I’m learning to keep conservative expectations throughout the race especially when it deals with travel days. However, I will have positive expectations of the impact of our ministry. There are always changeups when it comes to what you expect and what you get. Using time to hear God speak and to seek him in the waiting periods and in-betweens is something He has been speaking into me. My team has gone from the natural jungle to the concrete jungle in San Salvador. This is our third month in the race and also a very diverse one after the first week. There is a lot of driving around to different facilities and I’m being open to changes that might occur throughout the day. So in a way, unpredictable travel days has been a precursor what to possibly expect at this ministry site.
After the first day of going around seeing what December will look like for the team, it seems we will now see real, raw, human brokenness. In the first day we saw special-needs kids, kids who were abandoned, and young teen mothers and their children. Not only this but we did prison ministry for two days and it looks like I could be doing it 3 days a week here. Before the race, I had never visited a prison before. I never knew anyone who was in prison or had any close family members who were incarcerated. Well, I went to visit inmates in prison and it was the first time I’ve seen the inside of a prison. So it looks like a significant part of our ministry this month. Sometimes it’s best to not think about what people have done and why they are in there. It might make you less compassionate if you do. The best approach has been to greet them and be relational in the name of Jesus. I was told later about what kinds of crimes were committed by these people and it made me marvel at how these inmates are so friendly and nice to us but on the other hand what they did to be locked up gives it such a strange surreal feeling when you interact with them.
The biggest verse of scripture that I have speaking to me right now about our month is from Matthew 25 which says
“For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’37Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? 38And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? 39And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ 40And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers,f you did it to me.’ I’m now seeing the tangible reality of this verse all around me now. I still feel that I have not done anything very significant and what I’m doing are very small things but now I’m seeing that I am in the positive category of this verse. I look to Jesus and think “I never saw you sick, naked, in prison, or hungry.” I’m getting assured now that he is saying to me “what little you did for them you did for me because wherever you go this month whether into prisons or orphanages, I’m ready to meet you and I’m already there.”
This will be the reality of our third month.
