Hello all,
Well, it’s Thursday and I have been through a lot at training camp. God has been so faithful in building community and unity with this October team. It has been sad to see some people leave as they realized that God was not calling them here, but overall the attitudes are positive as we are broken into smaller teams and moved around, analyzed, and tested, to find the right combination.
I think the most growing experience for me was a couple of days ago. The leaders took us to a National Park here in Georgia, and we were told to go on a “cross walk”. Prior to the walk we all took a log, and we wrote on it the things that we needed to surrender to the Lord for the next year. Most people said things like control, freedoms, pride, etc. As I sat there thinking of what to put, nothing came. I felt all the things that other people were putting were things that I had already surrendered to God. Now anyone who has met me knows I am not perfect…so SURELY there was something I was still holding on to, something that needed to be surrendered. It took me about 10 minutes as God began to lay concerns on my heart to finally bring them all together under the heading of “My Roles as a Women”. This was definitely something I needed to surrender. Other cultures are not as open to women’s freedoms and the gender roles are much more strict. So I began to walk…
Pouring my heart out initially I began to tell God that I’m not the baby holding, cooking in the kitchen type, and would go crazy if I have to do that all the time. Plus, relating to women is such a struggle to me. I never really know what to talk about with them…especially women of other cultures. I want to hang out with the guys, and play soccer with them, that’s an easy way to relate.
Then God spoke. He affirmed me in who he had made me. I am a women of God, but a strong one, and because of that, I can reach more than just women. I can reach men. And then he challenged me. He said, “Steph, there will be times when you get to go play soccer with the boys, and show them that women are powerful, that they are equals. But there will be the times that I really need you to stretch yourself and refrain from doing the guy thing and hang out with the women…and it might be in the kitchen, or holding a baby. Can you do that for me?”
Wow…that’s a tall order. But through it I realized what my purpose was for missions and the world race. Some women came here talking about how excited they were to play with kids and talking to women. That’s their role on my team, and yes, I will have to share that role sometimes…granted with some resistance, but I will be there. But I am a woman who God has created to reach men by example. When I was in Indonesia and I played soccer with the boys, our guide, a Indonesian Christian, a man who believes in the equality of men and women, said to me, “I have never seen a girl run that fast, or ever play soccer like that”. If I left any mark on Indonesia I pray that it was women are just as equal as men. And that is my prayer for the world race. There are cultural gender roles that we were all designed to fulfill; women for child raising and nurturing, men for leadership and protection. But just because there are these roles, they do not limit us, and they do not make one gender better than the other. They merely reflect both sides of God and are necessary to reflect his glory
