Well, in 2 days we will be heading to Peru for month 11, our final month on the World Race.
(that currently feels very surreal and for sure hasn’t hit me yet… but here we are!)
~Before getting there, I would like to share about how our Ask The Lord (ATL) month went!!~
To put it simply:
It was hard. It was cool. It was challenging. It was restful. It was a struggle. It was beautiful.
& I learned a lot, that’s for sure.
(brace yourself, this is all over the place with my jumbled thoughts)
Our first week or so was spent in La Paz. This is an awesome city, but this was the hardest part of the month I think. We had a lot of sickness and were going to the doctor and resting and trying to recover and just felt very drained and unmotivated. This was also the first time in 9 months that I didn’t have something lined up that I was ‘supposed’ to do everyday – a place to be, people to be with, etc. I could literally make every day what I wanted – which felt very foreign, and even a little wrong. What was I supposed to do with all that time, with all the possibilities? How did God want me to use my days?
It was a pretty daunting place to be, honestly. And I struggled with finding my ‘purpose’.
I felt bad if I didn’t go out to try to talk to people or meet someone in the city. I felt useless if I used the day to rest. I felt like whatever I did was pointless and didn’t matter. I struggled with just letting myself ‘be’ instead of ‘do’. And also with not limiting myself and the Lord and giving Him space to work. It was weird. And easier to not even try.
I struggled because I didn’t want to get caught up in striving or performing or doing things just to get a cool story to tell people or have something to show. Because it’s not about doing things just to say I did them and feel good about myself. That’s not where I want my heart to be. I want to live out of a pure heart and out of how Jesus would want me to live, and allow Him to use me in whatever way needed for each day. But even that can be hard.
With getting to choose what we did each day, I thought about home and how that is a pretty big part of how I’ve lived before and what the days are probably going to be like when I’m back (except for work or school or whatever), and so I decided that’s what I wanted it to be like – just going through my daily life, but living on purpose; being more aware of people and allowing interruptions to turn into new friends and conversations and being attentive to where the Lord wanted me. I still struggled with that feeling pointless. But I met a girl named Chelsea at a café and a guy named George at our hostel and a lady named Gabriela at the market because of it, and for that I’m thankful. And am still learning..
In the midst of the struggle of finding purpose – something that was really beautiful about that time was how my team and I spent every morning worshipping together and praying over specific things for our squad, for our team, for people at home, and for Bolivia – and how we saw the Lord’s faithfulness in that. I never want to discount the importance of that.
Another beautiful thing was the amount of time I was able to personally spend in the Bible and in prayer and in growing in intimacy with God – something else I never want to disregard as not being important, or being less important, than going out and doing stuff. I believe they go hand-in-hand and are both things that we are called to daily. It’s not limited to one or the other on a certain day. Intimacy proceeds fruitfulness – so if I’m not devoted to my time with the Lord, why would I expect to see fruit? What am I telling people about if I’m not living it? I saw the incredible parallel and tension of that this month. A hard lesson, but a powerful one that I know I will continue to learn.
It was also a good time for us to get to know the people who work at the hostel we were staying at and also have conversations with other people staying at the hostel. We even celebrated July 4th with some French guys we met which was so fun!
During this time, I also found out about my uncle passing away. Looking back, I am so thankful that I had time to sit with the Lord with all the things I was feeling and going through and to give Him space to speak into it, as well as have time to talk with my family throughout that. It was a big blessing that I may not have had otherwise.
I also witnessed the beauty and the power of the body of Christ working together across borders this month. Once we were all finally healthy enough, we headed to the city of Oruro for our second week in Bolivia. We had been invited to stay with a pastor and his family who we got connected with through a family that the team had met in Argentina two months ago. Literally God was setting this up two months ago!!!!! We have nothing to worry about when we live in trust of our God. He’s got it all. So cool.
Our time in Oruro was really sweet. Something that I had been praying for specifically this month was a family to live with – there is just something really special about that. And some of the girls on the team had been praying for hot showers and home-cooked meals. We got all three of those things in Oruro. We were so thankful. The Lord provides!
So, this family who didn’t know us at all took us in and made sure we were happy and well cared for (the hospitality continues to blow me away and inspire me each month). We attended a service at church the night we got there, and the next two days their church was having a celebration for the anniversary of the women’s ministry and we were able to be a part of that as well as the service on Sunday – we sang songs and did a drama and prayed for people and I gave a message and we worshipped and fellowshipped and it was just really neat. We became friends with some of the children and ladies and received too many hugs and kisses to count (always with some awkwardness thrown in there, too).
The family showed us around different parts of the city and we shared wonderful times of fellowship around the table with them. We also got to make an ‘American meal’ for them one day for lunch and had a blast cooking (and eating) pancakes, bacon, and eggs. They even ate seconds which is always a huge win 🙂
When we left, we took a bus down to Uyuni and were able to visit another WR team there and have a day at the Salt Flats – incredible. Another wonder of our Creator’s amazing creation that we get to enjoy. Amen. We made a quick turn around and headed back to La Paz for the last of our time in Bolivia. We went back to the same hostel in order to have more time with the people we built relationships with at the beginning of the month, which has been cool.. and here comes more of the Lord’s faithfulness (and connections through the body of Christ that I don’t even know how to explain)!
The day after we got back, we found out there was a church who needed help with painting and cleaning in the children’s ministry section, so we were on it. We arrived that morning and met three sweet ladies who had been doing all the work themselves and we got to jump in with them to help the process go a little faster. We painted tables and chairs and scrubbed dirt and paint off of walls well into the afternoon. One of my favorite parts about this day was when one of the ladies told us that they had been working a lot but overwhelmed with all that still needed to be done, so had prayed that the Lord would send someone to help.. and then received a message from us! Praise the Lord! They were an answered prayer for us as well.
The day after that, we had been invited to attend a house church in the city and were immensely blessed by that. We spent time getting to know the people there, praying together, worshipping, listening to a message, and sharing about the World Race and things the Lord has done this past year. A big blessing about this service was that there was a man who was fluent in English, so he graciously translated the message for us which hasn’t happened often in the past few months, so we were thankful. And we even made plans to get back together on Wednesday! I love it.
What has come to be something I’ve loved about ATL is how we’ve heard about different needs, and we’ve been able to say “okay, we’ll be there!” because we aren’t tied down to anything else. That’s been super cool.
With thinking that this is a glimpse into how life at home will be – I realized that there will be days I won’t have a lot to do. Will I feel useless in those days? Will I feel like my life has meaning? There will be days that I go out to run errands or do different things, and I get to choose to interact with interruptions and the people that the Lord puts in my path. I get to choose to show His love to people, even on those days I don’t feel like talking to anyone. I get to choose to be intentional with the people in my life. There will be days that a friend or family member or someone from church may need something, and I can choose to say, “okay, I’ll be there!” and I pray that my heart will be filled with joy to be able to choose to serve the Lord with how I live.
But through whatever the days look like, I don’t want to ever let myself fall into feeling ‘meaningless’ just because I’m not on the World Race or because I’m not out doing crazy things. I want to trust the Lord and be open for all He has for me each day, and walk in obedience to that, knowing with confidence that He has made me, and because of that my life isn’t meaningless. Yes, I can choose what I do with my days. But I know that if I’m seeking Him and living it for Him with whatever I may be doing – it has purpose and He’s using it. I trust Him. And with whatever may come, I don’t want to ever lose sight of the importance of my intimacy with Him first.
I get to choose to live life on purpose. All the time. Everyday. I believe that’s what the Lord wants from us, and that is what my heart desires.
And that’s beautiful.
to Him be the glory
