My wife and I were blessed to be able to go on a Mission trip with our church at the time, New Horizons Fellowship in Apex. 16 of us raised funds and went to France to the Northern Region to a town called Lille. I had never been to another country, and on an airplane only once in my life. In my mind I had this thought of going to a remote place that had never heard the message of Christ, and didn't have a clue of who he was and that people would get saved, and oh boy it would be a delight.
I will never forget getting off of the plane in Paris and into the rental van and heading north on the A-1 highway and once we exited into town, the first round about (Intersection) that we came upon had a 16 foot cross erected in the middle of it with a statue of Jesus nailed to it, and immediately I was confused. This went on in several of the towns we went through. I remember everywhere we would go, how they would look at us in a grim way. The same way at this point we looked at them I'm sure. The first problem was to not be able to know and understand what each other was saying because of the language barrier, and then also mingling two different cultures.
One day along the mission we pulled up and got out of our vehicle and were standing in a parking lot, we were preparing to do some prayer walking at this place called the Abbey. We had a church service planned at The Abbey in Douai' France, we learned that every week there was a satanic worship service at this place. This would be the first time that a church service was held there in this lifetime. A lady walked up to us in the parking lot and began to tell a story that would change my view on faith forever. She said "under this parking lot where you are standing, there are more than 2,000 people buried here. A long time ago this place called the Abbey was a place where they tortured Christians. They would take them in there and begin to torture them by beating them, and the one thing they did was that they would slit their stomachs open and pull their intestines out little by little, trying to get them to agree with them and turn from their belief. They took them out to the area which is now the parking lot where we were standing, they left them there with their intestines completely out of their body, alive, still able to talk they would give them another chance, if they still refused, then after more agonizing time went by they would pour oil on them and burn them alive.
Suddenly a feeling came over me, I believe it was the Holy Spirit telling me that we had come this far from home, to deliver a message that we thought this land had never heard, and it I felt a notion of Jesus asking "Do you love me this much?" All I could think at the time iwas “Do we possess a drop of the faith that the martyrs which we stood over on this day had? They gave their lives, why? because they believed that Jesus was who he claimed to be, and that the bible was clear in what it said and that the Holy Spirit would guide them in bringing light to the Word of God. I went on that mission not having a clue of what was going on. I wouldn't have at the time flown to Ohio, much less get on a plane and go to France.
I, with good intentions thought we were going to feed those that needed to be fed the Word of God. I returned home realizing we both needed to be fed. This should give you some insight to the lyrics “A fire that once burned out of control, was thought to be buried underneath the road.” If they only knew that they buried nothing that day, and still today they are not quiet, for their faith speaks ever so loudly. In the verse also…. "Delivering a message we thought they'd never heard, but I found out that a long time ago, people gave their lives for what we thought they didn't know, for believing that Jesus was a man who came to life, sent down by the Father and claimed to be the Christ, for believing only through Him heaven could be seen.....He's the Way, the Truth, the Life.......Creator of everything!!!!
This song made me ask myself "How strong is my faith and would I surrender my life for what I claim to believe?"
Jesus did.
I will never forget getting off of the plane in Paris and into the rental van and heading north on the A-1 highway and once we exited into town, the first round about (Intersection) that we came upon had a 16 foot cross erected in the middle of it with a statue of Jesus nailed to it, and immediately I was confused. This went on in several of the towns we went through. I remember everywhere we would go, how they would look at us in a grim way. The same way at this point we looked at them I'm sure. The first problem was to not be able to know and understand what each other was saying because of the language barrier, and then also mingling two different cultures.
One day along the mission we pulled up and got out of our vehicle and were standing in a parking lot, we were preparing to do some prayer walking at this place called the Abbey. We had a church service planned at The Abbey in Douai' France, we learned that every week there was a satanic worship service at this place. This would be the first time that a church service was held there in this lifetime. A lady walked up to us in the parking lot and began to tell a story that would change my view on faith forever. She said "under this parking lot where you are standing, there are more than 2,000 people buried here. A long time ago this place called the Abbey was a place where they tortured Christians. They would take them in there and begin to torture them by beating them, and the one thing they did was that they would slit their stomachs open and pull their intestines out little by little, trying to get them to agree with them and turn from their belief. They took them out to the area which is now the parking lot where we were standing, they left them there with their intestines completely out of their body, alive, still able to talk they would give them another chance, if they still refused, then after more agonizing time went by they would pour oil on them and burn them alive.
Suddenly a feeling came over me, I believe it was the Holy Spirit telling me that we had come this far from home, to deliver a message that we thought this land had never heard, and it I felt a notion of Jesus asking "Do you love me this much?" All I could think at the time iwas “Do we possess a drop of the faith that the martyrs which we stood over on this day had? They gave their lives, why? because they believed that Jesus was who he claimed to be, and that the bible was clear in what it said and that the Holy Spirit would guide them in bringing light to the Word of God. I went on that mission not having a clue of what was going on. I wouldn't have at the time flown to Ohio, much less get on a plane and go to France.
I, with good intentions thought we were going to feed those that needed to be fed the Word of God. I returned home realizing we both needed to be fed. This should give you some insight to the lyrics “A fire that once burned out of control, was thought to be buried underneath the road.” If they only knew that they buried nothing that day, and still today they are not quiet, for their faith speaks ever so loudly. In the verse also…. "Delivering a message we thought they'd never heard, but I found out that a long time ago, people gave their lives for what we thought they didn't know, for believing that Jesus was a man who came to life, sent down by the Father and claimed to be the Christ, for believing only through Him heaven could be seen.....He's the Way, the Truth, the Life.......Creator of everything!!!!
This song made me ask myself "How strong is my faith and would I surrender my life for what I claim to believe?"
Jesus did.