As sad as it is to state this, our time in Romania is coming to an end. With only 3 days left in this beautiful country, I’m realizing how quickly this month has come and gone!
Month two of the Race has been challenging for many reasons and it has brought a lot of healing and growth.
Towards the beginning of the month, I was able to experience an inner healing prayer. Which is basically, just sitting in the presence of the Lord and allowing Him to lead you through prayer to reveal old memories or past experiences that have caused you hurt, pain or to believe lies from the enemy. The days leading up to my inner healing I was skeptical and full of a lot of doubt. “Can the Lord really speak to me during this?” “Can He give me visions?” “Can He reveal past experiences and memories of times in my life that I have no recollection of?” “Can I silence my mind and my own thoughts long enough for the Lord to speak to me?”
When the day came, I walked into the room and decided I was going to set no expectations and I was going to invite the Lord to move and reveal as He saw fit. Man did He ever! Lies from the enemy were replaced with God’s truth and many things were revealed to me. It’s incredible what the Lord will do when we remove the expectations that our human minds have set, and realize the BIG God that we serve. The God who spoke everything into existence. The One who holds the universe in the palm of His hands. He healed the blind. He raised the dead from the grave. He spoke to people through angels and dreams. The wind and waves still know His name. That is the God that we serve! He is still doing those very miracles today. We will never be able to comprehend or understand, and that’s ok. We were not made to understand or figure it all out. That’s what faith is for, and walking into my inner healing I chose faith over doubt, and the Lord spoke to me in incredible ways. I’m still processing all that the Lord revealed and spoke over me during my prayer, but a lot of growth and healing has already taken place and I’m excited for the growth that is going to continue to take place as I press in and process through this experience with the Lord.
Ministry wise, this month has looked very different than what I was expecting. My team was asked to do the administrative work for our ministry host. I spent almost everyday of ministry in “the office”. Each day I would work on various administrative tasks, which was great, but quickly became a mental fight. I wanted to work. I wanted to be the team chosen to go do ministry at the kindergarten each day, or in the streets getting to know the Romanian people. I wanted to be out ministering to locals and meeting strangers.
You see, the mission trips I’ve gone on before the Race, looked a lot like holding babies, playing with children, or teaching ESL. This month I learned that not all missions trips looks like cradling babies and nurturing children. Sometimes it looks like sending and responding, to what seems like, a hundred emails for hours. Sometimes it looks like arranging travel plans for your ministry host’s upcoming trip to the States. Sometimes it looks like sitting behind your laptop for hours organizing Google docs. Other times it looks like cooking dinner for all 45 of your squad mates. And through it all, it looks like serving Jesus, because no matter what tasks we’re assigned, it’s all for the Kingdom, and the Lord is being glorified even through the mundane tasks.
My team did get a few opportunities to go out and evangelize in the streets, and play soccer with the locals, which was a huge blessing! Many people have accepted Christ and it had been an absolutely incredible month!
I’m learning to cherish each and every moment of this journey, because it’s flying by faster than I ever thought it would. So many more lessons to be learned and so much more growth to take place, I’m ready to see what the Lord has planned for month 3 in Bulgaria!
