
remember the day we traveled by a small motorboat to a village. We were on our
way back and the weather was simply beautiful. All of us were staring up at the
sky and just how puffy clouds were up above. I remember thinking to myself...WOW.
I know and have a relationship with the glorious God who MADE all this. I am loved by Him. I am His child. I do not need Him to prove
anything to me. He displays His truth
and light in the skies above and the
flowing water of that river.

^"Sing
a new song to the Lord! Let the
whole earth sing to the Lord!

Sing
to the Lord; praise his name.

Each
day proclaim the good news that he saves."

           
-Psalm 96:1-2

From this point
on I felt that I was truly singing a new song to the Lord in my life. I made a
conscious decision to make sure I let myself glorify God each day. I watched
more and more for God's glorious signs in every day situations. This encounter
in Peru changed the way I thought of God. He is not here to prove anything to
me. I saw all around me the love of Jesus and glorious movements in my
hometown. Whether it was the songs children were singing together on Sunday
morning or in the smiles I got from strangers, I saw God. His work every day became more and more evident.