So this month is going to look a little bit different. While we were supposed to be spending a full month in Macedonia, God decided to change the plans a bit.
We spent 5 days in Skopje, Macedonia debriefing with our squad. During that time, we were introduced to a new type of ministry called “Ask The Lord”, or ATL for short. This is how ATL works.
1) Listening Prayer: My team sat down and spent some time in prayer, asking God where He wanted us to spend the next 4 weeks of ministry. We all came back together and shared where we felt God was calling.
Some of us got pictures of bodies of water- oceans, lakes, etc. Some of us were led to specific words- such as displaced, and farm. I was led to a passage in scripture- 1 Corinthians 9: 19-23 which talks about Paul’s ministry to the early church where he came alongside the community and served in whatever capacity or need he could fill. “I became all things to all people, that by all means I might save some,” Paul says. With this, I felt the Lord calling us to a city where we could do very diverse types of ministry.
2) The decision: We put together everything we had heard from God and started researching a place to fulfill all of these things. Thessaloniki, Greece; Opah, Macedonia; and Kosovo were all good options. So we prayed throughout the day and decided we felt a push towards Thessaloniki, Greece.
3) Getting to Greece: This was all up to us. At this point in our race, we are pretty savvy world travelers, but we had never booked transportation, lodging, and found ministry in another country by ourselves. Oh yeah, and we have shoestring budget to working with- $6/person/day for lodging, $5 for food, and less than $50/person to get both in the country and out of the country at the end of the month.
But God is good and His plans are sovereign. Within a day, we had train tickets leaving for Thessaloniki, a hostel booked, and a few options for promising ministry opportunities.
4) So it begins: We are staying at a ministry called “Jason’s Place” with one other team from our squad. We are a 5 minute walk from the ocean, where I plan to spend both personal and ministry time. The pastor who owns the ministry knows of an organization who just opened a day center for refugees 3 months ago. It is a 20 minute walk from our house. We will volunteer there from 12-6pm Tuesdays and Thursdays. More details to come on what those ministry days will look like!
5) Other Ministry Opportunities: On Mondays and Wednesdays, we will spend time in prayer individually, and look for other opportunities to serve- maybe helping out a church, working at a food bank, meeting people in tourist locations and buying them lunch or a cup of coffee. The possibilities are endless, and I am so excited to see how the Lord will make each day unique and specific to sharing the gospel.
My personal Goals for this month:
1) Spend an hour with God everyday: praying, reading, journaling, blogging, worshipping, etc. It doesn’t have to look specific to one or two things, but I just long for that closeness of spending time with the Lord like spending time with a best friend.
2) Only using my electronics for ministry purposes: I will use the camera and GPS on my phone, and my computer for editing videos. Ill use social media only to post blogs and give updates. During ministry days, I am going to turn my wifi off on my phone and computer unless needed for ministry purposes. As much as possible, I will limit communication to friends and family back home to just off days.
3) Healthy eating and exercise: Last month I wanted to refocus on exercise and made it a goal to work out 4 times a week. I was able to far surpass that goal, which is awesome! But my eating habits did not match my workout habits. So this month I want to combine them. I have created a meal plan that is more similar to my routine before the race- more fruits and vegetables and less bread, cheese and desserts. There isn’t always a lot of control over the food we eat on a day to day basis, but I want smart about what I can control.
