Hello Friends!
I wish I could write this blog telling you that I am doing BIG things for the Kingdom, but I can’t, and that is okay. My team and I are here helping with the little things and doing the small tasks. We are partnering with missionaries here that have chosen to live life on the mission field and we are doing what they are doing. To be honest, until this morning when I was conversing with a teammate, I kind of felt like I wasn’t doing anything meaningful or purposeful this month. When you feel like what you are doing isn’t meaningful it becomes hard to find motivation to get out and do things, BUT, this is what I signed up for…to be the hands and feet of Jesus and serve where needed.
This month has been full of new things and new challenges:
– A new team: Team Fuente
– A new location: San Felix, Panama (every month this changes)
– All new ministry opportunities (different then most so far, at least for me):
– Helping prepare Sunday school materials for Mauren who is a missionary
from Costa Rica.
– Helping girls with their homework, especially Math and English.
– Going to a school and teaching Bible stories and trying to learn ASL with our
contacts Heather and Danny. Heather is certified ASL interpretor and has a
huge passion for the deaf.
– Hiking over an hour through the woods to help out a pastor with gathering
palm branch leaves so he can have walls on his house and tilling the land to
prepare for harvest soon.
– Hiking 15 minutes into the woods at night to attend a 4+ hour church
service and leaving because it was starting to rain beucase if we didn’t leave
then, the hike out would have been treacherous and the drive up the hill
would have been near impossible.
Because TEAM FUENTE is here we can accomplish 5x as many tasks as Mauren and help her prepare for ministry in the mountains that she travels to every weekend. Mainly this consists of doing art things: drawing, coloring, cutting, pasting, laminating, counting, sorting, etc.
The children here are different in this country than other countries we have been thus far. They are kind of standoff-ish and very slow to warm up to you. They are very shy and reserved. Most of the people that we encounter that are natives have not had much, if any, contact with white people. They also do not have TV’s and live very sheltered lives.
Life isn’t always about the BIG things. Sometimes it is about the small things. Life is an accumulation of the small things that add to to big things. Sure the small things aren’t as memorable, but they serve a purpose and are just as important. In reflecting on this current state of life I am reminded of the passage of Scripture found in 1 Corinthians 12:12-26 –
Unity and Diversity in the Body
“12 Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For we were all baptized by[a] one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. 14 Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.
15 Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? 18 But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. 19 If they were all one part, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts, but one body.
21 The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” 22 On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23 and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, 24 while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, 25 so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. 26 If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.”
If we claim Christianity, then we are a part of the body. We all have a purpose. We are all needed. Sometimes you get to be a fingernail and that is ok. And sometimes you get to be a hand and prepare/do much. Either way, you serve God by doing what you can and are called to do. Which also reminds me of the following passage found in Colossians 3:23: “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters.”
So readers! Get out there and do what you can for the Kingdom, regardless of how BIG or SMALL the task may be.
Exciting things happening:
-Next months ministry: We will be located in Cartagena, Colombia, which is a port city. We will be working with Alex Rocha and his family. They are a missionary family. Ministry will involve working with youth doing sports ministry and teaching English classes and more.
-Parent Vision Trip (PVT): My mom gets to come visit me on the field for a week of ministry in Ecuador near the end of July.
Things you can be praying for:
-We are scheduled to have a Leadership Development Weekend next week and we are trying to find and secure a place for 28 of us to stay, several places have fallen through.
-The motivation to keep digging in during this last few days here in Panama…we leave Thursday morning.
-My team as we continue to get to know each other and do life together. And some of desiring to be at home because of all the things happening that we have chosen to miss to be here.
-Personally, discipline and perseverance to do the hard things because they are worth it.
Hope you enjoyed reading! Love and miss y’all! Feel free to leave your thoughts and comments below.
Keep Lookin’ Up,
Misha
