Hello all,
As I’m sure most of you know or have assumed, I am back home in Minnesota, 6 weeks earlier than anticipated. Almost a week ago, Adventures in Missions made the call to bring all short term missionaries back to the U.S. from the field, largely due to how quickly things have been developing and changing.
To fill you in a little about what it looked like for my team, here’s a bit of a timeline:
- We woke up on the 14th to an email saying that COVID-19 was officially in Guatemala and travel would start shutting down.
- Later that morning, my team left debrief in Antigua, Guatemala to go to our next ministry site in Chichicastenango. We got there mid-afternoon, unpacked our sleeping bags, and started to settle in a little.
- At 4:30 that same day, we meet with our host and heard about everything that New Generation does and what we get to do for the next 6 weeks. One of those things included working at the school, but an hour later at the end of our meeting, we found out that school was closed for 21 days.
- At about 6:00, we got the call saying we would be going home, but we didn’t know when. We thought we’d have a few days to do ministry, but no more than a week. About half an hour later, we found out we’d be leaving our ministry first thing in the morning.
- On the 15th, we traveled back to Antigua and stayed at the Adventures in Missions base in Guatemala. We found out we’d be flying out the next morning.
- On the 16th, we got up super early in the morning and spent all day in airports. It was exhausting and such a long day and filled with chaos, particularly a tight layover. But we made it safely to Atlanta. (Side note: the night before we found out that Guatemala would be completely closing its borders at midnight on the 16th, so we got out of there with about 11 hours to spare).
- We had a 1-day debrief at our hotel on the 17th, which I’m so thankful for. It was a lot of just being present with my team and getting the resources to process when we got home.
- On the morning of the 17th, I flew back home to Minnesota.
It’s crazy how in less than 4 days we went from being fully in the field, ready to jump back into ministry after debrief to being home, sitting on my couch with my dog. It’s been quite a whirlwind of emotions: frustrated because I want to stay more than anything else in the world, grieving the loss of all that we thought we’d get to do, overwhelmed buy the huge and unexpected change of culture (example: I almost cried when I opened the fridge at home because there was just so many options of food), lonely now that I went from always being with 8 other people in a small space to just one other person in a whole house, confused by why this happened, etc.
But in the midst of all this, the Lord has made 2 things abundantly clear:
- This is a time of growth and equipping.
- I’m not done.
I don’t fully understand exactly how or at what capacity that all of this will come to fruition, but in this time at home, I have the opportunity to share with others, to live in peace when it’s easy to fear, and to live like I’m still on the field at home, because home is still my mission field. During my time of self-quarantine, I have the opportunity to spend hours with the Lord, growing and learning in ways I haven’t been able to before due to other responsibilities. And even in this time at home, I know that I’m not done on the field. The Lord definitely has more for me, and how can I not be excited in this time of learning what that is?
During this time though, please be praying for me and my team, that we process everything in a healthy way, that we seek God through all our emotions and that we can be at peace, knowing that this was always his plan.
Soli Deo Gloria.
Bailey
