His Ways Are Higher

When the short-term team packed up and left, the remaining long-term missionaries thought the outreach had been a failure. However, the Matthew Team in Guadalajara, Mexico soon learned that God can take any situation – even the ones that don’t go according to plan – and use it for His glory!

Trever and Joan Godard, Sandra Plett, and Jen Schmidt, had just bid a disheartened farewell to a short-term team. After encountering many twists and turns, they wondered if the past week had any impact at all. But despite their human outlook, God revealed Himself in power. In the weeks to follow the Matthew Team witnessed the fruit that was produced in the young life of Daniela.

Daniela is a teenage girl who attends the youth group led by Sandra and Jen. Two years ago when the short term team visited Guadalajara, Daniela was struggling through a hard-hearted and rebellious stage in her life. Daniela comes from a broken home. Her mother is a single parent and she has never had a father figure.

But that week one of the members from the visiting short-term group said something that struck a cord in Daniela’s heart. He gave a testimony one evening, and God empowered his words to touch Daniela’s heart in a very tangible way.

From that moment, things started changing for Daniela. She wanted to take her faith seriously. She had an interest in knowing God more. Jen began a discipleship relationship with Daniela and throughout the course of two years she has watched God transform this young girl’s life. Once embittered by her sorrows, Daniela continues to show her vulnerability as God strips away the hard outer shell and lovingly heals the wounds she inherited from growing up without a father. During one of their discipleship meetings Daniela asked Jen earnestly, “Have I changed?” Jen answered her with a resounding yes! “The Daniela I know today is so different,” says Jen, “She is filled with energy and life!”

In summer 2008, Jen had the privilege of baptizing Daniela. She knows that she is not completely healed, but Daniela is ready to move forward and work alongside others. She feels a calling on her life to work with young girls who have no father.

God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, and His ways are so much higher! When God’s word is spoken out over the earth is does not return empty. The outreach may have had its ups and downs, but God’s word prevailed and penetrated, and His glory shone brightly. Praise the Lord for coaxing Daniela from her lukewarm dedication to Christ and igniting a flame that is shining brightly for others to see.

“As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” – Isaiah 55:9