Meet Brooke Fortenberry, a small town girl with a heart for the nations. Her 'yes' may not have come easily, but He proved through closed doors that He is in the waiting and will direct her each and every step.
What fears did you have in saying yes to spend two months serving Mexico and how did the Lord help you overcome them?
My first fear with saying, “yes” to any trip overseas, especially my trip to Mexico, was the cost of the trip. How in the world would I come up with $3,000+ to fund my trip? I learned to appreciate the Body of Christ through my willingness to say “yes” because people gave, bought t-shirts, held fundraisers, and prayed for this financial burden. The Lord blew us away in doing far more than what I ever even needed for this trip. He eliminated the money excuse real quick in the very beginning.
Originally, I had not even thought about Mexico as my “place” God was calling me to for the summer. I had ALL plans of going to Uganda to work in an orphanage, and with “health factors” escalating all over the news, my parents politely told me that was not an option. They’ve never said “no” to a mission trip of mine before, so I hit my knees seeking a new direction because I knew I was supposed to go SOMEWHERE. Every time I checked the website for updated job descriptions, the only ones that caught my eye were… you guessed it. Orphanages. In Africa. I was so confused, but my prayer was that the Lord wouldn’t allow me to get distracted by what I couldn’t have in front of me, but to lead me to where He needed me the most – even if it wasn’t ideal. The Lord placed about seven different people in my path, randomly, and they all seemed to have the same advice of getting in touch with a missionary we all knew who had served in my hometown and seeing what he had. So, after the seventh person, I decided maybe I’d look into it – even though my heart still wanted to be in an orphanage.
So, I checked on it, met with the missionary on the ground there, and I prayed long and hard about the available “job” descriptions I could choose from. I was a nervous wreck. What if I chose the wrong one and got there and wished I had chosen something else? I am a homebody, like a major homebody, so I obviously I was scared to leave my family for two months and stay with people I had never met before, in a country I had never even been to.
When we got to our village, it seemed like doors closed all around us, and I was so scared I had made a mistake in even saying “yes” to go that summer. The Lord spent time with this ole heart of mine. He put people in my team and in my path that became my family and softened the blow of homesickness when it would rear its ugly head, and He proved to me through closed doors that He is in the waiting and will direct each and every step.
You spent your time serving in a village that had previously been unreached. What was it like to be able to tell people about Jesus for the very first time?
Man, that village was a tough little joker for our first two weeks there. Our objective for our life in the village was to find anyway to get plugged in with the community and with the people. There were two schools in the village, and we had felt led to try to help out there and get our foot in the door – for lack of better words. The first week we were there, the teachers in Oaxaca were on strike, so schools were not in session. And we maybe saw five people, including the two we lived with and the cook at the restaurant all week.
I was so devastated. I had definitely picked the wrong team. The wrong assignment. The wrong country. Just everything was WRONG.
That Tuesday afternoon, we decided the best thing we could do for these people, for our team, and for our ministry was to pray. We spent the entire day walking around the village and praying. We made it to the top of a mountain that overlooked our little tiny village, and my team of three (including me) sat there for hours and lifted up prayers of confusion, anticipation, and gratitude to our God who had sent us there and placed us there for a purpose we just couldn’t see yet.
The next week, we got back to the village from our weekend in the city, and there were people and kids EVERYWHERE. The Lord had answered our prayers BIG, and he had done more than we could have ever thought or imagined. The people in our sweet village were so accepting of us. They allowed us to use Bible stories to teach in the schools, and those relationships that we built in the schools led to conversations we were able to have about Jesus outside of the school with the children AND their families. We shared Gospel stories with the families, and then we would share how the stories related to our lives. We would then ask them to share of how it related to their own lives. For example, we would tell the story of Jesus calming the storm and discuss how he calmed “storms” in our lives and what that looked like. The sweet, sweet people were so willing and eager to share about their lives and inquire about a Jesus who could do the same thing for them.
Man, it was like a breath of fresh air to see people who were in this tiny village all “alone” seeking the one thing we had to give them. Over our time there, we saw a sweet family we met with and prayed with every day start questioning things and digging deeper. They (and we) were seeing prayers of healing answered right before our eyes. When we left Mexico that summer, some members of that family were so eager to learn about Jesus, but they just weren’t ready to commit to Him quite yet. What a sweet, sweet day it was when we got word from missionaries there 1-2 months after we had left saying that our sweet friends now knew Jesus as their Savior. God is so, so faithful. And that moment of redemption and salvation for our sweet friends made all the hard weeks or days well worth it.
How did serving internationally help you to better understand and know Jesus?
Every time I serve overseas, I get a clearer picture of my sweet Jesus and his love for me and his people. There’s nothing like a hard time or a time of confusion that won’t let you see the steps in front of you that makes you rely on Jesus more than yourself.
I have a tendency to want to fix everything and be in charge. Now, I know that’s not the way it works, but it’s my human nature. Serving internationally always puts me in a spot of humility where I realize there is nothing I can do in my own power because I honestly have no idea what I’m doing at all.
Through serving internationally, I better understand how Jesus literally walks with his people, equips them to do His work, and leads them into things for His good and His glory. Since I’ve been in church my whole life, you hear the Bible stories over, and over, and over again. They sometimes just become another “kid story” that you’re used to and become numb to. Sharing the simple truths of the Gospel in my trips internationally, and seeing people hungry for that and excited to hear it and learn about always encourages me to never bore from stories I’ve heard of Jesus my whole life, but to constantly be amazed at the works He did and is still doing in and through His people.
What did you learn about yourself while serving?
Whew! There’s nothing like serving internationally that will teach you about yourself. One of the things I learned about myself through this trip is that when you have prayed for years for patience and to know how to better wait on the Lord, and He answers, it may not be the easiest thing for your control-freak, get it done right now self. I struggle so bad in the waiting, and in the not being able to do it myself. I learned that my life was ran a lot more by myself and my own efforts to do things than trusting Jesus to work through my waiting and lead me in the direction he had mapped out for me.
My prayer for that summer was that the Lord would teach me how to be still, and how to wait knowing he would be faithful to His promise to draw near to me. I am still reminded of my lack of patience, or my hate for waiting, but I am thankful for a summer where the Lord revealed to me that with His help, I can continually learn more of how to trust Him in those season
What would say to someone who wants to go but is scared of what they’ll miss at home while serving?
Giving up a summer was HARD. I knew I’d miss my family getting together, birthdays, vacations, pool days, my friends, etc. And I just knew that it would be like a dagger to my heart every time I heard or saw my friends doing something without me. So, if those are your thoughts – or something along those lines, know that the Lord will make His work and His service a time that cannot even compare to what your people at home are doing.
You will be where you’re supposed to be, doing what you were created to do, and nothing beats that by any stretch of the imagination. If you’re a homebody like me, and you know you’ll miss your people something serious, trust that the Lord cares about that. Truth of the matter is that I did miss my people and my family, but I was so grateful that the Lord heard my prayers and gave me team members that became my home away from home – holding me over until I could hug my people again! It’s never easy to leave what you’ve always known, especially for an extended period of time, but from my experience I can say that it has always been worth it. Always.
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