Month 1: The Dominican Republic
I’m living with 19 of my fellow squad mates and, for the majority of the month, our 3 squad leaders making the total number of bodies in our 4 bedroom (bedroom being a loose term, some were the same size as my closet in college) house 23. We were living on top of one another (literally, all we had were bunk beds or the floor). I can’t honestly remember how I felt about this living arrangement. I remember how uncomfortable I was, not so much physically as emotionally. I also felt like I was reliving my first week of college. I didn’t really know anyone I was living with, I had just left everyone I had known and done life with forever, I was doing a job (door to door ministry) that I had never done before and was fearing that I would completely fail at, and I was in a country that I had never been in before. I’m sure I felt a lot of things, but I know one of my first feelings was not comfort.
But NOW…
Month 8: Swaziland
We came home this month! Our team is living with two other teams and 12 of us lived in that house in the Dominican Republic the first month of our race. However, the feeling is completely opposite from that first month. We are a family that cooks together, eats together, works out together, prays together, plays together, plays jokes on each other, go grocery shopping together, and anything else you can think of we basically do together. We have grown into a travelling family that has Jesus at the center and that cares for one another. We have a family prayer wall and write encouragements to one another. We function like the family from Yours, Mine, and Ours. We have a lot of schedules and everyone has a job and we love each other. We have been blessed with a beautiful house with hot water, a refrigerator, couches, and a fireplace (which we are hoping to use this weekend because it is supposed to get cold, finally). And, we go into our ministry with the confidence that God will be glorified in everything we do.
I’m writing this blog to illustrate what Jesus and eight months can do to a group of people who are travelling the world together. God brought us all together for a reason and we were chosen not to just do ministry to the people we meet in each country, but to minister to each other.
