Listen to those around you. Listen to the Holy Spirit. Listen to the Word. Listen to gain wisdom and understanding, for these are the gifts He freely gives us. Listen because He is speaking to us.
After many (I lost count) travel days from Central America –> 24 hour layover in New York (where we walked in SO MUCH favor from The Lord) –> Turkey –> Albania, our whole squad of 42 stumbled (literally) onto the beautiful property of LightForce Ministries around midnight. Jet-lagged and to the point of delirium, we were dazed and delighted by the big three story house we would call home for a month. We made our way upstairs to meet three lovely Albanian ladies who served us a cup of warm lamb soup and bread. Bellies full and happy, we rolled (almost literally) on over to the meeting room and met our contact George Ridley, and thus began my month of intentionally listening.
George Ridley is a one of a kind gem of a contact. He's a blunt & hilarious Brit from London, a pastor, church planter, father, husband, and finally the director of LightForce International. Through our two Bible studies a day led by George himself, and time spent with him while working on prepping the property for the summer camp, I listened to his stories and advice, gained wisdom, learned the value of hard work, and soaked up a plethora of life lessons. Our time at LightForce consisted of incredibly full days doing various jobs such as white washing, painting fences, sheparding sheep, cleaning pig stalls, trimming bushes, planting kiwi plants, power washing furniture, cleaning pools, internet research, website content editing, inventory, …. the list goes on an on. The mindless manual labor provided a gateway to great conversations with fellow sqaudmates that we maybe hadn't spent much time with the past 3 months.
To be honest I wasn't the most enthusiastic about our whole squad being together, but as with most things, God had a perfect plan & it ended up being an amazing month.
We are different.
We aren't looking to impress the person next to us with our past mission trips, or prove to them who we truly are if only they really knew us. The phrase, "You should see me at home… I'm like this…" is no longer mentioned and instead is replaced with talk of our growth and the current journey we are embracing.
We refer to time in the form of countries, not months, and can barely recognize who we were in Honduras.
We are putting God as the focus of our conversations, our reactions, and our relationships and not searching to please people on the surface level.
We are digging deep and getting real. So real in fact that I, little ole soft spoken Alex, stood up on a chair in front of everyone during a powerful, holy spirit led, worship session one Friday night and declared out loud that I will not be silent anymore. The Holy Spirit wants to speak through me and would like very much if I would finally get over my fear of failure & perfectionism. So I said, "Yeah…. that'd be great. Thanks!"
Now I'd be lying if I said I wasn't terrified and shaking the whole time, but God caught me when I fell into His arms. I listened, He spoke, He nudged… He nudged again, and I obeyed. The feeling I got when I hopped off the chair and joined back in with the clapping, singing, stomping, and dancing to praise Jesus is difficult to explain.
The best part is that this injection of goodness doesn't leave. It's not a temporary high that fades as time goes by and hides at the sight of conflict. The glow stays because God wants us to shine. To be different. To see that He is the hope in struggles because he will always. catch. us. when. we. fall.
We just have to listen.
