Some people wonder why 30 young adults (18-24yrs old) would give up a year of their lives to go off to a place where they have to sleep in sleeping bags and "work all the time." We all have different passions. I signed up for Nicaragua because there is an orphanage there, and I felt called to teach those little kids who need people to love them. Garrett Turner loves carpentry. Lila Dillon loves little babies. We all have our passions. But we ultimately signed up for one reason- we all love Jesus with all our hearts. I'm talking about the Church.

            Now before you stop reading this because you think I'm crazy, let me just say: we are not being made to drink crazy juice and recite incantations around a fire. We just have crazy love for others and we want to help them with the love dwelling inside of us. I have met and been friends with a lot of people who hate Christianity, don't believe in God, and think "church" is a religion full of hypocrites and people who don't genuinely love. People run, not walk, in the opposite direction because of the legalistic approach of "church."

            Let me tell you something. Church is not a place, Christianity is not a bunch of rules and religion is not something I believe in. I greatly dislike religion. We believe in Jesus and Jesus is love. That's it. We ARE the Church.

            So pretty much what the 30 of us are doing is following what Jesus did. When He was here on earth, Jesus walked with people, He cared about people, He loved people, He worked with people, He fed people, He helped people. That's all. We are just doing things out of love for people. Helping them. So this past week, every day we had a different thing Jesus did, and we did it. For example, on Tuesday we went out into the community of India (a small very poor area of Matamoros) and just walked around talking to people, sharing our food with them, and helping them in any way we could. Wednesday our group made tortillas, beans, and rice, and went out and fed people. We just want to share the love of Jesus with everyone.

            So Church = people. Christianity = not religion. God = love. I am not crazy. I am not sheltered. I am not a person who can't have fun (see earlier blog when Lila talks about how crazy we are). I do not adhere to a bunch of "rules." I just do what God wants me to do because of love. That's it.

Matthew 22:37-40

Jesus replied, " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'  This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'  All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments