i am currently writing this blog on january 1, 2020. i have been in ethiopia almost a month now and i have wholeheartedly avoided blog writing and story telling and putting words to my feelings and experiences that aren’t emotional scribbles in a journal.
one of my biggest struggles about the race is i have realized i have always been really good with words and stringing them together to form coherent thoughts and ideas of wisdom and vibrancy that make people feel something. but since having to actually write things down and reveal what the lord is doing, its not that he’s not moving. its not that he’s not doing radical miracles and changes. its that i know i will never be able to explain the immense joy and love and completeness and freedom and intentionality and sweetness this season is bringing. its that i don’t even know how to begin to sum up my life in a couple of paragraphs.
so here i am, a month into my time in africa. on the first day of a new year. in such a state of reflection and remembrance and celebration as well as vision casting and declaration and seeking the lords will and face in terms of what my future looks like. and here i am, to update you on my life.
2018 was the year i got everything i wanted and even less. i found myself in the lowest valleys i had yet to experience and felt as if the lord was taking away everything i had ever wanted. it was the year the lord called me to the race.
2019 was the year of it all. a year of so much change and growth and boldness and milestone moments. a year of falling in love and taking it all in and learning to live in every moment. it was the year i actually went on the race and started this journey. the lord made his goodness and faithfulness even more evident this year.
and the last month of 2019 i have been completely off the grid for the most part. i landed in ethiopia on december eighth. my squad met up with another world race squad who happened to be spending a month in ethiopia as well. so our first couple of days here was actually brought in with what we called the awakening.
we spent so many hours in intercession, praying for ethiopia and preparing the way in prayer for what our time here would look like. we spent so many days in constant worship just thanking the lord for our months before and the months we had ahead in the race.
and since then we have jumped into ministry here in ethiopia. and man, am i so blessed to be able to experience so many different types of culture, ministry, worship styles, and people while being on the race. transitioning into ethiopia looked a whole lot like laying down expectations and precious assumptions of what this new place would look like. it looked like sitting in remembrance and gratitude for guatemala and our time there, but also laying down comparison of that place to this on eat the feet of the father and saying, “ wow, god you are so sweet. and we are eagerly expectant of the kinds you are about to show us in this place, whatever it looks like.”
ministry looks like sometimes teaching around fifty kindergarteners in a local village in the mornings. it looks like afternoon ministry tracks that include a woman’s ministry track a kids ministry track, or working on a reforestation site about an hours walk away which is what the lord called me to during this season. it looks like cutting grass. prayer walks. intimate time with our community here. pouring into the staff of the base we are staying at. loving the thirty something kids here at the HopeEthiopia base all the time. always being surrounded and loved by them is probably the sweetest thing.
time in ethiopia has been so sweet and full of complete peace and serenity. i feel the lord being so kind in the way he reveals his face to me. the way he holds my hand through the anxious stir crazy moments. the way he lays with me on the front porch watching my eyes sparkle with the reflection of the countless number of stars that dot the sky. the way he also sits among those same stars whispering to me, asking me to reach farther and farther into the sky, to take hold of the moments that he wants me to experience with him. the way he has given me so much time to rest and paint and journal and not suppress any of the emotions i may want to. the way in which he has showed me his steadfastness and is now calling me to walk in that steadfast trust and expectancy with him.
man, i know i will never be able to fully comprehend any of this. i will always know in part until the day i can actually hold his hand, sit at his feet, and ask him all the questions. and i know even more certainly that i won’t ever be able to form perfect thoughts and ideas and sentences that will satisfy my own human desires or maybe even yours, but i know i am just the most blessed eighteen year old girl ever to know the love of the father and be a part of it. so i probably wont ever be able to explain it, but man am i just so content and even more so to experience it instead.
