Refining

Sorry, it’s been a little bit and I’m sure some of you are wondering how I’m doing. It’s been a full few weeks, and there have been a lot of challenges and things to work through, but God is faithful and He is bringing me through. We had a teaching on Thursday about how God puts us through fire so that the impurities that are in us can rise to the surface and be removed. I think that’s an accurate reflection of what God is doing in me right now, and also what He’s doing in the squad as a whole.

Beauty for Ashes

We did end up having our Beauty for Ashes event a few days before we left Albania. We were definitely disappointed because pretty much everyone canceled the day of the event. One older woman came as well as well as two girls that Erion’s wife invited. However, we had a lovely time with the few people who did come as well as a couple of people from the church and a few interpreters. They even taught us an Albanian dance at the end! Lois will tell you I was not very good. 😂

Erion came up to me afterwards and told me not to worry about it. He said that it happens all the time to them that they invite people and then they don’t show up. I learned a whole lot from Erion, but one of the most important things has to be that we really can’t focus on outcomes. He said over and over again that we can plant seeds, but only God can make them grow. We just have to be faithful to witness anyway. I imagine I’ll look back on that advice in 10 years and understand even more deeply than I do now. If I’m going to be a missionary in India, I will probably experience disappointment like that at times. Ministry is hard, but it’s still worth serving God and trusting Him with the outcomes.

Travel day

It ended up taking 5 flights to get from Tirana to Guatemala City. We flew into Athens and then got stuck there because there were riots against the government and our flight got canceled. We spent a couple days at a Christian camp that was super generous to us, especially on short notice. Honestly those were the best living conditions I’ve had since coming on the race. We also got to spend most of a day touring Athens, so I got to go to the Acropolis with some friends, which was kind of epic. We also sang with this one street musician from Australia, which was so cool. Actually, the highlight of my day was probably stopping by this little church/cathedral thing and singing in Latin with Carter.

We did finally get on a plane to Cairo, where we had an overnight layover. I went to the airport museum with a couple of friends and saw a mummy in this little museum in some back corner of the airport. The guy who runs it was so excited; we definitely made his day. 😁

We then had pretty much back to back flights to JFK in NYC and then to Panama City and then to Guatemala City where we took two buses back to the base. I was blessed with a window seat on four of the flights, although I traded with somebody on the last flight so that they could sleep a little bit. I was definitely thankful for the window seat from Cairo to JFK because that allowed me to get a lot more sleep than I would have.

Arriving in Guatemala

Our first week in Guatemala was kind of strange because we only had two ministry days before the parent vision trip because getting there took so long. We did get to start our ministry that we do on Mondays and Fridays, which is helping with English classes at the Academy of Future Leaders in Parramos, which is the closest town to the base where we’re staying. It’s a whole different kind of English teaching in that they already have teachers and curriculum, so we can just help give the students one-on-one attention so they can practice pronunciation and such. It’s way less stressful not to have to come up with stuff on the fly.

I’m definitely a homebody, and base is a lovely place to call “home.” I share a room with my team, and we each get our own twin bed. Some of them are bunked, but they’re pretty shaky, so I un-bunked mine the other day so I wouldn’t wake up when the person under me moved in her sleep. We both sleep much better now!

There’s a fairly large hall where we eat all our meals, which are delicious, by the way. There’s basically a covered hallway where a lot of us have hammocks hanging on the beams that support the roof. So there’s a wall on the one side, but the other side opens to a big grassy area where the fire pit is, and then farther out there’s a soccer field where kids come to play sometimes. I just realized this would make way more sense to put a photo haha. I’ll add one…

I love hanging out in my hammock and reading or listening to music or playing cards with friends. It’s really fun to have the whole squad back together again! I missed them.

Parent Vision Trip (PVT)

PVT was not what I expected. I was worried it might be awkward to see my parents again after so long, but it actually wasn’t! We got some good quality time together just the three of us, but we also ended up spending a good chunk of time with one of my friends and his parents, which was great because we could play four-handed pinochle(a card game), which is a huge part of my family’s culture that I’ve been missing.

They were also all able to be support to me when God asked me to share a pretty sensitive testimony with all the racers and their parents. It was definitely growing that I had to choose to say “yes” to God even though it was scary and vulnerable for me. All glory to God for giving me the strength to honor Him through sharing my story.

We got to stay at a hostel in Antigua, Guatemala for PVT, and that was nice. Antigua is a very beautiful and colorful little city. It has old cobblestone streets that are pretty bumpy to walk on, but we made it through. 😂

We headed out of the city for adventure day and got to visit some Mayan ruins, which we didn’t learn all that much about because all the information was in Spanish, but we had a great time exploring anyway. Good times. 😁

Debrief

We spent about a week debriefing the last few months at Lake Atitlan. It was a bit of a hard time because one of our squad leaders sadly had to go home, so some of my squad mates are still working through grieving her leaving so suddenly. I’m chilling. They’ve thrown enough stuff at us on the race that I’m no longer fazed. That might not be a good thing? I’m not really sure haha.

The Island Metaphor

As I was worshipping one morning at debrief, God brought to mind the picture of me as an island out in the middle of the ocean, but the ocean around it was too shallow to swim. The sea was full of all of my doubts and fears and failures that keep God from being able to reach me. I imagined Jesus trying to run through the waters, but they just slowed Him down. Then I remembered something: I serve the God who walks on waters. There is literally nothing that can keep him from getting to me. There are no fears or failures that can keep Him out.

Back to ministry

We headed back to the base near Parramos on Sunday and then jumped straight back into ministry on Monday. Overall, we are quite tired because three out of four teams haven’t had an actual Sabbath since before PVT, so it’s been three weeks. That’s a long time when you’re used to having a Sabbath every single week. I do think it’s a good sign that we long to rest with God.

We got to do more of what our normal ministry will be this past week, which included more teaching English at the Academy of Future Learners in Parramos. The new part was helping with a feeding program, house visits, and English teaching in Parrojas, which is up in the mountains a little ways. It’s much more rural than Parramos, and we’ve gotten to see some of the farming and weaving of cultural outfits that they do there on a daily basis. We do have to leave for ministry at 5:30am to help with the feeding program, so that’s…early. It’s definitely worthwhile to get the kids breakfast before school.

Undignified

Now it was reported to King David, saying, “The Lord has blessed the house of Obed-edom and all that belongs to him, on account of the ark of God.” So David went and brought the ark of God up from the house of Obed-edom to the city of David with joy. And so it was, that when those carrying the ark of the Lord marched six paces, he sacrificed an ox and a fattened steer. And David was dancing before the Lord with all his strength, and David was wearing a linen ephod. So David and all the house of Israel were bringing up the ark of the Lord with joyful shouting and the sound of the trumpet. –2 Samuel‬ ‭6‬:‭12‬-‭15‬

Last night we had worship as a squad. It started out as just normal squad worship with singing a few songs and Carter sharing some scripture. Then at some point the Spirit took over and we started singing our own song and just making up the words as we went. We were singing about God’s promises. It was all spontaneous. Then we started singing about how we have God’s joy. Guy’s this is so not characteristic of me, but I got out of my seat and started jumping and dancing and shouting. We were al sitting in a circle and I’m just the only one in the circle jumping around. At some point later, there ended up being a group of us jumping and dancing and shouting, too. It was just cool to worship like David.

It was especially nice to be able to worship without reserve because I’ve honestly been struggling a little bit in worship recently. I’ve just been feeling discouraged and like my heart isn’t really in it, even if I’m seeking the Lord. I’m hoping some good time with the Lord tomorrow will help. It told my team in regards to ministry, “I want to want to, I just don’t want to right now.” That’s just kind of where I’m at right now.

More on refining

It’s been a hard few weeks. I’m tired. I’m wrestling through how to love people well in this season. I’m wrestling through how to commit my future to God when I don’t know what it will look like. I’m wrestling how to stay focused and locked in where I’m at when I’m so distracted by figuring out what’s next. I’m trying to learn how to press into ministry when I want to be taking a nap. God is showing me a lot of ways He needs to grow me, and now I have to learn patience to be able to trust that He will grow me in those ways in His timing, not mine. It’s hard, and that’s why everything I feel like I’m doing wrong is in my face all the time. I’m in the fire, so my impurities are coming to the surface, and they seem so obvious and frustrating to me. But they’re at the surface so that God can remove them if I keep coming to Him and asking Him to refine me.

Prayer requests

• A lot of my squad is sick. Some people have parasites. That’s not great. Pray that everyone will return to health and be able to go back to ministry.
• Pray against discouragement and apathy on the squad. We have about six more weeks of ministry in Guatemala, and there is a temptation to just get through the days and weeks and be done. Pray that we will keep giving our all and see the fruit of it.
• Pray for us to have direction in terms of what to do next. A lot of people, myself included, are unsure of what exactly God has for us in the next season. Pray for us to have discernment and to obey God, even when it’s hard.
• Pray for me to grow in patience.