This year during my spring break, I was blessed with the opportunity to go on a mission trip to El Salvador to share the Gospel for a second time. The excitement and the anxiety I had for this journey to a third world country is hard to put into words. During this time my life changed forever.

While on this trip to El Salvador I thought that I knew everything about God, and that the people that I would come in contact with would accept me and would listen to what I had to say. I had never been so wrong in my life. I was rejected by almost everyone with whom I tried to share the gospel. I was rejected so much by people who professed no faith at all, that it got to the point where I started questioning why I was even there. I was angry and feeling depressed. As each day ended and the friends around me were telling stories about the El Salvadorians that God saved through them, I wondered how come God was not using me to extend His kingdom? I kept feeling this way until the day it was my turn to share my testimony—a story in my life that at the time no one knew about.

On the second to last day of our seven day trip, I held the microphone in front of an El Salvadorian high school. I remember feeling like I could throw up because I was so nervous to tell my life story to people I did not even know. Half way through my testimony, I felt this feeling in my heart that I had never felt before. A feeling of relief, I felt like the weight of the world had been lifted right off of my shoulders. At that very moment, I realized the way I had been living my life was a lie. I was not there to save lives, but I was there for God to save me. Before that moment I knew how I had been living my life was wrong, I put myself in front of everything. After that moment my heart changed, I wanted to put God first, others second, and myself third.

My selfish ways on that trip were over; the El Salvadorian people began impacting my life for the remainder of the trip. Everyone I began to talk with left some kind of impression on me. Even though the way we live our lives is totally different, we both shared the same joys and the same struggles. This made me realize that I am no different than the people with who I came to share the Gospel. We are all humans living in a world full of sin, desperate for a Savior.

My life would forever be changed by the spring break trip I took my junior year of high school. It was from the people who had nothing that I learned so much. God exposed in me my weakness first. After that he did His best work in me and I became transparent. I was then able to be more believable and real to those I came to share Him with. It took this trip for me to see that the one who truly needed the Gospel was me!