5 words to sum up month 1 in Côte D’Ivoire
1. Humbling
2. Blessed
3. Unpredictable
4. Educational
5. Surrounded
HUMBLING: Where to even start with this. Watching children play with tires, broken pieces of toys, a fan blade, milk carton with a string made into a car. Seeing the homes of the people in Diablo sometimes with more than twice as many people in the family as there are rooms. Hand washing my clothes, children teaching me how to do it and then insisting on helping me, watching the beautiful women work all day long to support their families. People using Mother Nature as their restroom. This month was completely filled with humbling experiences the Lord revealed to me.
BLESSED: I came into my month 1 of this race so eager and ready to bless the people we were about to encounter. And we did just that, but little did I know that the ministry host would bless us more than I could even imagine. Cooking every meal for us, preparing the very next meal right after the previous one, doing our dishes, sweeping the floor and scrubbing the bathrooms, washing our shoes multiple times, offering to do our laundry and them insisting so much that we let them do it a few times. God blessed me with these ministry hosts this first month more than I thought was even possible. He also blessed me tremendously with an amazing team of beautiful and confident women of the Lord who I love so much. I can be honest in saying that I was initially scared to be on an all women’s tie am but God yet again blew my expectations out of the water with these ladies. He blessed me with Sylvia, one of our squad leaders, the first 10 days of the month, and Alex, another squad leader, the following 10 days. Sylvia was very insightful and more serious, while Alex showed us how to love on others and to just have fun in every moment. God blessed me with so much this month.
UNPREDICTABLE: I have a slight feeling that this could be a word to describe just about every month of the race. But there is so much beauty that The Lord gives us in this. Going with the flow and being flexible was a huge thing that we grew in this month. The Lord challenged us with unpredictability but it was so good. Learning to find joy when plans changed over and over again was something that He challenged me with and it has stretched and grown me.
EDUCATIONAL: When I say this, I mean culturally. I was able to learn so much about their culture and I was so fortunate for that. Learning about the women and how hard they work for their families, witches and evil spirits and how real of a thing it is here, different foods grown and harvested, clothing, so many things that opened my eyes. I learned how they see and view Americans, that we have everything at our fingertips. Spiritual warfare is also something very real and practiced much more than in the US and diving into that was very interesting.
SURROUNDED: The Lord gave us a month surrounded by people. We were almost always surrounded by children and people in the village. He challenged me to show love in the moments I didn’t necessarily want to. To be honest, there were so many times I wanted to just go crawl into my bed and be by myself. Walking with the Spirit is so incredibly important to accomplish that and He showed me just that this month. He surrounded me with love this month. He had to show me what love felt like before I was able to go love on others this year.
Blessings,
Adriana
