In only a few short days we begin month two of ministry! My squad and I have spent the past 4 days debriefing our first month; what happened, good things, bad things, improvements that could be made, how God worked, etc. My first month in Thailand and on the race had its ups and its downs, but overall has been one of the greatest things I have ever experienced. This month taught me humility, patience, and what it looks like to embrace feelings. I went into the month excited about all the “cool” things I would experience and also anticipating the hard things to come. However, I did not prepare enough for the hardest thing I was faced with this month. What is that one thing? GROWTH! (Ahhh)
I’m the type of person that can be thrown into most situations, find the good in it, then thrive and be okay in the situation ( I’m an enneagram type 7 if that tells you anything). One thing I do not like to do, however, is deal with feelings and all of that jazz. Something the Lord is growing me in is dealing with feelings and embracing them – yay, growth! I have never been a “feelings” person or someone who likes to be vulnerable and share how they are feeling about things. So, naturally, when the Lord first started growing me in this it was really uncomfortable. I have realized it is not something that just happens over night, so it has been cool to see His grace in this situation while He is still working on my heart.
I have also been growing in my patience this month. I am a flighty and scattered person, so patience is definitely not something that comes naturally for me. One thing that has taught me patience this month is community living. I have honestly loved living with my entire squad! (Upside: you’re never alone! Downside: You’re never alone!) It has been a lot of having everyone together and being able to do life together. However, one can only stay with others for so long before they become aggravated with the people they are around, am I right? So I had to learn to have patience when people would stay up extremely late when I was sleeping, when they would eat the food we bought for breakfast, or when people would leave their stuff everywhere. Like I mentioned, I am not a naturally patient person. Something I learned from that is when you ask the Lord for patience, He doesn’t necessarily give you patience right there right then. He does, in fact, give you many opportunities to TEST and GROW your patience :). Another thing that helped grow my patience was our Sunday ministry. I absolutely adored the kids we spent Sundays with. Teaching them English and spending time with them was so much fun! Aside from their cuteness and innocent looking faces, they definitely gave us a run for our money! I mean, if I went to school 7 days out of the week, and 2 girls that did not speak my language got up in front of my classroom and tried to teach me how to say “dog” in their language, I would probably jump out of the window too. Sundays turned into less of teaching and more of managing pure chaos. Locking doors, windows, trying to keep them off of one another, trying to protect your co-teacher from being head-butted, so much chaos! I can look back on it and laugh now. But at the time I got a little frustrated. The whole situation shows how faithful Jesus is to give me patience. (hehe) By the end of our last Sunday with the kids, I learned what it looked like to love and serve everyone around you, no matter what the circumstance may be.
Jesus has definitely grown me in these two things, but there is something that I had to choose before I could even begin to grow anywhere else: humility – man, oh, man. This is definitely the biggest thing I have had to work on this month. Before I could start to grow anywhere else, I had to choose humility; to die to myself and my wants. One of my teammates asked me if I could describe the past month in one word, at the time I said no. I would still say no. However I could do in two: Choosing humility.
Do I always want to choose humility? No.
Do I always want to choose into loving someone when things get hard? No.
Is it always worth choosing in to it in the end? Absolutely.
The theme of my first month has been growth. At first, I was not too excited about it. It’s uncomfortable! But how cool is it that the person who created everything and holds all of the power cares about me enough to push me to be better? When I look at it through this lens, I become extremely thankful for the uncomfortable things. Does it make them less uncomfortable? Well, no, but it does make them worth it.
Thanks, Jesus, for pushing me to grow. You’re pretty cool. 🙂
