Next week our squad is headed to malaysia!! So, to celebrate the ending of Thailand, I wanted to write about what I’ve learned in these past 2 months. These are some of the things I’ve figured out.
1. You can’t live in two worlds at once. For a while I was trying to keep up with both home and where I am now and it had me split in two. I forced myself into being less comfortable and decided to limit how much I contacted home. This limit I put on myself radically changed my experience and my attitude of living in Thailand. I wanted so badly to be able to be fully connected to both worlds but i realized I had become disconnected to both. Making this choice of abandonment was tough, don’t get me wrong, but it’s made it so that I could fully experience the blessings around me.
2. Bearing with one another is what God has called us to do. “Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.” Ephesians 4:2 Our team has been learning how to bear with one another, to walk alongside each other in everything. Living day in and day out with 7 other women isn’t always easy, but it’s been such a blessing and I’m learning daily what it looks like to love as Christ has called us to.
3. There is joy to be had in everything. Since working at the wildflower home as our ministry, I’ve learned that sometimes you have to fight for joy. Being out in the heat and shoveling dirt and gravel, tilling up dirt in the banana field and picking out weeds by hand all day every day isn’t easy. Our team has had to learn to look above the dirt and hot days to gain a greater perspective of what Christ sees for us in it. He’s given us clear vision for our ministry even on the days when its been beyond frustrating. I’m so thankful that our team has found such joy in this work and I’m so happy to say I’m going to miss working alongside the women and children at the wildflower home.
4. “God’s purpose for my life is not a problem to be solved. God’s will is not so much as path as it is a way of walking.” This is something I’m continuing to learn. For as long as I can remember, I viewed my life as a series of problems to be solved in order to remain in the will of God. He’s been showing me that if I keep this step by step perspective that I’ll miss out completely on what blessings He’s placed around me. “God’s steadfast love and goodness trump whatever is going on around me. He has clear direction, even when I do not.”
I also wanted to say thank you to all of my supporters, by prayer or funding I’m so happy to be here. You guys got me here, and thank you so much for the continual prayer and sweet messages of encouragement, they mean the world.
