Hey friends! It’s the beginning of the month, which means we are in a new country and have started new ministries, silly me I still haven’t told you about last month.
Month three (November) was spent in Pucallpa, Peru with Pastor Lister and his family. We worked at his church painting the Sunday classrooms, cleaning, gardening, and doing skits for the church services. We only worked for a few hours each morning and then had the rest of the day off. It was just Team Deep Pursuit this month so we lived and worked together every day!
I did not like this past month, now don’t get me wrong the family was lovely and my team is really awesome but inside myself it was a rough month. Each day I woke up with bitterness, negativity, and basically a bad attitude towards life. I was so focused on the negative sides of everything that I couldn’t even see the smallest positive thing but by some miracle God was still able to teach me a thing or two.
The bitterness in my heart was toward my teammates because I couldn’t speak the language and they could, the negativity was because my wallet, computer, and phone have all in some way been taken from me and the bad attitude about life was because I couldn’t find time to be alone and didn’t feel Gods presence with me.
Every few months Racers get this thing called debrief, its kind of like a mini vacation in a hostel where we have sessions and one on ones with our “squad parents” and our mentor, its just a chance to fill back up and reflect on the past few months.
This debrief rocked my world, having the chance to reflect back on the month it helped me realize why I was so miserable and why I couldn’t shake my bad attitude.
I LEFT GOD IN BOLIVIA!
Not once did I spend time alone with God, not once did I pray (unless it was before a meal), not once did I ask for Gods guidance, NO WONDER I HAD A BAD MONTH!
Now at debrief my squad leader taught a session on Gods love, she read us a story she had written and then played us this song/sermon and it blew me away. I sat in my chair sobbing like I had never done before, while a lovely friend just held me and prayed for me, I was so overwhelmed by Gods love for me and he was using this friend to help show me that. After session that night I went up to the kitchen are wrestled with God for about three hours, I tore up my journal writing everything I was feeling, abandoned, missing home, unloved, selfish, negative, ugly, you name it I was struggling with it. After I was empty and everything was on paper I prayed to God, “God I need you, please show up in big ways, I can’t bare another month like this and I can’t expect my team to put up with me again.” And I got the simplest answer in return, “ Jesse you didn’t invite me.” Dang those words stung. Each day I didn’t invite him into my heart, to share the day with, to ask for guidance, to thank him for the friendships, to praise him and worship him.
Now I’ve made a few goals this month. Each and every day I will invite the Lord into my heart, I will be thankful in and through everything, I will choice joy, and I will pursue the people around me even if I don’t understand the language.
All this being said I am so grateful for a God that forgives, loves unconditionally, and welcomes me back into his heart with a warm embrace.
