Missions Newsletter April 2022

Hello Redeemer Community Church family!!

This spring break I, along with about 40 Redeemer college students, traveled to Panama City, Panama with the intent to share the love of Jesus with the local people. Redeemer College Ministry partners with Filter of Hope - an organization whose mission is, “to change lives and create hope by providing clean drinking water and sharing the "Living Water" of Jesus Christ with families worldwide” - each year. For weeks, my peers and I had been praying for the hearts of those we would encounter, logistical issues, our own hearts and that we would see the Lord move in mighty ways. We had no idea what He would have in store for us.

This was my second time on a Redeemer/FOH trip and each experience was drastically different but equally beautiful. As much as I would not admit at the time, I traveled to Panama with pressure that I had the power to convince people to surrender their lives to Christ. Looking back now on what my mindset was going in, and what the Lord taught me in my time in Panama, I can see that He continued a work that He had already begun in my heart in the States. Over the past year, He has been teaching me to depend on the Spirit and to trust that His grace is enough (2 Corinthians 12:9).

A particular moment that the Lord used to engrave these truths on my heart started with walking up to a house and immediately feeling overwhelmed by the Spirit. We prayed as we walked that the Spirit would use us as vessels for the gospel. This ended up being the most wonderful day, not because we necessarily saw any of the people we talked to in the house come to know the Lord, but because we learned to trust in the will of our God. To conclude, we went with the expectation of bringing clean water and Living Water to these people, but instead, the Lord showed us His character through the diversity of His people and the power of His Spirit. He alone can save!

~ Sydney Tucker