I am a terrible blogger. Not because I don’t have anything to say. But because I have way too much to say, and I have such little time to say it, and now I have missed three months of blogging… so my preposition is that I will write a synopses of the last countries (Thailand and Vietnam) and the country I am currently in (Uganda) and if you would “bear” with me through reading it. It will be worthwhile I hope.
Thailand
was a bit of a struggle. It was an all squad month, which has its positives and negatives. One it is incredible to be with my whole squad, because I love them to death!! But especially being in a very spiritually dark place in Thailand, the enemy was attacking our squad hard. And using each other to do it! What a jerk! We (our squad) struggled with comparison, self-worth, and a whole lot of lies the whole month. Also Chiang Mai, Thailand is a bustling city. There were so many distractions and business, and it stressed a lot on me. There was always an option of some kind of entertainment. Or some kind of ministry that we could be doing, and it was exhausting. I was blessed with the challenging of working with our host Emmi, on a more administrative side, on top of the ministry we were assigned. (since all the teams were with one host, we had three different ministries, within our host, and we were assigned to each) I had the pleasure of helping Emmi with the set-up of another ministry opportunity she was setting up, in the form of a Hostel. This involved painting, murals, and a lot of administration. And I found myself worn-out. Also add-in Logistics on top of that. I was stressing out, and I was realizing that in my times of stress I was searching for comfort, and my searching for comfort was in my peers, and not in God. In searching through my peers, and in attention, I was losing my self-worth, and losing my confidence, and constantly comparing myself to be someone more worthy of attention… it was a confusing mess. But I learned out of that, that it is possible to be exhausted in a way with God, and without God in the equation of your “chaos” you fall apart.
Vietnam
was amazing. My team and I were unsung heroes this month. Which means, we found new and potential contacts, for the future of World Race to partner with. Did I mention that Vietnam is a closed country, and it is illegal to spread the word of God there? This was what we thought our biggest challenge would be, but we were so wrong. We left our expectations at the table, but even not having expectation was an expectation. We thought, we might not even get one contact, and we would be okay with that, but we were so surprised. Our first Sunday, we had looked up an ex-pat church to go to, we arrive, introduce ourselves to a lot of western faces that we hadn’t seen in a long time, and they start connecting us. The pastor after taking us out to lunch, and being so kind, emailed us about 13 potential people we should talk to, on top of email after email of people he left out the first time. Our schedule started filling up. We experienced the kingdom of God SO evidently in Vietnam. We could only think “closed country smosed country!” this place is blooming with the kingdom of God. We were welcomed into so many homes and introduced into so many lives that were just living a practical “normal” life and continuing their faith. It was an incredible month filled with opportunities to see a new ministry with every meeting we had. And we had a lot of meetings. That became our biggest struggle for the month, finding time and managing all the different meeting we had, which is the greatest struggle I can imagine.
Uganda
so far has been really neat. Our team had a somewhat breakthrough at the end of last month, just to introduce God in our conversation with each other, more often. To talk about God, and share about God in our everyday lives. Which makes sense, because we our living our individual lives with each other. We can’t get away from one another. Since we have been in Uganda I have been so excited to shot Jesus from the rooftops, because not noticing the effects of Vietnam, we finally got to be open about Jesus, we could scream it from the rooftops if we wanted. We are working with a church here, and it has had its struggles, but what has been evident, is that there are so many people who love God here. You see God everywhere. When you greet someone, they say “praise Jesus” when you walk in the streets you see tons of churches, the taxi’s (which are 14 passenger vans) say GOD BLESS or JESUS SAVES printed across the backs of them. And I our struggles with theology, or beliefs vs the church we are working with, I have seen that we have grown so much in prayer, and just acting out God. So I am excited to see the rest of the month. AND FOR CHRISTMAS!!
Thanks for reading I know it is long, but I will try and post more blogs so I don’t have to do this again haha God bless you!
Carli
