The lord really does give us what we need when we need it. Guatemala was physically very comfortable… beds, real showers and toilets, large living areas, a kitchen, cooks for most meals, a nice city near by, etc. The physical comfort allowed me to really focus on the spiritual and emotional growth I was being called into whether it was growing in community with my team and squad, growing in intimacy with the Lord and building deeper and stronger foundations for my faith, or striving to better my character. The Lord placed me in such a physically great place to start the race and learn what the race looked like for me personally.
In Thailand, our living conditions were pretty bare. We had a house with literally nothing inside of it except a microwave on the floor and a bucket for showers. Sleeping on the floor, showering with freezing and dirty bucket water, being pooped on my geckos on the ceiling, and so many other odd situations pushed me to lean into the Lord and challenged what I had just been forming in Guatemala. I had to now rely on this foundation I had just built and push into trusting the Lord in the long hours of ministry when I didn’t really know what else to be doing with my class and I was tired and sick. That was what I needed in that season. To be pulled out of the comfort and pushed into discomfort. To allow the discomfort to shape a new part of my faith and deepen it in ways that was not possible when I was really just enjoying the race and its newness.
Here in Myanmar the Lord knew exactly what we needed when he placed us where we are. Hakha feels like a cozy home in the winter. Nice coffee down the street, kind English speakers at school, a Christian town with open arms to us. It’s almost like a break. Here ministry is a little shorter and less rigid. All the teachers and most of the kids speak pretty good English, some fluent. They know the Lord and love to talk about him. The Lord really gave us the community we needed after a hard month in Thailand.
With that being said, I can so clearly see the Lord’s faithfulness in placing us right where we need to be. I can also see multiple different sides of ministry. In Guatemala, we were able to see so much fruit. We were both encouragers and greatly encouraged. We loved our village and they loved us right back to an extent I could never have imagined. We saw people healed, people rededicating lives to the Lord and having revelations of His goodness, people curious about our God and wanting more and more of Him, people simply loving us and letting us love them, people telling us stories upon stories of how the Lord has shown His hand in their lives. I got to see such a wonderful representation of the fruitfulness that ministry can and does bring. Felt like a real joyful harvester there.
In Thailand, I was humbled and reminded that I am not entitled to see fruit and often won’t. In a Buddhist village where no one spoke English or took much interest in the Lord, it was a season of throwing seed and watering that seed to the best of my ability. My actions had to speak loudly because my words could not. I often felt like the only thing I was doing at ministry was showing up and nothing more. Like my kindness and love toward the kids was seen as just a nice person. Trusting that the Holy Spirit is much more powerful than i’m giving credit and working through every moment and interaction, this ministry showed me the kind of discipline and blind faith that ministry sometimes takes and the surrender of my desire to see fruit and to only feel used when I got to see fruit. My perceived uselessness is never that. Felt like a tired sewer there.
Here in Myanmar the side of ministry I’m seeing is what is looks like to be a loyal partner. I don’t feel like I’m bringing a crazy new idea that’s is being joyfully received nor do I feel useless at all. This side of ministry is showing me that sometimes there is developed places where Jesus is known by most and is accepted and taught. My job is to encourage and help push their ministry a little further while I’m here. To show them that people are on their side and want to see their ministry grow and impact others as much as they do. Feeling like a diligent waterer (is that a word idk) of seeds here.
This next month we have been placed at the same school we were at previously in Thailand and will arrive there in about a week. I have a lot of things to say about that but I’ll save them for later blogs. Right now just know that dread is not an unknown feeling. I just ask that you pray I would cling to what I just wrote. Cling to the knowledge that the Lord knows exactly what I need in each season even if I’m upset and confused and just really not about it to say the least. Pray that sewing seeds would be not out of obligation or frustration but out of privilege, joy, and anticipation. Privilege knowing that I get to play a part in the Lord’s work when he could do it easily without me. Joy in the little things when it would be easier to bow to circumstance. And anticipation knowing that one day, maybe not soon and maybe not me, but one day someone will get to reap harvest in Ban Doi.
Thank you for your endless support.
I hope I never get used to this
– L
