The race can be an emotional series of ups and downs, for many reasons, not the least of which is moving to a new country every month. When we arrive at a new place, there is an undeniable excitement. Everything is unknown, and each day of ministry in that first week offers new experiences. We are simply taking it all in as we try to understand the ways of the people and the place. The food is new, the sleeping arrangements are new, the bathroom situation is new (although many times, not altogether exciting…)
By week two, a rhythm has begun to drum in our lives as we pass the ‘honeymoon’ phase. Daily life becomes much more rich as we build relationships with the beautiful people and children involved with the ministry and with our host and with our neighbors. We begin to truly live life together. We wash dishes, we talk over laundry (hours of laundry), we share stories as we learn to prepare local foods and speak snippets of the language.
Something shifts by the beginning of week three, though – the middle of the month. The things that used to be exciting can become boring, or even annoying. The stares from the people on the packed bus don’t make you want to say hello anymore, they make you want to ask, “what?” The countless kids that are calling out to you wherever you go make you tired. You mourn the loss of your regular toilet and shower back home. You dream of things like a salad, or pizza, or chocolate. You start to withdraw, you seem to want more ‘alone time’ than you truly need. On your worst days you’re just trying to get through it, going through the motions.
And then suddenly, you’re in week four, and you can’t figure out where the time has gone. You start making comments about how you’re doing something for ‘the last time.’ It has become difficult to stay present. Depending on how rough week three was, you may spend much of your time thinking about the next month and the next ministry. Excitement is building again.
Then you do it all again the next month.
My first four months of the race loosely followed this pattern, especially month four, our first month in Africa. I had ‘middle of the month blues’ like never before. While I had immensely enjoyed the preaching we were able to do, I was honestly ready to move on by the end of the month, even if the idea of continuing on in Africa was not very enticing.
And then, praise God, something changed in month five. When the middle of the month blues started knocking on the door, my newly formed team (Team Boulder!) actively decided to turn those blues away at the door.mWe simply weren’t going to grumble and instead we were going to pray for God to change our hearts – to make our time in this country so sweet, that we would long to stay. We resisted the urge to withdraw.
Instead, we went down to the well in our free time to help our neighbors carry water. While we waited for the bus to come home from ministry, we taught songs to all the kids that followed us from a neighborhood school. We talked to the random people that we were practically sitting on top of on the bus. We prayed for the business owners near where we buy our water. We prayed more intently for each other, making prayer posters for each other. We celebrated the little things. We danced with the kids, we danced by ourselves in the rain. We embraced the joy the God had been setting before us all along. And when week four came, we soaked up all we could.
We longed to stay, just as we had prayed.
Perhaps you have heard the saying, “it’s not happy people who are grateful, it’s grateful people who are happy.” God brought that to life for us this month and we could not be more joyful. As we move into our next month together, we are keeping this knowledge near to our hearts. We are also at the halfway point in our World Race journey (that’s so crazy!) and it can be so tempting to have middle of the race blues. To begin daydreaming about returning home, to stop living fully and gratefully in the moment. But my team is committing to actively rejecting that mindset. We want to have open eyes and open hearts to everything God has for us. We want to run to him when we are discouraged instead of away from him.
Are you experiencing any middle of the month blues? Has anything in your life lost its excitement?
I’m inviting you to partner with my team – choose to be grateful and to live fully present wherever God has you. We would love to pray for you, too! Just leave a comment or send an email if you’d rather keep it private. We will be praying for God to change your perspective as he has ours.
