This blog was started on the second day of being here but was finished editing today. If you have any questions about it I would love to hear them in the comments and will respond when I can!
Yesterday was our first full day in the village our team as been assigned to. We are staying at a home for kids (not an orphanage because some of the kids have parents but they stay here due to cost of living situations) for two weeks. The kids here range from 5-17 but the 16 and 17 year olds are very mature as they do a lot of cooking and cleaning. Our days are so tiring generally I am in bed by 8:30-9:00. I sleep in my tent inside a room, it is very hot during the day but at night it tends to cool off (I don’t sweat as much). We eat what the children eat, which mostly consists of rice with ginger and some form of chicken or soup.
Schedule:
5:30 Devotions
6:30 Breakfast
7:00 Team Time
8:30 Manual Labor
12:30 Lunch
3:30 Manual Labor
5:30 Dinner
6:30 Worship
It is here that I have had the privilege to already experience pure joy. After being introduced to the kids, ten minutes later Zach Trest and I were running up to the soccer field with about eight kids. As we were running, two kids grabbed my hands. When I looked down at them as we were running they had the biggest smiles I’ve ever seen. The kids here thrive on life and enjoying every moment of it in how carefree they go about their day and let nothing bring them down. You can truly see the joy of knowing the Father in the smiles of these kids. We also brought our skateboards with us, ever since bringing them out they haven’t stopped riding them, even when they fall off numerous times.
Our ministry opportunity for yesterday, and the rest of this week, is to clear the border on a patch of land (mostly 30ft+ bamboo) for a fence to be built and later a house. We came to find out that bamboo in Thailand is quite itchy. This began to really hinder my ability to do the best job I could do due to the fact that I was so focused on being itchy and not on the task in front of me. After lunch I began to think about the next few weeks here and the roadblock of constantly itching while working. Then as I was thinking of tough situations I’ve already encountered on the race and a quote popped into my head from one my teammates, Cj,
“It’s not about our comfort.” He had said this when our team was struggling with finding purpose in ministry a few weeks ago.
I didn’t come on this trip to be a person that has to be comfortable in order to say yes to the Lord. I came to say YES to the Lord and whatever he has set before me. While I was thinking about this blog a verse came into mind, This verse makes me realize that even though this was a small “trial” God is trying to teach me that hard stuff will come however, I must learn to trust Him and persevere.
James 2:2-4 “Consider it pure Joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may become mature and complete, not lacking anything.”
I also had the opportunity last Sunday to share at our church service. The message I gave was on Galatians 5:22-23, I shared how the fruits of the Spirit were very evident in the lives of everyone that lives at this house. Standing up and doing sharing was way out of my comfort zone, which seems weird because I love people and interacting with them, that changes though when it’s just me speaking in front of a group of people. In the end though, I was glad I did and I felt like God was present in the moment.
Thank you for your prayers. We will be in this village for four more days, continual prayer for opened doors and that the Lord would be evident in everything we do would be greatly appreciated.
