If you’ve heard of BORN you may have been curious to know what it is and what happens at that event, but if you have never heard of BORN let me introduce you…
Origin
In 2018, a friend and I were talking about how much our young people need to have a life-changing experience with God, an experience that would change the direction of their lives. We talked about how we could get out of our comfort zone and make something happen. A few days later that same friend called me and said: remember that event we were talking about and your ideas? I need your help. We’re going to make it happen.
So we started to build BORN, a 5-day youth retreat which happens every year during the Carnaval season. This year the second edition of BORN was held, and if you ask anyone who participated, it was one of the most profound and beautiful experiences they have lived in their journey with Christ.
We often think that if we do things “right” and walk beside God nothing bad will ever happen to us. That’s a myth that we are tempted to believe when we surrender to the Gospel. We are tempted to believe that God will never allow anything bad to happen to us and that we will be protected from all kinds of hardships.
But life, like our journey with Christ, is not a bed of roses, and negative experiences help us establish our faith, mature our relationship with God and help us develop integrity.
We weren’t expecting many of the unforeseen events that happened at BORN II, and believe me, they were MANY and scary, but they certainly served to ensure that everything around us was perfect and that an atmosphere of dependence on the Holy Spirit was created. These were unbelievable days, dear readers.
On Friday, February 21, about 5 hours before the event was to begin, I received a call from my mother calming me that everything would be okay and that I was not to be discouraged. When her following words finally settled in my mind, I realized that what we were doing was bothering Satan and he would use all his strength to prevent the event from taking place. She said:
“There was an accident. The kitchen at the retreat exploded and burned everything, but no one was hurt.”
We were heartbroken. We had planned and thought about every detail for 10 months. This was a damper to the anticipation and excitement we had built up for almost a year! I had not yet arrived at the event location but talking to those who had already arrived, I realized that everyone was very fragile and impacted by what happened. The discouragement was evident.
Inside the kitchen were the supplies we had purchased (food, utensils, everything we needed to feed the event attendees) with the registration fees. The kitchen is where we would cook, store, and refrigerate everything. Now, hours before sunset on Friday, everything was blown up in flames.
When we realize that our life with Christ is a daily battle for our soul and its destiny, we dispel the myth of being sheltered from trials. On the contrary, we wait for them with open chests affirming that our Jesus, our beloved Jesus, will take care of everything and will help us come out stronger on the other side.
“The fire burned us”, burned our bonds, our myths, our prejudices, our comfort, burned everything and let the Holy Spirit work, only Him.
In less than 4 hours many who heard about our circumstances were moved by the situation, and we received donations of absolutely all the things we needed, from money, food, utensils, cleaning supplies, a stove, a refrigerator… Everything was provided by God so those days could be impacting and bold. Nobody could believe the speed with which everything was provided and how this incident served to open the hearts of the young people even more. We praise the Lord for all He has done for us and how He transformed what could have been a disaster into an experience to deepen our relationship with Him.
What I’ve shared is nothing close to what we experienced and the conversations we shared at the event.
If you had never heard about or been to BORN, it’s time you learned more about this event that is loosening the bonds and awakening in young people the flame that Jesus wants to work with. Follow us on Instagram @bornministerio.
I look forward to meeting you at our next event and sharing the same blessings.
This is us, this is BORN.
God bless you, reader.
