I’m not really sure what to write. I am declaring that whatever I write will be great and point everyone who reads it to the Lord. From now on, every experience that I have will be a testament to how the Lord was with me and how He has directed my path and worked through me to give him all the glory and praise…even through the little things. Holy Spirit, please help me be more aware and keen of your thoughts and your discernment when sharing our experiences in this journey. You and I are one. Just like you are one with the Son and the Father. I am one with Jesus through his death on the cross because of you. And because of you I have direct access to my Father and his unconditional love for me. Thank you for your free gift of grace to empower me to write about who you are.
Greetings from Africa!
I’m currently in Bulewayo, Zimbabwe! I have been here a little over a week now and honestly I have been feeling a bit discouraged over the past couple of days. I have been struggling with fear, comparison and lack of faith in circumstances prior to coming on the world race and even presently in trusting the Lord with people he has placed in my life.
BUT God is sooo good and always finding a way to encourage me. This month’s ministry is to essentially partner with our host family to help them serve their church and community. They are bringing about kingdom work in every aspect of their lives and it has been such a joy and honor to partner with them! However, the enemy has definitely attacked me in the following 3 areas that I have grown to be aware of and am currently combatting with truth!
Fear…fear of man. Fearing what others will think or not think of me. Fear of not being received well.
Comparison…comparing how I activate my faith with how my other team members activate their faith.
Lack of Faith…trusting that God’s timing is on time…doubting his providence over certain reoccurring situations that are going on at home while I’m away.
Here’s a quick story where I was faced with all three. This past Tuesday was an awesome day of serving God’s people of all ages, from babies to children, to teens, adults and even older people! In the morning we partnered with our host mom’s son’s school (a Christian school) on their “mission day” ( a field trip for their students to serve people in the community) to love on 3 groups of people, toddlers and babies in a Children’s home, children in the hospital and old folks in an old people’s home. 2 of us, including myself volunteered to visit the old people’s home. The teacher asked us on the spot if there was anything that we would like to share with them as a word of encouragement in addition to the students singing songs and sharing memory verses from the Bible.
1. Fear-I was afraid that what I wanted to say wouldn’t be communicated clearly. I had an idea of what I wanted to say but didn’t want to mumble up there so I opted to not share anything at all. There were a couple of opportunities where I still could have shared something later, but in the end I opted not to.
2. Comparison-My other team member did share a word from the Word…(hehh hehh)
3. Lack of Faith-because I was unconfident and felt shame I equated it with not trusting that the Lord could still use me even in my failures.
This is just one out a few similar situations where I have been struggling with these feelings. I normally like to process what I’m feeling with people first, but this time I challenged myself to go before the Lord first and this is what I was encouraged with:
33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”a]”
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,b]” neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
So as one of God’s elect, no one, not even myself can condemn me!
I also ended up processing this with another team member who had to pry this out of me, but in the end the Lord used her to encourage me to not let the enemy rob me of my joy and strength in the Lord! She reminded me of how much I am the very opposite of all those struggles/lies in other situations and challenged me to apply them (the opposite) next time!
So there you go…a day in the life of a woman living her life on mission in Zimbabwe…till the next free wifi day 😉
