Our month in Honduras was spent doing construction around the house of our hosts; taking down an embankment, digging trenches and postholes, and moving bricks so that they could build a more secure fence around their places.
My body is scratched, scraped up, torn up, bruised, sore, and I’m starting to get a cold, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. My body shows the wear of the goodness that we did in helping these wonderful people who are doing great things in an extremely broken country.
As I dug through the dirt these past few weeks, God also began to dig through my heart and bring some things to light.
[Dig]
“Choose to love, no matter the consequences.”
I love people. I desperately desire to know people’s stories and hearts, to care for others, and help them in any way possible.
I’m realizing, however, how hard it is for me to love freely and fearlessly at the same time. I need the time to decide if I can trust you or not before giving my love away to you.
That´s not the way God desires us to love, though. God calls us to love others greatly, just as He would, without any ifs, ands, or buts involved.
Loving other people is not meant to be a safe act. There´s risk in it, and a trust of God required; that no matter what may come of the relationship you create, that it is all worth it if God´s love is shown to the other person in the process.
And that´s exactly who I want to be. I want to be someone that is constantly illustrating God´s love to other people. I want people to experience God in a new way through their interactions with me. Because, really, loving others is not about me; it´s about them.
[Dig]
“To Asia, you’ll go.”
Since the age of 12, I know I’ve wanted to go to Africa and potentially live there long-term. Over the past couple of years, I’ve felt God asking me to release that idea to Him. Much easier said than done.
Yet, suddenly, I can’t stop talking about or thinking about Asia. At this point in time, I’m more excited to get to Asia in our route than Africa. And as my teammate affirmed in me, I’ve been that way since we entered the Race.
I’m not entirely sure when God changed my heart, but it happened. And it seems that He might have some different plans in mind for my future than what I originally wanted. But I am so excited to see what awaits for me there.
[Dig]
*Whispers* "Have you thought about church-planting?"
I´m slowly beginning to realize during my time on the Race how much I absolutely love pouring into other Christians. I have a passion for the spiritual formation within others, to embolden people in their walks with God. But when it comes to missions work, I never quite thought about being majorly involved with the formation of the local church.
Lately, however, there are ideas and stray thoughts of doing just this floating through my head that are beginning to take root as possibilities for my future.
To be honest, I´m still not sure how I feel about this potential; which is why I know the Lord is being extremely careful in slowly presenting this idea to me.
[And now as I sit here in Nicaragua about to post this blog, I´m fairly certain this month is going to be a month of growing in this area since our ministry is working directly with a church.]
The first two months of this Race has been filled with countless teachings from God, about myself, Him, and other people. And from these next nine months, I desire nothing more than to continue to learn from God and to put into practice the lessons He is teaching me; most especially the one about loving people fearlessly.
At this moment, however, continuing on the Race may not be a possibility for me. On April 1st, I have my third financial deadline of $11,000. Currently, I need just around $1,000 in order to reach it. If I don´t, it puts me at risk of being sent home.
So if you have been following my blog, reading my Facebook posts, or gazing at my pictures, I ask that you take a moment and pray about the possibility of supporting me financially. Even that $10 can do a lot for me. It may not seem like much, but I notice every dollar that comes into my account and I am extremely thankful for all of it.
If you would like to give, you can do so by click on the ¨Support Me¨ link in the left-hand column of the page or at the top of the page next to my green fundraising bar.
And as always, thank you for taking the time to read this; it means more to me than you could ever possibly know.
