Author Archives: BSM

We are so excited that once again a great team of students from the valley and Texas will be serving people in God’s name. We are proud for every single one of them and their families for supporting missions. BSM staff has made every effort possible to ensure that the team has a meaningful experience and a productive time serving the Lord. Please pray that their lives will be used in an amazing way this summer.

Many of you have heard about our Valley Summer Project Students. They are all part of the BSM here at UTPA. They all love God and they all believe in making a difference in this world. This group is a picture of what the students at our BSM are all about. I don’t say this because I am their campus minister, all the people in the places they serve tell me that they have never seen such a dedicated group serve others in God’s name.

Today I also want to point to you to 2 more students from our BSM: Suheily and Jessica. They gave their lives to Jesus about two years ago and today they are strong followers of him. Right now they are serving in Kenya, Africa for the entire summer. They are working in an orphanage loving children with all their heart. I still remember the day they came into my office to pray and seek God’s direction for their lives this summer. ” We don’t want to tell God where we want to go, we want to go where He wills.” Well, we prayed and all the doors opened to go to Africa. At first they were scared, but little by little their fear became dependence on God and now they are doing things for him they never imagined they would do. This is a picture of one of them, her name is Suheily, her major is journalism and her passion is to serve God. At our BSM she is the one that washes dishes after an event, cleans up, shows up early and leaves late. Right now she is not doing something different than what she already does here at home. That is what I love to see in our students, when they do on missions they do not change what they already do, they simply change the  location of their service.

Update on Venezuela Team. They arrived today in Caracas and they are doing well. They are currently visiting a university and will be giving a conference this afternoon. Please pray for all these missionaries serving so faithfully.

The Manifest Hope Camp has officially started.  It is awesome to be serving together with our BSM UTPA students.  They are an amazing team. They love God and are fully committed to seeing His name glorified. Sharon and I are privileged to serve alongside this team. They make us proud and show every day a love for God that is going to fuel them for the rest of their lives.

So our hearts and gratitude go out to these college students. You guys rock.  They will be posting more on the camp they have planned and are now serving at.

Robert

The 2009 Valley Summer Project is ready to go. Yesterday we held our first information meeting with team members.  It was a great meeting as we discussed preliminary plans of how the project will look like starting June 1st. We cannot tell you how excited we are for what God is going to do through this team.

We will have 12 students serving this summer, so far, the response from churches and organizations has been amazing. We are basically receiving more requests than we can handle. Please pray for the team as they are getting ready to report for missions this June 1st.

I don’t know if you know but during the Valley Summer Project, the BSM team was featured in a story for the Baptist Standard (read the story here). I visited the BGCT website today and I was happy to see Belinda featured in a video there. I am happy because seeing everything happening in the background brought back memories of the wonderful ways God worked in and through the lives of students thissumer.

Here is the video of Belinda. If you want to see more videos you can check our previous posts.

This summer has been life changing for us. It all started several months back when God have us the vision for the Valley Summer Project. A few casual conversations with friends followed, then they became official meetings to discuss possibilities, and then finally, we got the official go ahead to put the project in place. To be honest, we did not how the whole local focus and global impact was going to come about. However, once students expressed interest and began applying it all clicked, God was definitely behind all this. I must say that I admire the students that participated very much. They took a huge step of faith as they decided to spend their summer doing missions.

Throughout the spring semester we began to see how God was opening doors for students.  He was also working in Venezuela preparing the place for us to go.  We no longer doubted but we trusted, knowing that God was going to continue working in our behalf.  I want this blog to stand as a testimony to God who in his great mercy used our lives this summer to serve him. To him be all glory for providing everything we needed and more. For keeping us safe, and for speaking to every one of us in a personal way.

Here is a summary of what happened:

I get this question asked often as people want to get my perspective on our mission trip there. My answer is always the same: the people. Of course the country is beautiful, particularly the city of Valencia, the mountains, the weather, the skies, the greenery throughout the city, and more. However, the people we met there were very kind and loving, they spent time with us out of their busy schedules, shared their testimonies, and taught us about Venezuelan culture. We were glad to be there and privileged to have made such wonderful friends.

Another thing that I enjoyed was seeing our team serving alongside the Venezuelan youth group. I loved their skits during the evangelistic campaigns, the participation of our team with the worship band, and going out to share Christ in schools. I also loved that our team spoke Spanish. Even though some people there speak very good English, speaking in their first language was awesome. We laughed very hard many times and got to share our hearts without translation with each other.

Here is a video of one of the skits our team did with the youth group in Venezuela:

Taking a short break from mission trip postings, I would like to share with you about this summer time. Many of you might be having a great time going out and about, keeping busy, resting, and having fun. Others though, might be at the other end of the spectrum: at home, bored, doing myspace and facebook until you can’t do it anymore. Whatever the case may be, I want to suggest three things to do this week to give you a break from the monotony and enhance your relationship with God.:

1. Take some time to pray and realize God’s presence in your life:

Read the following Scriptures

Listen to this song

Now take some time to pray and get your relationship with God back on track.

Let’s move on to the next suggestion:

2. Reflect on who Jesus is…. watch this video:

Let’s move on..

3. Here is a link to an old website of ours that has a few Bible studies for you. At the end of each one, there is a box you can fill in and we will get an e-mail with your reflections. Bible Studies