In the beginning of Ukraine I felt God telling me you are going to learn to love your voice.
I said “God, I don’t want to do that so let’s pick another topic.”
I like to believe God just laughed at my stubbornness.
So, our ministry over the next couple days was specifically about me talking in front of classes or to random strangers on the streets. Our ministry forced me to find a way to love my speaking voice and accept that sometimes what I say is not perfect and I might talk to fast or my accent might be too strong for them to understand. But in this God showed me that He is there and what He wants to come across will because it is His will.
Then we found out that for the English school we were helping with that we are the English school. I realized I am going to have to teach Ukrainians how to speak English all on my own. I am stressing and I mean I was super stressed because I do not have confidence in my skills as a teacher; especially since I can barely speak English as it is. We also had to write out lesson plans for each day, because we got nothing to work with.
In that I learned to just chill out because most of the time they just wanted to hear a native speaker speak and I am a native speaker from America….I fit the role they wanted, perfectly.
Towards the end of the month Haley and Katherine left us to go see Haley’s sister, so we lost our worship lead singer (Haley). The afternoon after they left our host comes into the library/dining room/office/hang out space we are sitting in at the church and asks “Who will lead worship today?”
Back story: I woke up that morning and went into the kitchen to find Ruby where I tell her about the weird dream I had about my leading worship in front of a whole church. She says “ooo I can’t wait to see what God has in store for you with that”. I said “I rebuke that, because I will not sing in front of a church”…and walked back to our room where I continued to laugh at this funny joke the Lord had shown me.
My version of the rest of the story goes: Everyone our team said “No” or “I’m sick” and we go back and forth for a minute and I finally agree to sing.
In reality, the rest of the story goes: After Ivan asked, “Who will lead worship today?” I quickly respond “I will”.
So, I lead worship for the last four days in Ukraine. It went fine no one ran out of the room screaming…no it went well. I had people tell me that they enjoyed my singing, I mean I have never lead worship so of course I still need work on timing and memorizing songs a little better, but it went well.
I also got to tell my story to each of my classes and some people outside my specific classes. They told me hat they can’t believe how strong my faith in God is, how I have come around full circle and love him so much. A boy in one of my classes told me that he has been wanting to quick drinking but has not had the strength to do it for a long time and that after hearing my story is going to try harder and search for God’s guidance.
So, in Ukraine God showed me that my voice is powerful and people love to hear me speak or sing. My students told me they loved what I had to teach them and learning about American Culture. I made many friends in Ukraine and pray for all of them. My time in Ukraine was one of stress but growing into just following God’s lessons…even when i really don’t want to do it.
