It’s been an interesting process since the Lord brought me down to Guatemala about two months ago. The Lord spoke some things about this season in Guatemala for me before I left Gainesville, GA back in January. The first thing was Intimacy with the Lord. There’s been many times where the Lord has allowed me to be by myself to spend more time with the Lord. This has been exciting, challenging and a crazy process all at the same time. Intimacy with the Lord will be something I will focus on my next blog. Spoiler Alert!!
The second thing I was spoken into was that I was going to love women well. Not the “romantic” sense of love but how Christ loves women as sisters and as daughters of the most high King. When I received this comment from one of my friends in Gainesville it was at 1:15am in the morning and I didn’t know what to think of the comment. One side of me thought yes I do love women well. The other side of me thought me loving women well was crazy.
Sometimes I think loving people well is having a high influence on their lives by my verbal communication skills or having them come to me for advice with their problems. At times I look at other guys around me and look how they treated women and tried to model how they “loved” women well in friendships or relationships. The problem is that’s not how God created me to love others well so when I try to follow another guy’s model it doesn’t work for me.
God has put me in some unique situations here in Guatemala. There are four people including my teacher in the CGA Program. I prayed while I was in Gainesville for another CGA male apprentice. The Lord knew what was needed for this season of my life. So the Lord didn’t allow another male apprentice to be along side with me for this four month time in Guatemala. He gave me three women to be with for this season. We did some inner healing for the first couple of weeks while we’re in Guatemala. Basically it’s more sharing your emotions. The stuff I really enjoy! (Not always, sometimes it’s more of a struggle for me). During one of inner healing sessions I shared some of my past with women in my life. One of the women in the group ask me a very specific question. She said, “Blake are you able to receive love from a woman with it just being friends?” At the time I responded it depends on the situation with the woman. Sometimes instead of being focused on how I can love women like Christ did, I put too much emphasis on how much attention they showed to me. Jesus never loved people or women with a self-seeking love but with a focus on loving people where they’re at right now. With my CGA female apprentices sometimes showing them love is writing encouraging notes to them, praying for them without even knowing it, doing Insanity in the morning, listening to hard questions so I can be more like Christ, or teaching them football classes! Yes! I’m serious!
First CGA Guatemala Apprentices my family for this season! (From left to Right Melanie, myself, and Megan)
Another example of this was last weekend I went up to Lake Atitlan with some of the Long-Term Base Staff here in Guatemala for a couple of days to help set-up, tear down, and be a prayer support for a women’s retreat called Beauty for Ashes. Beauty for Ashes is a women’s retreat for women who have been through rough pasts and they’re bought into a safe environment with other women to share their stories, receive freedom, and bring freedom to others. They have worship songs and Biblical teachings to go along with the sharing times.
Noe who is one of the Long-Base Staff in Guatemala and I were outside of the church for several hours praying for this Beauty for Ashes retreat. We were being a support system for the women in prayer support. Fifty women came to the retreat and a couple of them were effected so much by this that they said they were going to take this out to the villages and tell other women what God has done through Beauty for Ashes! Noe and I gave flowers out to every woman in attendance to show them Christ’s love. The women received this really well!
Noe and I giving away flowers and spreading them on the church steps during the Beauty for Ashes Retreat. Photo credit Vallory Moss (KJ Women’s Team 2)
God also did a work in me through being apart of praying for this retreat. God wanted me to stop looking at other men for how to love women but to look to Him on how to love other women well. If we are showing other’s love by how The Holy Spirit tells us to love others then we will know if we’re loving others well or not.
I don’t need someone else’s “Love” Model.
Christ’s “Love” Model is all I need!
God has allowed me to be his hands and feet here in Guatemala until May which is an honor. Right now I’m still in need of financial support ASAP. As of this blog I’m $2,262 away from being fully funded. Prayerfully consider support this missions journey with me. If the Lord leads you to donate towards this mission click on the “Support Me bar at the top of the page and donate a one-time or monthly gift. Thank you for your support! God Bless!
