1/23/11
I really need to blog, but for some reason it has been difficult for me to sit down and write out what I’m feeling this month. I guess I will just try to sum up my experiences and give you a taste of what it has been like to be me for this month.
As I mentioned in a previous blog (KIM and the Philippines) we have been overwhelmed with ministry opportunities. It has been great in one sense because we are able to find areas that we are passionate about and focus on those. I have been able to engage in the prison ministry two times and Tuesday will be our last time. I also was able to engage in the prostitution outreach ministry two weeks ago and then two days ago.
I initially wanted my main focus to be on the prison and prostitution ministries so I think that I was waiting around in a sense for those to happen. In total, they only “happened” five times this month, which leaves a lot of other time. Like I mentioned in another previous blog, this has given me a lot of time to be able to go on the feeding ministry and has really opened up my eyes to poverty that didn’t seem quite real.
I was very comfortable at first in the beginning of the month and realized that the comfort had caused me to relax on how much I was pressing into the Lord and I noticed a difference in our relationship. I was able to engage in ministry that I was interested in, so there was less discomfort in where we were going and what we were doing. I was also able to spend time with individuals on my team and squad that I chose to spend time with rather than having to force community where it may not always come naturally.
Also, I mentioned that we had a team change at the beginning of the month. However, it has been a blessing to not really work with my team as a team as much. Don’t take this the wrong way, I love my team, but it has been nice to not have to dive right into constructive feedback right away. We have spent our team time sharing our testimonies and getting to know each other. In this way, I feel that trust is being developed before we start to give each other the constructive “hard” feedback.
This was something that I really wanted to work on from my last team – I dove right into feedback without the trust necessarily being developed and I think that it contributed to strained relationships at first. It was tough for me, I felt like I was being authentic to my convictions, but I didn’t realize that I wasn’t being as considerate to my teammate’s feelings. I believe that God gave me this month to be able to authentically be myself without having to be the “bad guy.” I guess I say it like that because I felt like I was often the person to bring up the hard stuff for the last three months and because of that I don’t think that I was able to accurately portray my heart to my last team. This is a new chance to start over with a new team and thankfully my last team are still my squadmates so I have more opportunities to try to mend those relationships.
I will write about my time at the prison, but I will wait to write about it until after we have our last time so that I can sum up all of our experiences. I have also been spending a lot of time reading. I believe this is another gift from the Lord. My Nook (which is Barnes and Noble’s version of the Kindle) broke last month and I was upset about not having books to read. The Lord provided me with a ministry site that has a wonderful library. I have read about seven books so far and still have time to fit in some more. I have learned a lot about the Lord through these books and plan on writing a blog about what I learned.
All of this to say that I have a lot more to say about my time in the Philippines, so stay tuned…
