hello my sweet friends:)
My first couple days in the Dominican Republic have been amazing! We are staying at an organization called Hope for the Dominican, it is in the middle of the mountains. The view in could only have been made by a divine God! There are goats, cows, horses, chickens, dogs, BABY CHICKENS AND BABY DOGS. Our ministry consists of (but not limited to) working at children’s centers, prayer walks, property work (cleaning up from the hurricane), helping research issues (like sex trafficking) happening in the DR and of course cleaning up after ourselves. All of which are ways to serve the Lord and we are all finding joy in it.
While it’s only been four days of being on the actual race, God started teaching me something important before I even left. At launch, we were given necklaces with keys on them. On the keys were words and everyones key had a different word. (keep in mind there were 250 of us)!! Anyways, the man who engraved the keys prayed over them and asked the Lord to place a word on his heart for each and every key specific to who it was being given to. The crazy things is – everybody’s words are so accurate and relevant to their life. Maybe because the Lord really does know us so well that its beyond our understanding(; Some keys had bible verses on them and some peoples had single words. When I got my key, I really wasn’t all that excited about it because it seemed so cliche. My key simply said “be you”. Like WHAT!! If I had a penny for each time I heard someone say that, I would have been able to pay for this trip in a week!!! Ok, kidding kidding kidding. But seriously, I was a tiny bit discouraged. But then I got to praying and thinking about it, and it began to really make sense. I read the words in a different light and viewed them as God breathed words – because thats what they truly were.
Over these last four days, my key has really been something of comfort for me and a good reminder. Some of you may not believe this, but I really am quite the introvert. Big groups make me tired and loud noises make me cringe. With this being said, my flesh has found it a little hard to “stand out” in a large group of 54 people. Sometimes I have felt like I needed to be the one cracking the jokes or dancing around having a good time – but thats really not what is natural of my God given personality. I love silence, small groups, intimate conversation and gentleness (but I also have a very weird side to me… thanks dad). I knew that this was going to be a struggle for me on the first day of training camp back in July. With that in mind, I brought it to God – and he replied with an engraving on a key given me by some guy I have never met. “Be you” has reminded me to do just that. God doesn’t need me to act different in order to be accepted or stand out because I am already all those things to Him. When I act different than how God intended me to act, it is actually a hinderance to letting Jesus shine through me. God molded me in the womb to be a specific way. Every person carries a part of God with them as we were made in His image – and He LOVES the way he made us. With this being said, if we act out of this natural character, we aren’t allowing Jesus to express himself in us the way intended. In the end, it’s not about being noticed by people, its about knowing who you are in Jesus – thats where real joy is found.
Thank you all for walking with me in this, I am having so much fun and learning so much:)
