Justin DC testimony

Taking a Leap of Faith

     Hello everyone My name is Justin and I attend C4 or Christ centered community church on the island of Oahu in the state of Hawaii. I am fifteen years old and have had the privilege of knowing God for the most of my life. Growing up in a Christian based home along with your dad being a pastor resulted in a pretty easy and simple childhood for me. I went to church ever since birth so I always knew about Jesus. But just knowing who Jesus is, is definitely not as good as having that awesome and strong relationship with The Lord that everyone desires. God has drastically changed my life in many ways. One being in my decision making, because of my relationship with Him, my faith can guide me into going down the right path when facing hard decisions and temptation. My first big step into becoming this really God loving person was going to our church's annual high school camp on the big island of Hawaii. That was just the point where I realized how much more God had in store for me. He revealed to me how large and great his plans were for me, because before I was only looking at my life and the plans according to me through this little, tiny wormhole. But my largest leap of faith in my 15 years have had to be deciding to go on this Dream Center mission trip with my small group. Learning how awesome this place was from friends and family got me pretty hyped and excited for the trip. When we got here on Monday, I was really really nervous because I didn't know what to expect. Then I found out we would be praying for people, something I've never done before, which was even more nerve racking for me. I really didn't know what was going to happen on this trip, but I just wanted to release my heart unto The Lord and trust that he will change me in a miraculous way.

     These past four days of ministry and serving were very eye opening to me. I'm a small private school kid who is oblivious to the world around me. I really had no experiences of seeing the poverty in the world until working the food trucks and feeding the hungry. I also didn't know how hard work it is to paint rooms and move furniture because of my lack of experience doing these tough labor jobs. These ministries have taught me not to just look at others thinking they're "poor or people who don't matter because I'm better than them," but rather looking at them as an equal, or a brother or sister in Christ. My time praying over people was also a life changing time in my walk with The Lord. Even though I was nervous, God made me bold to really speak from my heart and pour confidence and life into these people I prayed over. The things I did here really changed me. The ministries allowed me to really open my heart and soak in everything I was witnessing.

     Every place I served this week, I learned something, whether it was to appreciate everything you have and be grateful or maybe it was just that hard work is a very important key to success. The dream center has changed my life permanently. I learned so much here and I plan to use that knowledge and experience back at home. I am just so grateful for being able to be apart of these ministries to further gods kingdom and spread his steadfast love.