As you have probably read in my past few blogs, last month was a struggle. Every day felt riddled with battle scenes that made up the entire war zone of the month. And, if it wasn’t one of my own battles I was dealing with, it was standing beside during my teammates’.
We fought for each other, even if we happened to be fighting against each other at that moment. And that’s not an easy thing to do!
We fought for unity. We fought for openness. We fought for relationships back home. We fought for our ministry city. We fought for the country. We fought for strength. We fought for participation in ministry.
We picked up our armor and fought like mad.
Then, we had a week of relaxation and fun during our Month 4 Debrief in Brasov, Romania and it was glorious!
We talked. We rejoiced. We cried.
We had made it through the battle and we were triumphant.
I wish I could say that the war ended there; that that was our “happy ending” and we
Lived
Happily
Ever
After
But, we quickly came to realize, the war has only just begun.
We’ve had dreams and visions, feelings and prophecy; God showed us that we are entering another season of battle.
Very soon.
We’ve been commanded to pick up our armor and put it on.
To be alert and ready.
To prepare our hearts and minds for more battles.
The month that we just conquered was, indeed, a victory, but it was a small one.
After all, then we will have won the battle, but will, ultimately, lose the war.
Our troops are present. We are committed. We are embracing the concept of impending war, as terrifying as it might be.
We are growing in each other, in God, and in ourselves. Each day we are growing stronger and we will continue to do so every single day in this season of preparation.
We aren’t sure of the warzone we are entering exactly, but have perceived the majority to be simply finishing the Race. We have been shown that southern Africa and eastern Asia will not be easy for us, whether emotionally, physically and/or spiritually.
With that said, this month is a month of blessings.
We have been blessed with an amazing host family, who is ready and willing to go above and beyond to welcome us and love us. They have truly welcomed us like family, even going as far as telling us to refer to them as that- our family- and not as “contacts”.
We have a mom and pops who treat us like their own children. We are blessed with mom who sits at the kitchen table with us while we are all cutting vegetables and preparing meals and we talk about our spiritual walks. We are blessed with a pops who buys us cold drinks at an outdoor restaurant and tells us about his life, while listening to us talk about ours– and takes pictures whenever he can.
We are blessed with four children who have fully invested in us already, wanting to take advantage of the time we have together.
The oldest boy wants to serve and help whenever he can. The oldest girl is a quiet lover, meeting needs before you can even ask. The youngest boy is an outgoing, ball of fun, always wanting to play and make faces to make you smile. The youngest girl is a talkaholic princess who lights up my world with her love and desire to be loved and cuddled with.
We are blessed with a family who opens their house to us to fix popcorn over the stove and hang out in the living room watching movies projected on the wall with the entire family. A family who has us over for barbeques when it’s their children’s birthdays. A family who totes us to church in the family van on Easter Sunday.
We are blessed with a servant neighbor who loves to just be with us. She, along with her mother, have fixed us traditional Ukrainian desserts and come to visit, bringing tea and candy, canned veggies and anything else they can make! She picked us up from the train station with the family and has been in our presence ever since, blessing us with her words, actions and food.
We are blessed in an apartment that we can call our own that is just across the street from the family house. It is complete with a full-size fridge, stove, oven, and sink. They also provided us with a French press coffee maker and coffee. We have beds, pillows, sheets and blankets.
We have running water (most of the time, anyway, unless the city decides to turn of the water whenever they want. So far it’s been three times already. Hah) and a flushable toilet. Well, unless you poo… But that’s just a slight water pressure problem, we think, and it just requires dissolving your poo with the boiling water from the plug-in kettle we also have.
Glorious life of a World Racer, eh? 😉
But still blessings, nevertheless.
We are blessed with a supportive, loving community already. We were hugged and communicated with during the church service we attended, even if there was a slight communication barrier. We have met contacts through the family that have already been great friends.
I have been blessed with a community of Africans- mostly Nigerians- in the middle of Ukraine, right after coming out of a month where I was down and out and now is when I needed it the most. They have loved me and welcomed me like their sister, knowing that I have a strong connection to their communities. They have invited me to a church service (and sent me videos of their time of worship, that renewed my passion for a good worship set) and to social gatherings. I have been able to approach them and ask questions, which is miraculous because I am not a pursuer, and have conversations with people who were strangers just minutes before.
I am still blessed with a beautiful team- inside and out! We got dressed up for Easter service, reminding each other of our external beauty, and have had conversations throughout the day, reminding each other of our internal beautiful hearts.
We are blessed with cold drinks, even slushie/frozen ones and hot food, with ice tea and American candy bars.
We are blessed with a smorgasbord of ministry opportunities that range from eyeglass clinics to talking to classes about our traveling; from meeting up with students after school for a tour of the city to drug and alcohol rehab; from sports days with university students at an African church to just helping our host family whenever possible with chores like cooking and cleaning.
We are blessed with forming relationships within the community already.
Basically, we are just blessed in the midst of our battles.
But, in this season of blessings, we haven’t forgotten that we are preparing for the continuation of this war!
