When I started the day and realised that today was thanksgiving, I didn’t really feel thankful for anything. Instead I just had a longing to be with my family going down to the small small town of strong city. We go down there almost every year to meet up with family from all over from az to Missouri and all the in-betweens. It is so easy on holidays to miss what it’s truly about and focus on the want of being home watching football and just hanging out.
My day started off with prayer in the morning as whole team like we ussally do Then was off to ministry. I was coasting through ministry and was honestly feeling drained. This lasted for the first couple of hours. Then I reached a point where I said to myself “you know what, it’s tough but this what you signed up for so bucker up kid and get back out there and interact with these kids.” after that I did.
The rest of the day I intintonally talked to the kids. The first thing I became thankful for was a math lesson. This was the first time I felt useful today I had to pay close attention to the teacher as she did it so I could refresh my memory but once I did it was great. I was easily able to solve all the problems and help the students. I am so happy math is the same everywhere even if you can’t always read the instructions.
I stayed in that class, not doing math the whole time sadly (numbers just make sense to me) but I was able to have some good conversations and get to know some of the teens better. Honestly it was mainly through Google translate but hey what works works.
After this class I had a feeling almost like oh no. Let me explain why. We eat lunch at the school we help, and so far they’ve been pretty bad. My first day there we found a burnt match in one of them. I would say it’s only a level or two away from being pig slop. I was kind of dreading eating it agin today. I walk into the kitchen and the lunch lady said she will bring it to us. I was thinking she didn’t have anything prepared this is going to be the worst one yet. While waiting I was thinking this is going to be something thrown together real quick and just be mush.
To my surprise we were given these really nice looking wraps and bottles of coke. This was such a huge blessing and I can’t help but think it was the Lord reminding me to be thankful. After this me and colby left to go home. On our walk we wanted to seek out a park we so a few times while taking an uber. So we just walked straight hoping it wouldn’t be to long. After about ten minutes we were going to give up. However we decided to keep going a little more. Sure enough 5 minutes later we reached it. This is the only place I have seen with green grass, a clean environment, beautiful trees, and best of all no graffiti.
We laid in the grass and rested for a solid 20 minutes and I got to take time to rest and be thankful for that. Finally when we got home we hung out with our team outside for awhile and just laughed and had a good time. So what started off as a longing for home and unthankfulness was turned into an amazing relaxing fun day. And btw I also got ice cream and jello today like what how awesome is that!!!
In the end when I felt like there was nothing to be thankful for the Lord opened my eyes and showed me all the great things around me. From the kids at the school to the best team that has ever been on a Gap year. From playing at the school and talking there to resting in the park and at home with my team. The Lord has showed me how much I have here in Chile today.
