Testimony from Tyler

We always love to hear testimonies from our individuals on the field.  Tyler Champagne, one of our Short-term Individuals, is serving with us in Bolivia until April 5th.  Last week, we received the following email from him and wanted to share it with you all.  He wrote about how his life will change upon returning to the states.  Enjoy, and be inspired by what Tyler is taking away from his experience in Bolivia!

Lifestyle changes.  Where to begin....  I think the biggest thing will be putting God number one in my life, all the time.  This is very hard to do as a 26 year old in the states.  There are many distractions and temptations.  This experience has really put my focus into place.  How this will transcend into back in the states?  I'm not sure if I told you about the International Outreach my church does at a local university.  I plan on getting deep into this when I return.  I want to really get after the Spanish speaking students and get them to come to church with me and form great friendships.   

One thing I love about Cochabamba and my friends here, we all hang out together all weekend.  This hanging out mainly includes church related activities.  This keeps us focused on God and away from weekend temptations.  I have a great group of about 7 or 8 friends that are all near my age.  On Saturday nights, we have service together.  Many of them play the music for service on Sunday mornings, so they rehearse both Saturday night and Sunday morning.  For Saturday, everything goes from around 4:00 p.m.-8:30 p.m.  Then, we all get dinner together before calling it a night.  We meet back up at 8:00 a.m. Sunday morning, rehearse, have prayer time, service time, then go out to eat as a church.  We're done at 2:00 usually.  But then, we meet back up at 4:00 to play sports together and get dinner after.  I return home around 9:00 on this evening. 

I absolutely love my Sundays!  I hope to bring part of this back to the states.  As Americans, we are content with just giving one hour per week to God and thinking that's good.  I have learned this is far from enough!  I hope to have success with the International Outreach back home.  We do an open house thing on Sunday afternoons from 12:00 p.m.-4:00 p.m.  My goal is to eventually get many people to show and to have a great outreach.   

To summarize, I am more focused on keeping God as my top priority at all times when I return home.  This was not the case before my trip.  It most certainly will be after.

 Thanks for sharing, Tyler!  We're so happy God is working in your life!