(Written June 11th / posted June 17th)
Hey friends, I am posting from here in Swaziland! It’s crazy to think that it has been less than a week since my team arrived in this beautiful country. Already I have learned and experienced so much.
So, to start off, here’s a quick summary of training camp: incredible worship, hearing God’s voice, bonding with my team, sleeping in one room with about 80 other girls, bucket showers, cultural cuisine, and porta potties. But in all seriousness, training camp was an awesome start to this adventure. In our sessions, we discussed ministry, community, and intimacy, and how when these three things come together, they create the kingdom of God. To organize the crazy wonder of all that’s happened, I thought it would be a good idea to describe what I’ve learned in ministry, community, and intimacy for my first post.
Learning about intimacy with God was enlightening as I’ve further gained a sense of my identity within him and seek to hear his voice. This included exploring what I knew about the Holy Spirit and furthering this knowledge to realize the Spirit’s presence in my life. So often, Christians feel that they know God and Jesus, but don’t fully comprehend the Spirit. Remembering that the power of the Spirit lives within us to guide us in God’s will and direct us for the glory of his kingdom is beyond mind boggling.
Regarding intimacy, I’ve also been reminded of my true identity. At training camp, we talked a lot about the false identities we create versus the true identity God has given us. Without even realizing it, I have in certain ways created a false identity of myself. The reason it was so tricky for me to realize this is because my identity wasn’t wrapped up in “bad” things, it just wasn’t centered in who God declares me to be. For example, I work really hard in school, and have the label “good student.” I also am very organized and rarely out of sorts, so people consider me to be a responsible, put together person. Neither of these things are at all bad in and of themselves, but I have placed so much value in them that I have created an identity in which I place my value instead of embracing the identity of who God made me to be. I struggle with leaving behind my successes and achievements and presenting myself to others as I am, but who I am without these things is actually pretty wonderful. I am freed, I am loved, I am chosen, I am wanted, I’ve been reconciled, I am beautiful, I am known, and so much more. During team time the other night, we did a journaling activity in which we each wrote in our teammates’ journals what we saw in them. People wrote of me that I am gentle and courageous—powerful in my gentle spirit. This was so encouraging to me because I’ve always known that I was a comforter and bore the fruits of gentleness and kindness, but I struggle with seeing myself as bold or strong. To know what others saw in me was such a blessing because I was loved and appreciated for my true identity with the gifts and personality that God gave me.
Now on to community. Coming into this trip, I really wanted to gain a fresh point of view on community. I’ve felt as if I’ve lost sight of how the body of Christ works together and wanted to be renewed in the importance and beauty of community. And God definitely met this request. Already among my team I am in awe of how our unique perspectives and personalities blend together to complement one another, edify one another, and call each other higher. It’s also so mesmerizing to see God bring together people from different cultures, various backgrounds, and different parts of the word. We trained with some locals for sports camp ministry and this time was so precious as we connected with these individuals in such a short period of time. By our third day of training, we felt like a family and were sad that our time together was finished. One of the coolest things so far has been praying with the Swazi locals as they like everyone in the room to individually pray all at once. It is a glorious sound to hear a blend of praise and petition, as we all come to God at once and know that he hears each voice. I cannot wait to learn even more about community in the next few weeks.
Lastly, I want to talk about ministry. When I gave prayer requests to my leader, I asked for prayer in hearing God’s voice (intimacy) and connecting with other believers (community.) What I did not mention was ministry. At training camp, our sessions explained that ministry isn’t something that we do, but rather a lifestyle that we engage. Although I sometimes fall short of living a ministry lifestyle 24/7, I felt like I didn’t struggle very much in this area. It wasn’t until I got to Swaziland that God started opening my heart to learning about and growing in ministry. For the first few days we had training, and to be completely honest, it was kind of hard. We had just come from training camp which included lots of sessions and then been traveling for two days, so doing “training” wasn’t exactly what I had in mind. I was envisioning our first day of “ministry” as jumping right in and heading to the care points to work with the kids. However, these expectations were obliterated when our schedule showed three days of training. The first day was the most difficult, and I struggled with being disappointed about the “ministry” we were doing because I felt like we weren’t actually doing anything. However, the next day our team tried very hard to embrace the training and spend more time getting to know the locals. The results were that, by the third day, the locals went around in a circle and talked about what a blessing we had been to them and how much they would miss us. We had taught them games they could play with kids, answered their questions about America, and laughed alongside them. Through these actions, my team was doing “ministry” all along. God really opened my eyes to the fact that ministry doesn’t have clear, definitive guidelines to follow in order to qualify as ministry. Ministry is just consistently and passionately living out the likeness of Jesus in hopes that we reach those around us. Through two other situations, my team and I were able to do ministry in a way that looked different from what we might call “ministry,” but were simply serving others by doing our best with where we were at. It’s so amazing how God works where we least expect it and is moving in ways beyond our understanding.
Well, if you’ve made it to here, thank you so much for sticking it out and reading this long post. I hope that it is an encouragement for someone! Thank you for all your support and love, and please continue praying that God would work in the people of Swaziland, my team, and me. Until next time!
