Posted in General Posts by Nick Hayden on 5/21/2012
I don’t know if you have been following my blogs over the past 9 months, but if you have you will notice one thing…I haven’t written a blog yet about someone coming to know Christ. Crazy, I know, I’m on an 11-month mission trip to multiple countries and I haven’t seen that life changing decision take place yet. I will say that a lot of our ministries have been caring for orphans, manual labor, or working with people who already believe in Jesus, but nonetheless I have been disappointed.
Who says God doesn’t answer prayers in a drastic way?
This last week our team went to a local school, ages 5-16, and performed a drama, worship, and gave a testimony. The pastor we work with, Ronnie, is an incredible man of God and is very good at always asking if people would like to accept Christ.
I’m glad he always asks that question.
Last week we saw 25 kids ask Jesus into their heart for the first time! 25! WOW! It blew my mind and expectations out of the water.
I was a little skeptical though. I had heard that Latin cultures were more likely to say a prayer and move on, so I asked our contact, who is American, and Pastor Ronnie what percent will stick with this decision. They both said at least 50%!
That means we welcomed at least 12 brothers and sisters into our family last week. It was truly a miracle.
The biggest issue is with follow up discipleship. Please send prayers up for these kids who might have no one to guide them through the process of what it means to live a life for Christ. My heart hurts for them that they don’t have the role models or relationships that will help them flourish.
Pray, Pray, Pray for them and Praise God for the unbelievable success we had last week!
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Posted in General Posts by Nick Hayden on 5/16/2012
We left Ostrava, Czech Republic around 3 pm for Budapest Hungary. Matt, Rebecca, and I got to the train station around 2:30 to wait for our 5-hour train that was going to transport us.
After a relatively simple 5 hour train ride, we moved cars because our original didn’t have A/C, we got picked up by John Michael and Tim. We then proceeded to take a 15-minute tram ride to get to the hostel that we were spending the night.
That morning we woke up about 10 am and didn’t leave for the airport till 1ish in the afternoon, we waited outside that whole time. The squad took a bus from the hostel to the airport. We have now packed our bags into 3 different areas in 24 hours, train, tram, and bus. Once we got to the airport we had about a 3-hour wait till the plane would take off.
Matt, Kevin, and I attempted to entertain ourselves by tossing coins into a nalgene bottle in the middle of the lobby; needless to say we got a lot of looks.
The plane from Budapest took us to Warsaw Poland to connect to our flight to JFK airport in New York. Our layover was just under 2 hours long.
Generally international flights have larger seats and personal TV’s on the back of the chairs in front of you. This gives you up to date DVD’s to watch and TV shows! It makes a huge difference in how a 10-hour flight goes. If you guessed that we didn’t have either of those things for our 10-hour flight across the Atlantic, you guessed right.
Polish airlines are the WORST airline I have ever flown on. Not only were the seats small, no TV, but snacks weren’t free either! Are they trying to make us suffer?!
Of course we survived, and I must say it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. Once we got to JFK airport it was still dark out, we left Poland at about 8 pm and because of the time difference arrived in JFK around 10 pm. Our heads were definitely messed with.
But there was a huge difference from all the other international flights we had taken, WE WERE IN AMERICA! The unfortunate thing is that we were stuck in airport purgatory. All the stores were closed and we couldn’t check into our flight for another 6 hours. I still got Reese’s, which the rest of the world doesn’t have, Duncan Donuts coffee, and the NBA playoffs were on! I considered the night a success.
We tried to get some sleep, but the tile on the floor is not exactly comfortable.
Our next flight was at 6am to Miami were we had an hour layover before our flight to Guatemala.
We finally arrived in Guatemala City Guatemala to be greeted by a lovely hour and a half van ride to Antigua.
That means I left the Czech Republic April 30th traveled through 5 countries, and arrived 3.5 days later in Antigua Guatemala. This is what travel with the World Race is all about!
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Posted in General Posts by Nick Hayden on 5/8/2012
We had our month 8 debrief this past week in Antigua, Guatemala. The last night before we left for our ministry site we had an amazing night of worship. It was incredible. I was not into it…at first.
As we were singing and praising I was super apathetic, I just wanted to sit down and rest to be honest. Pathetic right? But its how I felt. Then, as is World Race style, we asked if anyone wanted prayer, if anyone was sick or hurt, lets heal some people!
Again I was apathetic. I just wanted to sit down, or better yet, sleep.
As we were praying over the people in the middle an internal battle was going through me. I know that God is my Lord, I know that I want to see healings, but my excuse is that I am tired; that is crap, something else is going on. I could feel it down in my heart, in my soul. There was a battle raging.
I can’t explain it very well, but I could feel a wall up, a wall that the enemy desperately didn’t want me to push and break through. I think that many of us have felt this and succumbed to defeat. The wall that says this is weird, the wall that says people will look at me, the wall that says these people are NUTS.
Have you read the Bible?
The Bible is NUTS. The visions and the healings that take place, and how they take place is crazy. It isn’t normal, and it doesn’t make sense. And guess what, the Bible tells us that we will do even greater things than these! John 14:12.
While thinking through all this I made a decision. It was worth it to be crazy to access the abundant life and freedom that God promises us (Romans 8). I started yelling, loud, like really loud. I’m through caring what people think, what I think, it’s not about any of that. It’s about wanting more from Christ because that’s what He promised.
We go to church on Sunday and maybe a bible study during the week and we get told that healings are possible, that the Spirit will work through us, then why aren’t we doing it?
I’ll tell you why, BECAUSE WE ARENT DOING IT. Jesus says that for “freedom’s sake He set us free” that means we have a choice. I challenge you to choose Him again. Choose Him not just for eternal life, but for abundant life on earth too. I challenge you to choose Him when you’re at the grocery store and the cashier looks sad, tell them about Jesus, why not?
We have a choice in this, that’s why love is possible because we have a choice. So get riled up, get excited, and through your reservations aside. Pray over someone at the store, tell your co-worker about Jesus, try something!
That night of worship I broke something inside of me and the Spirit overwhelmed me. God spoke to me in a way I have never experienced. I was able to speak directly to some of my squad mates reservations and fears even though I had no idea what they were, because God speaks to us.
I’ll leave you with this last thought, and really this last responsibility. God tells Ezekiel to go to a house and pray for this dead child, and then God heals the child. Does God need Ezekiel to heal that child? No. But why did He not only tell him to go there, but also tell Him to ask Him to raise this child from the dead? God wants to use you, He wants you to experience Him and be apart of the amazing things He does. There are times where if you don’t pray something amazing isn’t happening! Step it up, I dare you!!
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Posted in General Posts by Nick Hayden on 4/16/2012
It is so weird to be in the Czech Republic. Why? It is so modern. After being to so many 3rd world countries, or at least 2nd world, it feels abnormal to be in a modern country. Czech is part of the European Union, has well put together highways and train stations, along with having Starbucks, McDonalds, and Burger King, it feels so much like America.
While it has been a nice break and a trial run at re-entry, I also didn’t sign up for modern missions when I picked the race.
Now don’t get me wrong there are definitely people who need and haven’t heard of Jesus, but for the first time in 8 months I’m kind of craving a hot tent, no A/C, and no showers. Those words might come back to bite me, but I’m willing to risk it.
What are we doing in Czech?
We have two main objectives while in Czech. The first one, which is now over, was advertising English Camps. English Camps are camps for Czech students to come to over the summer and learn English from Americans. While at camp they also get the chance to hear the gospel. It is a super cool program! We promoted them by going to Czech schools in 4 different cities all through last week. We would go into classrooms and give our sales pitch for about 45 minutes then head on to the next classroom. We stayed in a different city and bed every night last week!
 Discussion groups in one of the Czech classes.
For the next two weeks we will again be traveling all throughout Czech helping out and talking with high school kids about Fusion. Fusion is a music ministry where the kids are taught popular rock songs in English and that is what draws them in. They come to a youth group type setting to sing the songs. Then the leaders get the opportunity to form a relationship and share the gospel.
Though I am not musically talented it will be fun to talk with the kids. One of the things I found while promoting English camps is that they are all interested in Christianity, especially when it is talked about by someone as cool as me J, just kidding, but just being American really does elevate you in their eyes. Its been great to see all reservations at sharing the Gospel continue to disappear over the course of this trip.
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Posted in General Posts by Nick Hayden on 4/8/2012
As I walked through the train station looking for the bathroom I noticed a figure lying at the foot of the escalator and a woman next to her with a look of desperate concern and panic. An elder woman had fallen down and could not get up. I rushed over and helped her off the floor. Thankfully she was ok.
As I walked away from the scene I realized that many people had stood there watching. Some even thinking to themselves, ”Someone should help her.” No one did though. No one acted.
I’m now sitting on the train to our next city in Czech Republic having just read the chapter in Decision Points, George Bush’s memoirs, about the decisions and responses he had to make to 9/11. It gave me a whole new respect and love for our former president. The other thing that it has taught me is how necessary action is, and how often we don’t take it.
The story in Decision Points that had the biggest impact on me was when George Bush describes the heroism on Flight 93. This is where Todd Beamer rallies the passengers into action to stop the terrorists from being able to fly the plane into the capital. Wow! What amazing acts of bravery and courage! What inspiration.
So often we don’t take action in our day-to-day life, our faith, or in areas of interest. This is often a result of fear, a lack of readiness, or the thought that “Someone should help her”. We are all people made for action. What would your faith look like if you took action? What would your life look like if you stopped being afraid?
As I ponder these questions, I’m reminded that often some of the greatest rewards in scripture are to those who take action. As Jesus would enter a city he would heal many, but think of the blind men, cripples, and countless others who would shout over the roar of the crowd to get his attention. They would have been terrified of the ridicule they would receive and even potential persecution. The people back then were not very merciful. Yet when Jesus would hear them, he would go and heal them. I would say that is a risk and a fear that they are glad they faced.
Besides these random thoughts that went through my head while reading Decision Points, it also revealed to me part of an answer to a question that has been plaguing me these past 7 months. “Why is America so awesome?” Is it because we have better education? Or our government has checks and balances? Or even because we are a democracy? Are Americans just smarter, better, superior people?
Sad to say these are some of the thoughts that I have contemplated. They are all not the right answer. The answer is that we take action. Just as George Bush had to take action against the al Queda, American rise up and confront problems whether reactively or preventatively it results in a solution.
It’s funny because it makes me think about this journey I am on right now. People have told me they would love to do something like this. Or said they respect me because they never could. I am always fervent in pushing the fact that I am no different than anyone else. All I did was take action in the pursuit of something I was passionate about. I saw something I wanted to do, that I wanted accomplished, and I went after it.
This thought of action is one that I want to inspire in everyone’s faith. Our faith is not something to be lackadaisical about, but something to take action about. We should take what should be our number 1 and pursue what we want to accomplish with it. Don’t limit what you are capable of.
I found it fascinating that it wasn’t one of George Bush’s lifelong dreams to be president, or even be a politician for that matter. He saw things that needed to be changed and took action upon those ideals.
I don’t want to start rambling, though I fear I have already crossed that threshold, but take action. It doesn’t have to be on a grand scale of becoming president, but it could the action of helping up the old woman. Don’t be imprisoned by the mentality “someone should really help her” That someone IS you.
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Posted in General Posts by Nick Hayden on 3/17/2012
SERBIA! It’s hard to believe that I am already on month 7 of this crazy adventure. I have not traveled more than half way around the world and am in Serbia now.
Serbia is a neighboring country to Romania so it was only a short 24 hour trip to get to our ministry location. It’s funny how 24 hours of travel is now considered short!
We took a train from Tagru Mures to a city called Vrsac in Serbia and then jumped onto a bus. On the train we got our passports checked which was a short process because I don’t think they really cared.
Serbia feels much more cold war like. Basically what I expected to see after all the books I have read about the World Wars. Serbia has marks of war all over it. The people are even more “Russian” like than in Romania.
The city we are in is called Zrenjanin. It is a small city in the north part of Serbia with a population of about 50K.
The thing that makes it the most cold war like is the run down trains, buildings, and graffiti that mark the city. There are definitely some nicer places, but generally the buildings are pretty run down. The apartment buildings remind me of the what the “projects” were in Hardball.
The exchange rate here is the lowest we have seen since the Philippines at 83 to 1. This is weird because a lot of the gypsies in Romania would come to Serbia to work and then send money back to Romania, but in Romania the exchange rate was 3 to 1 suggesting that Romania’s economy is better than Serbia’s. Clearly not the case.
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Posted in General Posts by Nick Hayden on 3/4/2012
I walk through the door into the gypsy’s hut for the 4th time since I have been in Romania. The rest of the team is already inside the small 12 by 8 foot house. There is room for a bed, a bench, a table, and a stove. The space is barely enough for all of us to squeeze in, but Alby’s wife insists that everyone come inside. They welcome the crowd of us though because our body heat instantly makes the room warmer. The little stove by the door just cant keep it warm enough.
Today is different than the other times we have come because Alby’s brothers are here. There are two of them. Precious old men with calloused hands and hard face, but like Alby they have a certain twinkle in their eye. Today there is no smile as they sit on the foot of their dieing brothers bed.
They both look up as the door opens for us to come inside and move aside to make room for all of us. I’m blown away that they would try to accomadate us when I feel so intrusive on their sadness.
I end up getting to stand next to the youngest of the 3 brothers, who was still over the age of 50. He keeps gesturing at me, trying to communicate, but I can only nod and smile a lot. He is smiling too at times. The all seem happy that someone other than themselves cares what happens to their brother.
After we sing a worship song or two the younger brother, the one I was talking to, goes and sit down next to Alby. He turns looks his brother in the eyes and starts to sob. Heart wrenching sobs. I cant do anything but cry as well. Not only am I crushed by his pain, but I am taken aback by the intimate moment that we are being allowed to sit in on.
Saying goodbye to his older brother, such an intimate time, and he lets us, strangers, witness and be apart of their anguish and despair.
As I walk out the door later, wiping the tears from my face, I think to myself how odd this would be in America. That it would never happen. That I would never let strangers who had come to pray four other times, participate in the mourning of my family. These gypsy people welcomed us into their home and lives just like family.
It has left me in awe of what the Christian family is in some places.
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Posted in General Posts by Nick Hayden on 1/27/2012
Swaziland is nothing like I expected. This country is beautiful.
The countryside is covered by hills that are full of luscious green grass and trees. It isn’t desolate at all. I had pictured desert with lots of sick people everywhere; a hard place.
What greeted me was quite different; the people here are super friendly. Everyone is willing to help you and most throw a God Bless your way when they are done. In the two big cities that we have been to, Manzini and Mbabane, there is a lot of construction going on.
The stores I have gone to are extremely clean and most are nicer than America grocery stores. I found this really weird because in the rest of Africa none of the stores were all that nice.
To put it simply Swaziland gives off all the sights of a country growing, and growing pretty quickly. The sad truth is that is dieing.
Over 50% of the population has AIDS. The thing that makes it even worse is that none of them want to know or get checked for HIV. I suppose the chances are so high that they have it that they would rather just live without knowing, you cant really blame them.
This obviously doesn’t help the prevention of the deadly sickness.
In the last 4ish years around 300,000 people have died. One of the ministry contacts said when they got here the population was 1.2 million, now it is at a mere 920,000.
You can easily see that the country has a small population because everything is quite spread out and there doesn’t seem to be as much poverty as in South Africa or Mozambique. From what I have seen many people have their own land as well.
This is probably my favorite country so far. The country is beautiful the people are beautiful, and over 80% are Christian. It is an incredible place. It breaks my heart knowing that the people are dieing out so fast though. What will happen when they are gone? Can we do something to stop this epidemic that is wiping them out?
Pictures coming soon....
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Posted in General Posts by Nick Hayden on 1/27/2012
I believe I left yall at the bus stop. The journey doesn’t end there though. We then had to find our ride, Popo, to the chapas.
This might sound easy, but in a city you don’t really know that has no street signs it is pretty tough. We finally got it worked out and managed to find him. The whole time we were talking on the phone to him everyone was trying to get us to take their taxi. No is not a word they understand very well.
Once we got to the chapa station Popo helped us a ton with getting everything sorted out, which was such a blessing, but then the chapa ride started.
A chapa is a huge van that takes around 15 people from place to place. It is definitely not the most comfortable of rides. The drivers of the chapas refuse to leave until the whole vehicle is full. This makes it hard to hold to a schedule because sometimes it might take hours for the chapa to fill up.
Finally we got everyone in and were on our way to Nelspruit, South Africa, our last stop!
The ride to the border was pretty smooth, but once we got to the border things got interesting.
The border between Mozambique and South Africa is really broken down. It looks kind of like a construction site. The “buildings” are just the trailer house that construction manages normally use; the lines are formed by putting chain link fences on either side of the people, it makes you feel like your walking towards your doom.
Once we got through the border we are driving out and have one last check-in with the guards. This is where things got interesting.
The guards take a look at one of the guy’s passports and ask him to get out of the chapa. After a lot of yelling in Portuguese they escort him off to some building. He is the husband of one of the ladies and they have 3 kids in the chapa with us. The weird thing was that two other passengers with us kept shoving the head of one of the kids down under a tarp. Strange right? Finally we realize that they are trying to smuggle their little girl into South Africa!
The husband finally came back after about 30 minutes. He had to bribe the guard to let them through, that’s how things work in Mozambique.
The story was because Mozambique was so corrupt and the little girl didn’t have a passport it was almost impossible for them to get her one. Their only option was to sneak her across.
It was such a crazy experience. I was apart of smuggling someone into another country! The rest of the drive was relatively smooth besides the 4 other border checkpoints with guards searching that we had to to go through. It got old really quick, but there was nothing to do except wait it out.
At last after 37 hours of traveling, corrupt military officials, smuggling a little gril across the border, and sleeping on asphalt in the middle of nowhere we made it to Nelspruit.
Longest travel day ever!!
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Posted in General Posts by Nick Hayden on 1/15/2012
The travel day started off around 10am when we left the ministry site we were at and headed into town to catch our Chinese bus that was going to take us to Maputo from Beira. (Yes, you read correctly, a Chinese bus company in Mozambique). It was supposed to be a pretty relaxed travel day as far as they go because the bus wasn’t supposed to stop and it was supposed to have beds as our seats!
As often happens in Africa, none of that came true. First we got a phone call (in broken Chinese/English) saying that we needed to come pick up our money because the bus was broken so the transport was canceled. Great.
Fortunately for us we were with Joseph, who was a HUGE blessing, he is a local, and he helped us find alternate transportation that day. It ended up being an African bus.
An African bus just means that they stop often, fit as many people on the bus as possible, blast music 24/7, and put the luggage on the roof so it looks like the bus is carrying a huge present.
So we get on the bus and get on our way. Everything is going smoothly minus the awful B.O. stench, no personal space, and the fact that after 10 minutes our butts are already hurting.
About 15 hours in we get pulled over by the military for a bribe, the Mozambique government is super corrupt. When they see us, Christin, Megan, and I, they ask for our passport…Uh Oh! Megan’s passport is in Maputo.
All three of us immediately start praying because we don’t enough money to bribe and don’t want Megan to go to jail. I give him my passport, my expired one actually because I cant find my real one, Christin hands over hers, and he looks at them both. No problem. We are good to go. He looks at Megan and says,” No problem.” Waves his hand and walks off. Praise Jesus.
That night we made a rest pit stop, which consisted of the driver going to party and everyone else to fend for themselves. Christin and I found a nice spot of asphalt to lay down on. The only benefit was the stars were AMAZING.
Needless to say we didn’t sleep.
3 hours later we get up, off the asphalt I mean because we didn’t sleep, and are on our merry way again. Around 3am, about 2 hours after the stop, the driver blasts the music again. I can’t tell you how many times I thought of ripping the speakers out of the wall!
It takes another 10ish hours to get to Maputo, but we made it. As we are driving towards the stop we get with in sight of it and the driver decides they can’t make another 100 yards, we stop for gas. AHHHHH!
These were the frustrations of pretty much the entire ride. But we made it finally to the bus stop!
Part 2 coming soon, “A Lesson in Smuggling”
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