Life is ministry and ministry is life… and it’s all a little messy sometimes.
Things that are easy & maybe what you’re expecting me to share about:
- Ministry this month has looked like volunteering at a baby orphanage. Teaching at a school for missionary kids. Tutoring a Bulgarian woman in English three times a week. Helping with an English Club for Bulgarians to practice their English.
- The in-between has looked like sharing the Gospel while admiring historical sites a field trip with the school. Playing with the Roma neighborhood kids. Erasing pencil murals on the wall on the K-1 room.
Things that are also simultaneously happening: (Bloopers & Behind the Scenes) ?
- In Bulgaria a nod yes means “no” and a side to side movement of your head means “yes.” The opposite of what’s the norm in the States. Agreeing to an order in a restaurant, encouraging an enthusiastic colorer in the special needs home and answer questions in general has proven to be a confusing time.
- For the third country, I got locked out of our house. This time Nicole and I didn’t have keys coming home from tutoring our beloved student Dani. Turns out the wifi to call our teammates inside the house doesn’t extend three gates away so we hopped some fences. (Using all those Climbing Tower skills I picked up at Camp Copneconic )
- Moove it is an app that helps navigate the Metro, bus and tram system. Works incredibly up until your phone dies and you’re still a ways from home. Opps but also praise the Lord for still getting home alright.
- Church! We got invited to go to church with the children in the Roma neighborhood we live in. We 110% got the time wrong and showed up a half hour after it had ended.
- Just as it was beginning to get cold I was still trying to sport the Chacos (this athletic sandal that’s one of two pairs of footwear I brought) for as long as I could. Got quite a few intense stares on the public transit for them. Operation: Be all things to all people to win more of them … not exactly blending in well all the time.
- But sometime I blend in a little too well… many a Bulgarian woman has approached me at the metro station and bus stop and enthusiastically asked me a question. I would love to be able to help but my Bulgarian is pretty limited to “Thank you”, “No” and “Jacket Hood” So that’s disappointing every time, to shrug when all I want to do is help.
- On my first day heading to the school I help out at for missionary kids, Summer and I got there a bit early so we sat at the metro stop and read for a while. Turns out you’re not suppose to do that. A half hour later a security guard comes asking loads of questions in Bulgarian (shoutout to random passerby who served as a stellar translator). She took down our information from our IDs and said our activity was suspicious.
- Shalom Sisters (my team, there’s 7 of us) decided to come up with a group costume for the costume party hosted by the English Club we teach and help with. 7 days of Creation! I was day 6, the land animals, Adam & Eve. Despite some serious neon orange duct tape attempting to lock all the animals I had painted in place, throughout the party they all fell off. Slowly the costume came apart until I was just rocking some stickers on my sweater by the time we got to dancing some traditional Bulgarian dances.
Sometimes ministry looks like feeding babies and teaching English and sharing the Gospel.
Sometimes ministry looks like giving grace when plans go awry, rolling with the punches and trusting the Lord to be working in and through us even when things fall through.
The goal isn’t for my plan to happen or for my will to be done or even for my expectations to be met. Naw, the goal is to make much of Christ, to worship God in all things and to make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father Son & Holy Spirit. ??Sometimes things fall apart or aren’t quite we expect them to be. God is still God. He’s the same yesterday, today, and forever and no matter what our life is looking like he can be honored and glorified and worshiped.
Choosing Jesus in the highlights and the things I’d rather keep low-key,
Caitlyn Lousie
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