Missions Newsletter May 2023

Sarah with teammates

From Sarah Gentry, Redeemer member

This past spring break, 50 of Redeemer’s college students and staff traveled to Cuba through an organization called Filter of Hope, which brings both clean drinking water and the gospel to people who have limited access to both of those things. I had the incredible opportunity to witness the Lord working in very tangible ways in Havana and the surrounding villages, and was blown away by the Lord working in our midst in very intense and personal ways. The oppression of the people there means that Cuba is an incredibly rich soil for the hope of the gospel to fall upon, and I have never seen the gospel more joyfully accepted and eagerly listened to. We saw countless salvations and even more seeds planted, and glory be to God for that!

Our teams walked into homes where joyful believers lived. We also walked into the homes of people who worshipped idols and whom we never saw grasp the grace, love, and freedom that is found in the power of the Lord. One of the most difficult parts of these trips is the tension the whole team feels between wanting to see all of the people we encounter come to know the Lord, and the discouragement and frustration we are met with when they don’t. There’s lots of unknowns and questions that follow that, and I personally struggled with that a lot on this trip. Leaving Cuba, the team and I just had to lean into the discomfort of not knowing, and lean into knowing that we are glorifying God simply by sharing the gospel, and that He is the ultimate Knower. To the idea of ‘planting seeds,’ I think Philippians 1:6 speaks well: “… being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on, to completion, until the day of Christ Jesus.” Our human lack of knowledge does not detract from the power of the Lord to work with or without us. We are simply called to share.