I am currently in Quito, Ecuador. We have not had much access to the internet this month, and I am finally getting the opportunity to share some of the crazy things the Lord did in Colombia.
We arrived to beds, a cleaning lady, a personal chef, warm showers, security guards, and our work was mainly manual labor. I was completely in my comfort zone. After a couple weeks of this, our team realized that if nothing changed we wouldn’t see the kind of growth within ourselves that we wanted to- so we did something dangerous.
We decided to pray that things would get harder. We prayed that we would be put outside of our comfort zones. I prayed that the story of my life would be used to encourage others. I prayed to build real relationships with our hosts and the people around us.
The week after we prayed for things to get harder, the Lord showed His sense of humor. We wanted to be challenged so that we could grow, and instead our showers broke, we got sick, and we seemed to fall apart physically. I had a pretty bad eye infection that I needed to go to the hospital for, and we had two other teammates that also needed to get medical attention. We went to the hospital, and without a translator tried to answer medical questions.
They scraped my eye with all sorts of things to do some tests for parasites, which it was not- luckily. I ended up having some sort of eye infection that I needed to get up every two hours and use eye drops.
I was treated at the hospital fairly quickly, and one of my other teammates needed to have some other tests done to make sure that everything was ok. The pastor that drove us to the hospital and I sat in the waiting room for another 6 hours and I was able to share my testimony with him, and he shared his testimony as well as pictures of his family and all kinds of stories. It was truly one of my favorite moments from the first month.
However, the next day we decided to go to his church and the moment that I walked in the doors of church, I felt the Lord telling me that my testimony was going to be shared at church.
I hadn’t prepared anything. I hadn’t been asked. But I knew that it was going to be shared.
I sat down at church and started praying about what I would say, and how to say it in Spanish. Again, nobody had asked me to go up and share. At the same time, I wondered what in the world that I could possibly share from my life that would encourage a community of people who I seemed to have nothing in common with.
There was a moment in church where I sat and surrendered to the Lord and He comforted me and told me “Your presence is enough”. I wrestled with that for a couple minutes and at the moment I decided to let the Lord have control, the pastor began to speak about the missionaries from the United States and I knew that it was time to share. I was nervous, but I felt the peace of the Lord.
At that moment that I felt at peace, the pastor went on to share about the night we had in the hospital together and how him and I had the opportunity to sit together and talk for quite a few hours. He introduces me, and I begin to get ready to go up to the front. But instead, the pastor continues to talk about the time that him and I had in the hospital, and how good the Lord is as he shares my testimony.
It was such an intimate experience for me while my teammates were sitting next to me and had no idea what a wrestling match I was having with the Lord.
When it all falls apart, the Lord is still in control. He used our sickness, weakness, and uncomfortability to show His strength. All I have to do is be willing, and to trust. I was very much outside my comfort zone as I felt the Lord tell me that my testimony would be shared in Spanish, yet He had it in control the whole time.
I decided to pray bolder and ask for the confidence and authority of the Spirit to see miracles. I did. Blog coming soon!
I have been working on trusting the Lord, and knowing that He has called me to the World Race I am letting go of the stress of the finances coming in. If He can heal people physically in an instant right in front of our eyes, He can and will bring in the finances for my journey. I have another deadline approaching at the end of this month, and I am $873 short of that deadline! Please pray about partnering with me financially or about who else might be interested in joining my journey.
