A few days ago we landed in Sri Lanka! We are starting this new chapter with “debrief” in Unawatuna. Debrief is a time to meet with our coaches, our mentor, and also the other people on our squad who we have been separated from this last month.
Part of debrief is reflecting on the past two months. There are two things that made month two really different from month one and I want to share a little bit about them now.
1. Team Month: This month brought a big change between Squad Month and Team Month. We went from living and serving with 40 other people to our individual teams of 6. To be honest, that was not an easy shift for me at first. A lot of dying to self, laying down my own desires, and just giving up my own personal beliefs about how time was best spent. Even though we met at Training Camp, had had some team breakfasts in Australia, and even did a tumbling class together, our four days in Bali were when we really started to get to know one another in a 24/7 kind of way. God called out some things that needed to be called out of me through my experiences with others on my team. Our time in Bali was challenging in a number of ways, but after we talked and prayed through it, we entered Semarang with new hearts. If I had to sum up our time in Semarang/Jakarta in a few words: Overwhelming and Unexpected Blessings. Ministry. Living situations. Food. Travel experiences. Emotionally. Spiritually. Relationships… Really, in every way imaginable.
2. ATL Month: Again, “Ask the Lord” month was not something I was initially excited about, because what it translated to in my mind was “Aimless, Doing Nothing, Wasting Time.” But wow, God changed my perspective on that.
Something He told me in Bali was that “listening prayer” is like a muscle, and mine was tired out. It seemed like we prayed a lot, about everything, and I wasn’t always expecting to hear a direct word from God. But I also think this is because I was overspiritualizing it. I’ve always prayed to God over big decisions, expecting Him to reveal His will. And when I pray, I do sometimes hear Him teaching me something, or convicting me to do (or not do) something, etc. For whatever reason I let myself believe “listening prayer” in World Race Land was just about seeing visions or getting loud, clear messages from God, which is not usually my experience and I tend to approach it with a (hopefully healthy) bit of skepticism because of how I have seen it abused. (Though on the Race I believe I’ve seen it done authentically, too).
But anyway, this month we just continued asking God every day what His will was for every decision, like who will preach, or who will visit which home group. And those moments where we all heard the same thing, or when we witnessed what we heard in prayer come to pass- those moments were really amazing. Do I suddenly get visions now? No. But I’ve started praying over the small things more frequently and in that have learned to rely more on God, and genuinely listen for His input in everything. And, ironically, we seemed to have more structure with our ATL month than we did last month with a pre-planned host! Again, unexpected blessings!
Now, speaking of transitions (and I did not know this when I wrote the bulk of this blog), we will have team changes again! And it is another ATL month. So please pray for God’s direction in where we go, what we do, and literally every other detail too. Please continue to pray for no food poisoning/diseases and no insects crawling on me or on/in any of my belongings! Thank you!!
