In the Midst of it All

April 2nd, 2025

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Dear friends,

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I have found relief in the midst of our travels—a stripping away of burdens and the sediment of daily life. Each day, our team from All Peoples Church Twin Cities has experienced the love of God through our interactions, and everything we often hold in importance has become forfeit. 

 

Our team spent time with families living in poverty first, then an orphanage, then ministering to those waiting outside of a hospital; both the sick and their families alike. In the latter of those outreach opportunities, my friend Francisco and I prayed for a man whose son was in the hospital. The boy had been bitten by a snake. The man’s heart, like the litter on the ground, seemed discarded and broken. When we prayed for him, tears fell, and after struggling, he raised his head and looked into my eyes. In his eyes, I saw a child from the orphanage the previous day. This man was still a child himself—an orphan who had to grow up without the love, protection, and teachings of a father, mother, or family. I saw in him clearly the disease that plagues our world.

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My friend Francisco, a gentle giant—funny, strong, and passionate—broke down into tears in my brother’s arms soon after our encounter with the man waiting for his son. In that moment, I saw the heart of God. This world is an orphanage for all who live outside of the love of God. Outside of the love of God, we are children running around, forming groups in order to create our own inclusion, or idea of order. But in comparison to the family that God has designed, children is all we can be—with no one to wipe our nose when we cry, hold us when we feel small, or teach us what maturity means.

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Many of you have fought your fight. Many of you are still fighting your good fight. But I know that some of you are fighting things in vain. I wish all of you could have seen the man waiting for his son and Francisco breaking down, and then stood with me as our friends sang and danced for those at the hospital. There were several children from All Peoples Church Oaxaca who joined us in song and dance at that time, and I believe they understood something that is hard for many adults to see because our eyes grow callous for a multitude of reasons. The good news that we had to share—the music and the dancing—was not just the little we had to give to the hopeless; it was the best thing we could have offered. To sing and dance through the tears and the pain is how the enemy is defeated and orphans are brought back into family.

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So in the midst of it all, everything besides love falls away. In sickness, in joy, in poverty, in overabundance, the only thing that can ever change the world is love. This is no divine revelation. We live in a world of head knowledge. We know this to be true. Movies and songs have told us that love conquers all our whole lives, but when was the last time you saw it? Do you feel it to be true in your own life? I believe that the enemy wants us to live at a loss—to think that we are missing some critical piece to help make things right again, by force-feeding us sweets and telling us it is food. But the love that we are laboring for here in Oaxaca is the fruit of the vine. It is the bread of life. It is Jesus Christ. What I would give for everyone to know the divine truth that they have inside of them, that the only thing missing is their own identity as a sacred child of God, and their obedience to follow their Father.

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What I would give for each of you to be here with me now. I am just so thankful that each of you volunteered to support me, or God, or this mission, or all of the above, so that we could have this sacred bond and time together.

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I went to school for filmmaking because of movies like Hotel Rwanda and The Motorcycle Diaries—movies that show how breaking your heart open is the only way to peel back the layers of sediment and pain to get to the truth. It took me nearly twenty years to experience firsthand God’s truth in action. When you strip away the head knowledge, the well-constructed arguments, when you lay down all the tools we collect along the way that give us temporary protection or abilities to move forward as the world demands—when you open your heart and ask God for Himself—you see God’s truth, which has always and will always have the power to bring the lost home. I have found relief because I see now that the rest does not matter in the midst of it all.

 

With love,
Bryan