Hello everyone! This week has been a lot of things… beautiful, exhausting, joyful, challenging, and hopeful… and I wanted to share it all with you! To be honest, I’ve been procrastinating writing a blog, partly because WIFI doesn’t really exist here, but also because I have so much to say and am not sure if I’ll have the right words to say it… but here we go.
Training camp was probably the most spiritually eye-opening three days I’ve ever experienced. The big things I took away were…
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The Holy Spirit speaks in our language. If He wants to say something, he’ll find a way to make us hear it.
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Our relationship with God takes place in the Cave (intimacy with God), the Table (community with believers), and the Road (missions). I feel like I’ve been living mostly in the Cave, but to experience the fullness of God, I need to dive into the Table and the Road.
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God’s will is not a narrow path; it’s a meadow. He doesn’t have a plan for us, He has plans. His will for our lives won’t be ruined by us making one wrong decision.
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God will achieve His mission with or without us, but He calls us to be a part of it. One metaphor my man Dion used was this: As a parent, making cookies by yourself would be efficient, clean, and successful, but it’s so much more fun to bake cookies with your kids, despite the mess.
So basically, training camp was life-changing. But what I’m even more excited (and probably you, too) is Ecuador!
My team is made up of fifteen girls, and you can find their blogs on this website (to the left)! I already feel such a connection to all of them. It blows my mind that I’ve only known them for eight days. It already feels like a sisterhood.
We’re staying in a big guesthouse on a property with three other houses. Image a convent (green lawns, squat homes, red shingles, garden, the works) with a view of the entire city. White and red homes cover the mountains in the distance. Massive volcanos surround us.
For these past few days, we’ve been staying on the property to acclimate (the house is 10,000 feet above sea level). One of the houses on the property needs to be taken down, and we’ve been dissasembling it for days! Imagine a stack of sixteen matresses packed into a room-sized closet… probably the most fun I’ve had in a while (a video of this stack is on our instagram!).
Starting on Wednesday, we’ll be doing a couple of different ministries. The first is construction on Camp Hope, a camp for disabled kids. Because of COVID, they haven’t been able to take care of the campus, so we’ll be doing upkeep, painting, and reconstruction. Maybe (crossing my fingers) we’ll be able to meet with the kids! Later in the trip, we’ll be going to Dunamis, a minstry for victims of sex trafficking. Their campus needs painting and their garden needs working, and by then, we’ll be pros.
Being in this environment has inspired me to read through the Old Testament, and let me tell ya… it’s been hard. At first, I was upset because I didn’t understand God’s reasoning for his actions in Exodus, but after a lot of praying and talking about it, I feel like God was trying to teach me something deeper… I will never understand the vastness of the Lord, but everything He does is rooted in love.
I then got extremely bored with Leviticus (like geez, Moses, can’t you summarize?!) but I’ve actually been learning a whole lot about what God values. I’ll just bring up one of the many things I’ve learned from Leviticus: God says he only wants animals without defects to be sacrificed. At first, I was confused… if I were to put it in a metaphor, wouldn’t that mean God doesn’t want the people with defects? Then God was like, “Everything I do is rooted in love. Think again.” Then I remembered… the Israelites are sacrificing SO MANY ANIMALS. If I were an Israelite, I’d want to sacrifice the animals I didn’t need and eat the ones without defects. But God called the Israelites to sacrifice the perfect animals, the ones that cost more, the ones that the Israelites didn’t want to lose. In the same way, God calls us to give away the parts we cherish the most… our time, our commitment, our energy. It’s not enough to give Him one hour in the morning. If we are to live for God, we have to give ourselves up. So… yeah. I’m still getting through Leviticus, but it’s crazy to me that I can learn so much from such a boring book.
In these next few week, I would love some prayer for a few things.
First, I feel a little sad that we can’t leave the property. Even when we’re out doing ministry, we aren’t allowed in stores, markets, or really anywhere with people. I know God has plans, and whatever He does in our lives, it will be life-changing and fruitful. But I also pray that something with COVID changes so that we can experience the fullness of Ecuador before we come back home. I pray for contentment in our situation.
I would also love some prayer for my spiritual journey. I pray the Lord works through me, changes me, and wrecks me. I pray I hear His voice clearly every minute of every day.
Finally, I ask for prayer for Mabe and Fabi, our hosts. They have dedicated every waking moment to hosting us, and I ask the Lord for rest for them. May they feel appreciated and like they are truly doing something great in their ministry.
I also ask you take a quick look at a part of the bible that makes you uncomfortable, a book that you’ve been procrastinating reading. God has something for you in those pages. Every book is there for a reason, and you have something to learn. And don’t be afraid to ask the big questions. God can handle it.
Thank you for taking the time to read this massively long post! See in a week or two!
Over and out.
P.S. If you want to see pictures and things, you can follow the team instagram page @wrsouthamerica2021.
