Here is the acoustic version of True Love by Phil Wickham. I’ve tabbed it out and

since it’s tuned pretty weird I couldn’t figure out exactly what the chords were called.

I’ve included a video showing you how to tune your guitar for this version of this song,

but he is starting the video having his guitar tuned already a 1/2 step down.

I also attached the video of Phil Wickham playing the song in studio.

In the tab, the superscripts are optional variations of the chords.

Post a comment if you have any questions.

Phil Wickham-True Love
Tuning: ½ Step Down + DADGAD
EADGBE à D#, G#, C#, F#, A#, D# à C#, G#, C#, F#, G#, C#

Chords:
 C#  |----0----0----0----0----0----0----0----0----0----0
 G#  |----0----0----09---07---05---0----0----0----0----0
F#   |-----2----2----7----6----4----0---11---9----7----6
C#   |----0----04----0----0----0----0----0----0----0---0
G#   |----0----0-----0----0----0----2----0----0----0---0
C#   |----0----3-----9----7----5----3----0----0----0---0
Chord     1    2     3    4    5    6    7    8    9   10
         C#5 C#Maj  F#  C#sus F#sus C#madd11 ??    ???      ???      ???

Intro:
1  3  4  5 (palm muted)

Verse 1:
1                               3  4  5
Come close, listen to the story
1                                            3  4  5
About a love, more faithful than the morning
2           5             3           4          
The Father gave his only son just to save us

Chorus:
1                                2
The earth was shaking in the dark
3                               4      5
All creation felt the Father's broken heart
1                               2
Tears were filling heaven's eyes
3                                           4         5
The day that true love died, the day that true love died
1                                  2
When blood and water hit the ground
3                            4         5
Walls we couldn't move came crashing down
1                          2
We were free and made alive
3                                          4          5
The day that true love died, the day that true love died

Verse 2:
1                                            3  4  5
Search your heart, you know you can't deny it
1                                              3  4  5
Come on, lose your life just so you can find it
2           5              3         4          
The Father gave his only son just to save us
Chorus:
1                                2
The earth was shaking in the dark
3                               4      5
All creation felt the Father's broken heart
1                               2
Tears were filling heaven's eyes
3                                           4         5
The day that true love died, the day that true love died
1                                  2
When blood and water hit the ground
3                            4         5
Walls we couldn't move came crashing down
1                          2
We were free and made alive
3                                          4          5
The day that true love died, the day that true love died
Instrumental Break: (Same tempo as Intro & Verse)

7                     8   9

9                     8   10
Bridge:
5

Now Jesus is alive

5

Jesus is alive

3

Jesus is alive

3        4

Jesus is alive

6

Jesus is alive

2

Yeah, He is alive

5

He rose again
Chorus:
1                                  2
When blood and water hit the ground
3                            4         5
Walls we couldn't move came crashing down
1                          2
We were free and made alive
3                                          4          5
The day that true love died, the day that true love died

1                                3  4  5

Come close listen to the story...

Clemsident, Presiclemt, Clemsiclemt-some new names my buddy Wes made up, being as I am the new Student Body President at Radford University. The election results party was today, and I won outright, meaning I took more than 50% of the total 1600 votes (which were split between 3 candidates). I can’t say anything more than I’m humbled to be placed in this position, I can’t believe God has put me in this position and I can’t even begin to imagine what He’s got planned for me in this role. Thinking back to three weeks ago when I decided to run or had just decided, I never thought that I’d actually get elected, let alone in such a landslide victory. I think it’s just awesome and it shows how powerful God is, that no matter the circumstances, whatever He wants to happen, is going to happen.

It’s been weird trying to wrap my head around the fact that I’m the President of the students, and I’ll get my own office next semester and I get to have meetings with the President of the university. I’m just in shock right now. I must admit that initially I didn’t thank God, I was just overwhelmed with the excitement of winning, and I didn’t really even get into the word until now, and God really pulled me to this verse, “Do not consider yourself to be superior to those other branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you.” Romans 11:18 My main motivation in running was because God called me to do that, to take that step of faith and to give Him the opportunity to work through me in that position. I didn’t get here out of my own strength, out of my own will even. I didn’t greatly desire to put all the time, money and effort into campaigning, especially if I was going to lose. God gave me passion every morning I woke up to meet people, campaign, and to represent Him. God gave me the courage to speak at a political debate (SO not me) and not only not be nervous for one second during the debate, but God gave me the POWER to dominate the debate. God deserves all the glory for everything He’s done in me and through me. I don’t deserve this position at all, but I’ll take it and try to do everything I can to glorify Him.

Radford Newspaper The Tartan Reports Results

I do love bananas, but ever since I got my braces off I rediscovered my love for apples and pears. Good stuff. Anyways how about an update on my life? Okay.

I’m still running for President, the election took place last Tuesday and the online voting system encountered a few errors to where some students didn’t get to vote for certain positions so in order to maintain the integrity of SGA being the voice of ALL the students, the election has to be re-done again this Tuesday and Wednesday. If I don’t take more than 50% of the votes (since there are three candidates) it will go into a run-off election Thursday and Friday between the top two candidates. So it may be almost another week before I find out! This whole election process has been pretty exhausting, especially since I spent close to $200 on everything for my campaign, and did my entire campaigning amid four exams last week. I got a few B’s that could have been A’s if I hadn’t been running, but oh well I can make up for it during Final Exams. Once they told us last Wednesday that we’d have to do everything all over again, I was just completely exhausted and I wasn’t sure if I could even continue campaigning, I felt like just giving up, but I know that this is what God wants me to do and I am confident that this is a position that God wants to put me in, and I can’t give up just yet. I’m hanging in there, and I keep telling myself I still got some juice left in the tank. I’ll make sure and post up here whether I win or not, how I feel about it and probably some Presidential or not-so-Presidential pictures, so that should be quite enticing lol.

I volunteer with Hospice Services in the local hospital and I visited my patient for the first time yesterday. I felt terrible because I was supposed to in the past three weeks three times, but I have been too busy (or too lazy) to visit her. I read her some passages out of Philippians, which oddly enough is what was taught this morning in church. (Chapter 3 about the resurrection and the power it brought). I am going to try to learn a song on my guitar before the next time I visit her so I can play for her. I promised her I would bring my guitar and play something. She has alzheimer’s and rheumatoid arthritis so she barely speaks, can barely lift her head to look at you. She actually spoke to me and asked me for some water, which was cool because the first time I was there with the nurse, she didn’t even say anything to her. I hope that she will remember me next time I come and hopefully we can build some sort of relationship, I don’t know if she’s a Christian so I hope to share the Gospel with her at some point.

I’ve detracted some kind of mini-cold and have had a little bit of a sore throat, a little cough, a runny nose and stuffy head, so after church and I took the most righteous nap of all time, and in combination with some dayquil I feel a little better.

This summer I’m going to Lusaka, Zambia in Africa and I’m currently support raising for that. If you didn’t receive a support letter and you’d like to, please e mail me at maclem@radford.edu and let me know. I currently have a little over 10% of my total support ($5900) raised praise God! I’m starting to get really excited about going, and then my excitement is calmed by the shots I have to get and how much they cost lol. I would definitely appreciate your prayer for my support raising, and it will definitely be another test of faith as it was last year with Venezuela in raising the finances necessary to go.

This morning in church they talked about Philippians 3: 1-9 which I already mentioned and the preacher encouraged us to think about what God did for us in our lives, how the resurrection of Christ has impacted us. All I could think about was how God had rescued me from death, and how he had brought me so far in my own life from that point. I reflected on all the amazing things God’s done in me and through me (Venezuela, Africa, President, leading a Bible Study, baptizing my brother, changing people’s lives for eternity) and I was just completely humbled. It reminded me of this video I watched about this guy’s testimony. It is on the website www.Iamsecond.com and if you haven’t ever heard of it or visited the site, you desperately need to. It is some of the most powerful testimonies of people from some famous people like Brian Head-Welch and Joe Gibbs and also just some normal non-famous people. The testimony that I can relate to most is from the guy who was in Iraq in the armed forces. Here is his story:

http://iamsecond.com/#/seconds/Chris_Plekenpol/

Well hopefully you didn’t watch Radford get beat by almost 50 points on Thursday haha, but I did. It was kind of a bummer, but honestly it was pretty awesome seeing our name on the bracket at all, so I’m pretty proud of our basketball team.
For those of you who don’t know, I’m in SGA (Student Government Association) and I’ve been pretty involved this past school year. I have the opportunity to run for Student Body President, and I’m taking advantage of that opportunity. I’m pretty excited about the possibility of God putting me in that position so I can lead the student body in a holy and righteous way and bring God glory through that. If I don’t win the election, I’ll be just as happy because I know that God didn’t want me in that position. I’m definitely going to try to campaign as best I can, to earn votes and win the election, but I think that if I’m elected, it will be simply because of who I am as a man, rather than my campaign goals or lofty promises. I’m excited to be able to run, and I am hoping that during the Presidential Debate (April 1st) that I will be able to showcase my personality, my character and my integrity. I just want you to pray for me as I go through these next few weeks. My main motivation in doing this is to glorify God through bettering the university for the student body. I am not doing this to fluff up my resume, or to gain a position of great power, but to further the Kingdom of God.

I’ve also been accepted to a summer project that’s going to Africa, in the country of Zambia. I currently need to raise $5900 before May 25th, so if you could also pray for that, that’d definitely be helpful. I’m really excited about the opportunity to go to Zambia, but I only want to go if God wants me there, and I’m confident that God will provide the financial support.

Lastly, I’ve been reading through James and it’s one of the sweetest books of the New Testament. My favorite part is when it says “Faith without deeds is dead.” I have really enjoyed reading through this book and it has given me a really good perspective on what my life as a man of God is supposed to LOOK like to non-believers. I’m experiencing God and his truth and his love daily, which is a great feeling, and something I’m thankful for since we don’t always have the luxury of FEELING God.

“As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.”

James 2:26

Well hopefully you have been watching ESPN lately and seen snippets of Radford University’s basketball team on Sports Center.  If not then you get to hear it from me, that Radford’s going to the NCAA Tournament!!! Radford hasn’t been in 11 years, and I haven’t ever seen school spirit like this since I’ve been coming here (my sister started going to Radford two years before me) and it is awesome. It actually felt like a real division one school today tailgating and packing out the Dedmon Center. It was pretty awesome winning the Big South Conference Championship and rushing the court, having ESPN come to our school and freakin show the game live on ESPN 2. We honestly haven’t seen anything like that in a long time.

I painted my body half red, half white and got some pretty serious face paint. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to find a kilt, but oh well. I did learn a valuable lesson though: Before you paint your chest, shave your chest. It was pretty painful pulling my chest hair out in the shower because the paint wouldn’t come off. Never again.

The chances that we’ll actually win a game in March Madness are slim to none, but it doesn’t matter to me, I’m ecstatic that our name is going to be on the bracket at all. If we did end up winning the game, it would just be icing on the cake. Really, really good icing.

Photo courtesy of ESPN

Sorry it took me so long to put this up. It’s been a pretty crazy week so far. On a side note, I’ve begun fasting music for 40 days. Already walked into my realtor’s office and they were playing music and I didn’t even realize it until I got in my car and had Sheryl Crow stuck in my head for some odd reason. Anyways I’ll post more about that later. Instead of giving the other half of the journal entry I decided to pull some material from a reflection I wrote after I got back to the States, so it’s a bit more descriptive. Here’s the highlight of my summer:

July 5th, 2008

It was killing me to see how impoverished the people there were. If Chavez was making so much money off of the oil industry then why did these people have to live like this? Doesn’t he care about anyone other than himself? It sucked to see all these people in such terrible housing with dirt floors and no running water, barely any food and children everywhere. It hurt me to see some of the children alone without parents even when they were at their homes. Most of the women in our group were all dressed to impress and were wearing fancy make up and nice clothes. It just plain pissed me off to see these women trying to reach out and be Christ-like and share the Gospel with them when they couldn’t even get on their level. I thought there was no way any of the people we were inviting would come because of the way we were dressed and how to them it was impossible for us to understand the kind of life they lived in constant suffering. At this point I started getting angry.

Every person we invited would just have a wall up in front of them and there was no way they were going to respect us or listen to what we had to say. I got angry when I looked around and saw all these people in such terrible conditions and I got angry at God. I asked God, “Why God? Why are you letting this happen? Why are you allowing these people to suffer? Why do these people have to have such terrible lives? Why can’t I do anything about this? Why am I even here if there’s nothing we can do to help them not have to suffer anymore? Why does this have to happen?” I started asking Elisha if any of the people there had jobs, we got into a short discussion about how most people there didn’t have jobs, and they just lived off of what they had and whatever they could get. It just made me even sadder and my heart was just heavy. I didn’t want to be there anymore I wasn’t finding anything there that I really wanted to experience. At that moment I looked down and saw a chicken scampering around next to the curb and it was walking through a puddle. I wondered why it wasn’t in someone’s yard because I figured it would be valuable around here. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a little train of six or seven chicks following the chicken and they were covered in mud or dirt or some kind of grime but you could see patches of yellow poking through the muck. God spoke to my heart in that moment and said, “See? I am here.”

I was so deeply impacted by that I didn’t say anything for a few minutes. We walked around and kept inviting people to see the Jesus film and we came to this one house and the only opening looking into the yard you could see was covered with bars. When we looked inside we called for someone to talk to and a little girl walked up. She couldn’t have been more than five or six years old. She was probably the most beautiful little girl I’ve ever seen. She had dirt smeared across her nose and cheeks and her eyes were glossed over, like she was about to cry, but she wouldn’t. I got the feeling that she lived her life in a perpetual state of being on the brink of crying, but never crying because she knew it would change things anyways. She had a baby in her arms that she could barely hold. In front of her were two other toddlers with clothes on that were filthy and were way too big to fit either of them. In the background we could see another baby who was naked and sitting alone on a table with no one around. Elisha talked to the little girl and I have no idea what she said, not because I didn’t understand her, but because my mind was in other places. The entire time I was looking at this little girl, the Holy Spirit was stirring up inside of me. I felt the most sadness my heart has ever felt in my entire life. I didn’t need to even think about it to realize that I was feeling what God was feeling. I was looking through God’s eyes when He looked at this little girl and all these children, all of His children. I felt what God’s heart felt when He watched all His children suffer like they were, living a life that He had not intended them to live. I didn’t need God to speak to me about this image because I felt everything in my heart. I felt that God was truly and deeply hurt by this image, I felt that God was hurt that things like this had to happen.

I realized in that moment that God has broken my heart for what had broken His. I got to see things through God’s eyes and God taught me through first hand experience why there is suffering on this Earth. I don’t need to know why or have a logical explanation why there is suffering, because I felt how God feels about it. God was completely heart broken over the suffering that His children have to go through. I know how God feels. How absolutely mind-blowing is it, that I am able to proclaim that? I still can’t believe that God gave me a sneak peek into the inner-most being of His heart. I found that over the entire trip, God taught me the most and used me the most when my own heart was not in the right place. On that trip to San Francisco, my heart was not for people to come and know about Jesus by seeing the film, it was to get the heck out of there as soon as possible and by doing as little as possible. I can’t describe how powerful that experience was and how amazing it was to have God speak to me about something as huge as suffering. It was something that I never expected to learn about when I went to Venezuela and it was not something that I felt I needed to learn about. I knew the logical explanation that God didn’t want man to suffer but because of man’s sinfulness, man is cast into darkness and suffering. I don’t have to explain that to anyone anymore because I can show them my heart about suffering. I can share with them my experiences in Venezuela and I can try to communicate God’s heart about the suffering of man.

Fast forward to the second half of the trip, about two weeks left in Maracaibo. We had already gone to our mid-project retreat and returned and already gotten back on campus and everything. This is a Saturday when we were going to a pueblo called San Francisco to show the Jesus Film in Spanish to a pretty poor little town that had a really small church in it. I didn’t have the greatest attitude because I had been drained and didn’t feel like I really got a chance to relax at all and here we were on an obnoxiously loud bus ride to go do things that were going to drain me even more. It was a long entry, so I cut out a lot of the unimportant commentary:

June 14th, 2008

I sat next to Isaac on the bus and it was cool to talk to him, but I felt like crap and I was just exhausted. I didn’t feel good at all before we went out telling people about the moving we were showing, but once we started going out and walking around I felt a little better. I only invited one person and it was a kid who made fun of me trying to speak Spanish after I left so I pretty much didn’t do anything. When we went back to the church they had cold water and arepas which was pretty sweet but it made my stomach hurt even more. Once we were heading to the movie Isaac and Holly left since they didn’t feel good. Holly saw me bent over and tried to get me to go back instead of her and I really wanted to, but I knew she felt worse than I did. I went over and sat down to watch the movie in a little bit of pain and discomfort, but after the movie was half over, I didn’t really feel that bad anymore. A lot of people showed up and after the movie was over, Meghan gave her testimony and then Rigo shared the gospel. We handed out four laws booklets, took some pictures and loaded up on the bus to go home. The pastor of the church we were helping came on the bus and said pretty powerfully that we were a blessing there and he prayed that we would have prosperity and that God would be in our lives completely and totally. It was pretty amazing to hear him say that and to feel like I didn’t really do much, but our presence and what we did there was a blessing. While he was talking to us about that and giving up the sweetest spiritual pep-talk ever, I just mentally took a step back and thought, “This is why I’m here.” It was pretty amazing to be able to realize in that moment that even though I was not in the right attitude and even though I felt like crap and didn’t want to be there, God still blessed me with the experience and the opportunity to be there. The entire bus ride home I just soaked it all in, the junky bus, the crazy Venezuelans and the blasting reggaetones. I realized in that moment that even when I was not feeling well and didn’t want to be there, I should appreciate it because when I’m back at home sitting on my couch, I will be wishing I was on that bus with loud Venezuelans and reggaetones after spending a day sharing with some of the poorest people in the worst ghetto I’ve seen in my life.

That day in Venezuela, spending our time and effort reaching out to the broken people who were literally the poorest most impoverished people I’ve ever seen in my life was one of the biggest blessings that God bestowed me with while I was there. That few hours we spent in San Francisco changed my life. Coming back to America and seeing our culture and just how MUCH we had and how little they did, and seeing our culture want MORE than we already had was downright angering. The adjustment back to American culture frustrated me and was quite a process, going from seeing that environment in Venezuela and carrying some of the sorrow in my heart for them and coming back to the States and being able to eat whatever I want, whenever I want just blew me away. Unfortunately being in the States for a long period of time now, I find myself falling back into that mindset of wanting more than I need, and it frustrates me. It probably bothers me more than it would the normal person because I have such a problem with materialism, and I hate seeing people embracing materialism as a way of life, which in our culture is common, and even expected of you. I honestly think that everyone at some point in their life should go overseas and experience third world country conditions, whether it be a mission trip, AIDS relief, whatever it doesn’t matter the reason you’re going over there, but once you’re there it will undoubtedly change your life and the way you think about what you have.

This was actually only half of this journal entry, I’m getting pretty close to concluding my Venezuela Journal Entry series, and the next entry I write about will be the second part, which is about an experience I had while in San Francisco, and it changed my heart and deepened my understanding of God’s character more than the other 41 days that we were there.

To set up this entry, I need to fill in the time between last post and this. At this point in my trip, the honeymoon-effect had worn off, meaning being in Venezuela had lost all of the amazingness that the first week or two brings being there, having everything be new and fun. Things started to bother me that had not in the past: I was hot all the time (pretty close to the equator down there), I was thirsty all the time, hungry all the time. It was really beginning to bother me that I couldn’t eat, drink, sit in A/C when I wanted to. It was also frustrating that the food was just not filling me up, I was used to eating buffet style meals three times a day (dining halls on campus) and now I was pretty limited to what I could eat and how much I could eat. I really began to develop a negative attitude and stopped caring as much about being a team player, and more about satisfying my own hunger, thirst and comfort. It got to the point where things built up so much that my attitude was reflected in my actions and words, and I was making snide remarks about a lot of things and I wasn’t being positive at all. I ended up hurting my best friend’s feelings (only time I’ve ever done that) and it took that for me to realize how far I’d drifted from being a Godly man, or even just acting like a missionary. I prayed the night before this entry for a complete change of heart, because I so greatly desired to shed that selfishness I’d developed over the past few days. This is what happened:

June 2, 2008

Today I experienced a change of heart with my desires and with my will to follow the Lord. I woke up early, had a good quiet time, fasted breakfast and focused on claiming small victories. The day started out tough because the church group we were with was moving pretty slow getting out of the hotel and getting to the bus stop. I tried to be as patient as possible and was happy that I didn’t get immediately frustrated like I have been getting the past few days. While we were on campus I didn’t get discouraged that no translators showed up or that the church group was slowing us down a little bit and I just felt more passionate about having spiritual conversations with people instead of just reading the four laws. I ended up venturing out on my own, I looked for one person I could approach and couldn’t find any and finally just sucked it up and went and started talking to two girls. One of them ended up leaving for class right after I shared the third law, so I got to get more personal with the girl who had been quieter. Once we got to the part that Jesus died for our sins she just got really happy and I moved ahead to the pictures of the circles and she read over it and said she wanted to have a Christ-centered life. I jumped to the prayer, being sensitive to the Holy Spirit, because I could tell she wanted to move forward so we read over the prayer and I asked her if that prayer described the desire of her heart and she said yes, and she said she wanted to receive Christ and pray the prayer aloud with me and she did. It was awesome see the joy she experienced praying the prayer and afterward when I explained that Jesus was with her and would never leave her. It was amazing to just be able to be used by God like that, even when I am so unworthy. I will never forget this first time that someone accepted Christ with me, this girl’s name is Osiris. I am supposed to have a follow up with her tomorrow to talk to her more about her new life and I am praying that this meeting happens. I am also praying that the conversation will be Spirit-filled and that I will be able to communicate efficiently with her.

It was pretty amazing to be able to experience that, and that wasn’t the only time I got to bring someone to Christ. I still remember that conversation with Osiris like it happened yesterday, the images, sounds and smells are still vibrant whenever I recall this memory. Prior to going to Venezuela I had only shared my faith a few times on my campus and I wasn’t even that involved in the conversation usually and  I had never shared alone. It was pretty scary walking around this Venezuelan college alone looking for someone to share my faith with, in Spanish. This was pretty much the turning point in my evangelism comfortability, it was a huge leap I had to take in order to become as comfortable as I am right now with sharing my faith, and I definitely saw God continually stretch me in this area of my walk. This is one of the most personally significant days on campus for me, it is one of the stories that I usually tell people whenever they ask about my trip. The same day, with the church group that came down for the week on campus, Shawn and a lady from the church group went out and shared, without knowing a single word of Spanish. They walked around and asked people if they spoke English and tried to get them to translate. The first person who said she spoke English was an Atheist, and wasn’t that interested in hearing the Gospel, but she agreed to translate for the group of people they were in. They ended up having three people accept Christ, from an Atheist translating the Gospel into their language. God moved in amazing ways on our campus that day, and it’s one of my favorite days to share about. Oddly enough, my next favorite day to share about, is the day after this one. Stay tuned for another sweet God story.

Sorry I haven’t posted in a while, I’ve been quite busy with school work and I went snowboarding in West Virginia yesterday (awesome). My buddy faceplanted pretty hard and was bleeding from the face when he got up, and I feel pretty bad for him, but I’m really glad it wasn’t me because I probably would have been a wuss about it. He took it like a man and kept going the rest of the day and let us make fun of him (it happened on our second run). I might put a picture up here soon for pure entertainment.

May 26th, 2008

I forgot to journal yesterday and I was going to write all of the things that happened but then today happened and I realized that none of that had any eternal impact. Today was our first day sharing on campus and I shared with Jesus (hay-zeus). We shared with two different girls, Elena and Paula, and Paula, after we finished sharing with her, told us that it was crazy that we would come and talk to her because last night she prayed that God would help her change her ways, and we showed up. It was amazing to have God use me like that and I couldn’t wait to tell everyone when we met up at lunch time, and when we did all meet up EVERYONE had stories like that. I feel spoiled that on our first day of campus evangelism we had so many people be used by God and even had a number of people come to Christ. It was truly amazing, and I now know what everyone meant when they said it was different here and how open to the Gospel they really are. I don’t feel worthy in any way to be used by God and to be able to not have to work at all to get others to accept Christ into their lives. It is such a blessing to even be here, let alone see God move in such amazing ways. I know that God is using this trip to grow me into a stronger man of God and I can’t wait to see how everyone else on project grows and changes for God. I am also starting to realize how much I just want to give God my heart and follow after Him. I can’t believe I ever thought for a second about not coming. If I went home tomorrow it would be worth it, and I’ve been ehre for siz days. This place is amazing and I am so glad that God saved my life and on top of that chose me to come on this trip and be an ambassador for Christ, living on the frontlines and spreading His name and being a living, breathing representation of Jesus Christ.

Apparently I like the word “amazing”. It was a pretty cool first day we spent on campus, and it was even cooler that pretty much our whole team experienced what we did. This entry and the first day we spent sharing definitely set the tone for the rest of our time in Maracaibo. God was definitely there, there was definitely an open door there and there is definitely a spiritual harvest going on there. It was pretty crazy to experience that, and when I say we didn’t have to work at all to get people to accept Christ, I mean it. Walking around campus we would literally pick who we would talk to for the next hour, and most likely it would lead to them accepting Christ. While we were there, 98 people accepted Christ. That’s pretty amazing in itself, especially when some of my friends went on summer projects to other places in the world and had zero people accept Christ while they were there.

I’m just going to jump around at this point in the journal. They’ll still be in chronological order, but they might be way spaced out. I’m going to try to focus less on the uninteresting list of events that happened each day and more on the depth of what God did while I was in Venezuela. Hope you enjoy it.

May 23, 2008

Today was sweet because we got to sleep in until noon and then had a team meeting. We made smaller teams to take care of planning certain activities & Sara, Cara and I are on one team. We are also in charge of writing everyone encouragement notes. After our team meeting all the guys took taxis to the park. I got put in a taxi as the Spanish-speaker and it was sweet because I didn’t really have any problem communicating to the driver. We ended up getting dropped off at a random spot and we found our way to the basketball court. We met Isaac and Rico there and tried to get in on their game of soccer they were playing. It was nice because they were playing on the basketball court and it was covered, so I didn’t risk getting sunburned. We had to wait a while to play and finally one of the guys told Shawn and I to play and I couldn’t understand what he was trying to say because Shawn and I weren’t supposed to be on the same team, but neither of us knew who was on our team so they made fun of us a lot and kept laughing at us whenever we got the ball. They didn’t stop making fun of us until Shawn scored on them, and it was pretty soon before the game was over. They played until one of the teams scored three goals, so then Isaac, Rico and Josh got to play on our team so it was just us Americans against a team of Venezuelans 5 v 5. I thought we were just going to get destroyed but we actually did pretty well and only lost 3-1. They let us stay on and we played a lot better and actually beat the same team 3-0. Then the next team we played we beat them too 3-1, and we played them a second time and lost 3-2. It was so much fun playing futbol with them because it was actually challenging. We had to keep and eye on our bags so they wouldn’t steal anything from us. Once we stopped playing some of the guys in the bleachers asked us why we were there and it lead to us having conversations with them and we shared the four spiritual laws with them. I read through them with the guy who asked us to play and his name was Jeferson. The guy Isaac talked to was named Rafael. Jeferson actually read over the prayer to accept Jesus, and I don’t know what that means, if he really accepted Jesus or if he understood that that’s what he was reading. The entire time I was praying for him silently and it was just awesome to have the opportunity to share with him. It helped me to understand that even on our day off when we were playing soccer we can still minister to people and we can still share the Gospel and it has helped me understand what it means to live a lifestyle of evangelism. After we played soccer, Isaac, Shawn and Josh played basketball while Rico ran and I got to talk to the guys some more. After we left we went and met up with the girls, the SLT and the Stinters and played encouragement baseball. After that we ate and got cepillados and I tried a flavor called guanabana and it was delicious. When we got back to the hotel we had a team time where we all shared our testimonies and it was pretty awesome to hear everyone’s stories and the things they had been through. It was amazing to hear how much we had in common with the things we struggled with in the past and it really helped me get to know the rest of the team much better.

That was a pretty key day in understanding how to truly evangelize. It was cool that on our day off (it was actually before we really went on campus at all in the trip) we evangelized to the guys we were playing soccer with. Playing soccer down there was one of the most enjoyable things I did while I was there and it was pretty sweet to be able to use that as a ministry tool. This is something that I definitely have taken back with me into my daily life, in my classes, playing sports, doing whatever it is that I do in my free time, that I can not only relate to others, but minister to them but first simply living a life that reflects God, and by sharing the Gospel. In America it’s a little harder to just plain share the Gospel with people and not be immediately rejected, so I have focused more on intentionally loving and investing in other people and building relationships prior to sharing the Gospel-it’s something that I feel like I have to be sensitive to the Spirit in doing. It was pretty frustrating when we started playing soccer with the Venezuelans, they just completely made fun of us, all 40 people there were laughing at us, but it felt so good to shut them up and dominate the court for a little bit, especially since we dominated them at their own sport.