Guatemala. “The Land of Eternal Spring.”
When I prayed for my time in Guatemala, the word I received was ‘abundant’. After living here for two weeks, I can already see abba fulfilling that promise to me. The culture in Guatemala is one of hospitality and joy. Seriously cannot stress this enough. Me and my squad received the warmest welcome from the staff here at the missions base. There are around 12 people that serve on the leadership team, and the amount of love and intentionality they have shown us has made this place truly feel like home. Our first week here was spent learning about the history and culture of Guatemala, exploring/ becoming familiar with the city, and being introduced to our ministry. Me and my team are partnering with a group of Guatemalan missionaries in a town called San Lorenzo. Ministry days with them will be spent doing house visits, sports ministry, and teaching English to kids. For the month of December, we will only be working with them for about three days of the week. The other days we will be either joining other teams for ministry, or going out into the city and doing ministry on our own. One of the first days we were here, me and my team all sat down and asked God to give us vision for what He wants the next three months to look like, and what our team will grow in. These are some of the things that were spoken out:
-Family within the body
-promises fulfilled (Romans 11:29)
-Past wounds will be healed
-Families will be reconciled and will learn how to love each other
-the foundation of San Lorenzo will be the love and grace of the Father.
-simplicity
-new perspective
-childlike faith will our ground
-unity and sisterhood within our team
-obey+see
-Psalms 34
-simple gospel
-no agenda
-BOLDNESS
-new leaders will be raised up
-fresh peace
One of the biggest words I’ve heard God speaking over my time in Guatemala is surrender. I’ve realized since leaving Romania that true surrender means giving every piece of myself to God. That means giving him my emotions, giving him my time and attention, giving him my comfortability, giving him my pride, giving him my anxiety, and giving him every decision in my life. Giving God pieces of myself isn’t surrender. He gives me every part of himself, so why am I holding back? Since being in Guatemala, something I’ve been praying for frequently is peace. As someone who struggles with an anxiety disorder, peace is sometimes hard for me to physically feel. Most of the time I’m not even sure where my anxiety is coming from, which makes it all the more frustrating. Something God told me one morning was that overcoming the course of anxiety means surrendering control. When I get anxious, the very first thing I hold onto is the hope of controlling my situation. It’s a physical way that I trick myself into feeling grounded. The truth is, God is in control, not me. There is literally nothing I can control other than my mindset and individual choices (which God wants to control too) . Once we stop trying to control our situation and how others view us, it opens up so much freedom. Something I read the other day said that, “peace is waiting for us on the other side of trust.” When we learn to trust God and surrender all control to him, we WILL have peace. It is already in our inheritance.
“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.”
-John 14:27
This whole time I’ve been praying for God to give me peace, but I already have it! He has given us a spirit of peace and of love and of a sound mind. It is now our choice to take hold of it or not; to trust him and surrender, or try to control things in our own power. I think that this realization goes for a lot of things that we pray to recieve . Rather its’s praying for courage, wisdom, kindness, etc. As sons and daughters of Christ, it is in our inheritance to receive these things. He has given us all the tools we need to walk in the spirit. Lately, I’ve been changing how I pray. Instead of asking God to give me His peace, I ask him to help me walk in the peace which I have already received. There is so much joy in knowing that I have, and am continually being set free. Jesus has given us authority over our minds by giving us the fruits of the spirit (Galatians 5:22) We are literally CALLED to freedom!!! (Galatians 5:13) We get to decide what we do with that freedom.
Guatemala has been teaching me so much and it’s barely been two weeks. I’m thankful for new beginnings and new found freedom.
Also, I’m only $1000 away from being fully funded! I have a little less than a month to raise the rest. If you feel led, you can donate through my blog by clicking the orange donate button. Love you guys and immensely thankful for all the prayers and support.
