Having recently returned to the United States from their time on the Silk Road, an intensive participant shares below about the impact of their trip.

I came into this week not knowing what to expect but expecting God to move. And God did just that, I can’t even put in words just how good, amazing, powerful, wonderful and faithful God is. And it would take a million books to explain the ways God moved this week. The words “My God is so good, and so strong and so mighty,” could not be more true. This week God moved in ways I never could have imagined.

Before going on this trip, whenever I heard the name of this country, I thought terrorists and not much more, but man was I so wrong. This week has completely uprooted me, flipped me upside down, shaken all that was in me out of me, changed the way I view life, the way I view the world and most of all this week has given me a new heart to love and new eyes to see people the way God does.

After spending a week learning about the culture, getting to know some of the locals and seeing firsthand the deception they are living in, I no longer think terrorists, but I see beautiful people who are lost, broken and unreached.

In one country alone, there are 73 million people and only 5 thousand believers. And 23% of the world is Muslim (not counting other religions). Before, I didn’t think much about it, but there are millions and millions of unreached people in this world, how can we just sit in the comforts of church bells when we should he storming the gates of hell? How can we just sit in our homes and watch while people are dying physically and spiritually? I’m not saying that we are all called to the field, but we are all called to be disciples and being a disciple means sharing the gospel and discipling others wherever we are.

This trip, I had the opportunity to share the entire gospel with someone in one setting, for the first time. At first, I was nervous, but the moment I stepped outside of myself and began to allow the Holy Spirit to move and speak through me it was like nothing else mattered. My fears and my comforts were gone, and it was just God speaking through me. Although he didn’t accept Christ into his life, I walked away beyond excited because I was confident that God planted seeds in that man’s life. The feeling when we walked away was beyond words, we were literally in awe with how incredible God is and I am still in awe and will forever be in awe.

The urgency that I had while in Central Eurasia should be the same urgency I walk in every day of my life, not just when I am overseas. This is what I have been called to do, to live outside of my comforts and fears and allow Christ to work through me. To run with urgency and stand in the gap. No matter the cost. I came to the Silk Road expecting God to move through me to speak into their lives, but God moved through the locals to speak into my life. This trip blessed me beyond words and I can’t wait to return someday.

My prayer today is this, “For their sake Lord, here I am.”