Right now we are in Cambodia, and I have two months to catch up on in terms of blogging and I will do so to the best of my ability. While I can give a recap of the things that have happened it will be very difficult to fill you all in on the nitty-gritty details of things that have gone on. As those of you who are acquainted with me know, I tend to live in my head, and so in addition to the mass amounts of ministry related things happening are the countless things going on inside my own head. And this is the biggest contributor to why I do not blog as often as I would like, for those of you who were wondering. However, I know that that is not a valid excuse and so I would like to apologize to all those reading, especially those of you who have so graciously supported me in this journey and are continuing to pray for us.
So again I ask all those following back home to bear with me in this process. God is doing great things in our team, our squad, our respective ministries, and in me. The problem is that my mind races so much in the midst of trying to process everything that I forget to report the wonderful things that He is doing. And that in itself is a lesson that the Lord is trying to teach me all the time; that I can miss out on life, and even kill it at times, by over-analyzing it. But hold on to that thought because I will come back to it in the future.
The end of Nepal marked our first debrief with our squad coaches. So we spent the first few days of the month in Bangkok, Thailand worshiping as a squad, processing what we had seen, and resting. At the end of this debrief our team headed out to a place called Ubon Ratchathani where we were set up to work with YWAM. The rest of the month was spent doing various things including painting a mural, painting a church in a village, prayer walks, teaching English, and a 24 hour prayer burn. This was also the first month that we were close to another team, which was a great relief to us all, seeing as how living in constant community can be draining at times.
One of the biggest challenges that out team faced that month was down time. I realize that doesn’t sound like a challenge to most people, but when you go from two months of very intense outreach ministry to a month where there quite frankly wasn’t much “ministry” for us to take part in it can be challenging. First of all, when not much seems to be going on it becomes easy to question whether or not you’re in the right place. There were many times when I would come to God frustrated saying, “what in the world is going on, why did you bring us here to do nothing?” Second, let’s clear up a misconception that some people might be holding on to. Many people might think that because you have a team of seven people, down time really means party time. False. When you live with the same six people for 3 months and see each other almost every waking moment, down time actually means down time. So there are many times when everyone would be in the same room and simply not acknowledge that anyone else exists. Sounds harsh but living in community is difficult and people need their space and time to themselves.
But despite the “lack of ministry” and the time to ourselves, God still taught us all quite a few things. Some of us, myself especially, discovered new things about ourselves whether they be the way we interact with others, things from our pasts that have affected us, or aspects of our character that could still use some sharpening. Some of the members of our team acquired a hunger for God’s word that they never had before. Some, again including myself, began to see their skills and passions and started developing a vision of how they will do God’s will in the future. What’s sticks out the most, however, is the lesson that all of us learned. It’s something that we all knew in our heads but still had not learned in our hearts, the fact that everything is ministry. We get so caught up in tasks that we miss the people that God has already placed in our lives. There are times when the people who need us to pour into them the most are right next to us. That was our experience that month. From the very beginning of India our team had its share of difficulties. At times it seemed like a bigger share than we could handle. We realized that God had put us where He did to grow us closer as a team and to support and encourage one another and we did our best to do just that. The result was our team coming together in a way that we had not seen up to that point.
So when we find ourselves wondering what God wants us to do, oftentimes we have only to look for who’s around us. Be faithful with what He’s given you and only then will He give you more.
And I'll end this blog with a few pictures!
Remember how I said we painted a church, well here it is before…
and here it is after…
and this is the mural that we painted. Meghan led the project (and did the majority of the painting) but some of us helped…
