Part 1 -- A Little Town Called Esteli
By James Gunter

Just like a child coming forth after nine months in the womb, Center Cross Creative was “born” as a source for motivating and encouraging a group of youth leaders and their students recently during a mission trip to Esteli, Nicaragua. The reason I am using this analogy is because Micah and I sat down on July 1, 2005 to discuss the potential for Center Cross Creative, and unexpectedly, here in its' eighth month of existence, I had a chance to lead a seminar for a small group of leaders and students from six different churches in the vicinity of Esteli, Nicaragua.

Our home church, Life Community Church of Hunter Hills which is located in Jamestown, NC decided in 2005 to “adopt” the city of Esteli as a location where we would continue to send mission teams annually. We just made our 2^nd trip to this city, and my wife (Cindy) and I were part of the team of 30 that went.

We didn't really have any specific agenda before leaving. We had been told by the missionary who was making all of the arrangements that we would be doing some door-to-door evangelism, some fiestas and some crusades. We weren't sure what else we would be allowed to do, but our pastor encouraged all of us to simply be “flexible” in order that we could meet the needs of the people.

In an effort to be as prepared as possible, Micah and I worked on formatting some of our lessons from our Christian Life Series, and I also took along my Experiencing God workbook from my present session. I wasn't sure what I would be doing, but I figured if I had a chance to do some Bible studies, our Christian Life Series would be perfect, and if I could do a mini-version of Experiencing God, this would be great too! God had a much larger surprise in store for me than I ever expected though.

Upon arriving on Saturday 3/11/06, we learned that there were two seminars scheduled. One was going to be for the women in the various churches, and it was scheduled for Tuesday 3/14/06. There was one for the pastors and leaders in the church which our pastor led. It was scheduled for Wednesday 3/15/06, and of course, the one I led was for the youth and the youth leaders within a group of churches, and it was held on Thursday 3/16/06.

I was honored when Pastor Jesse asked me to lead the seminar for the youth and youth leaders. I have never taught youth before (besides my own two children), so this was another challenge for me (since I teach a senior adult class). A good teacher is always willing to step out of their comfort zone.

The week was so full of activity, there was barely any time for preparing, but I continued to pray and ask God what the message should be about. He revealed on Wednesday that it was to be about commitment. He revealed to me how Moses tried to turn down His call on his life, insisting that he couldn't speak very well, so God sent Aaron with him. God continued to give me examples of others throughout Bible history who tried to get out of following God's instructions.

This is where it gets fun at. On Wednesday evening, as I prepared some notes for the seminar, God enabled me to “weave” our first four lessons from our Christian Life Series and the Experiencing God workbook together in an effort to encourage and challenge the teens and their leaders.

I realized as I stood and talked through my interpreter, Bosco, that I was actually using the very principles Micah and I had been discussing for almost a year. It was amazing how well everything I talked with them about simply flowed together as if it were planned (and believe me, it really wasn't). God truly gave me the desires of my heart, just as He promises in Psalm 37:4 - “Delight yourself in the ways of the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.”