Now for the JUICE!
Well, now that I’ve told you of what we did let’s get into how we felt and melded as a team…
I seriously cannot believe that it has been a week since we got here, looking at all the interesting issues that have arisen. All in all we have had a great first week being together and ministering together but that has been because of Team YETI’s dedication to debriefing and talking about stuff rather than just sloughing it off.
We made group norms (things that we all agreed and committed to as a team) before we left to start our official ministry and some things have already come up. We all felt extremely discouraged from the fact that we can’t communicate with these people, and the idea keeps attacking us of, “How can we show love without speech?â€� We have to continually take negative thoughts captive of how are we actually helping these people and what are we actually accomplishing… the question of, “Where is the fruit?â€� has come up in my mind numerous times. But who am I to say if the Spirit is working or not, all I can do is pray that God works in these people, show my love to them however I can and leave the rest up to the mystery of God.
I couldn’t believe how fast I strayed away from our team covenant of Loving God and loving people to something totally different… the pursuit of ministry. “What are we going to do for the services tonight?… We did that last night… that’s a boring idea…â€� All these things have, I dare say, been a part of my vocabulary in the last week, I have repented and am glad I am at least aware of what is happening. I think I can speak on behalf of the team in saying that we have been sidetracked into seeing what we can “doâ€� for these people rather than how God can use us to do His will in His time in this place. These were selfish motives, we want to have hundreds of converts, we want people to be healed, we want lives transformed but is this just so we can feel like we are supposed to be here?? That’s a stupid reason!! We want all those things to bring glory to God and that’s it.
Oh, I should say that we don’t have a translator because we are so far away from a city, and we would have to ship one all the way out here and pay them an arm and a leg to stay with us, for one day it would cost more than we have budgeted for an entire month!
So God is continuing to work through us even in our weaknesses, and we praise Him for it. He alone is where our strength must come from. We’re going to keep on believing, keep on praying for the miraculous and keep on pressing into our relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ. Thanks so much for your prayers!
PRAYER REQUESTS
1. That we would have vision for how to speak the love of Christ to these people
2. Just yesterday a bunch of people got sick, prayer for Talia, Ryan and Eric.
3. Pray that I would continue to find my strength in God and not in myself.
