This month in Bolivia has looked different for me. We had team changes, and half my team is different. I honestly love my new team so much. Our team name is “Huzzah!” and that pretty much tells you what you need to know about us.
Bolivia has been tough, physically. We, as a squad, have suffered extreme altitude sickness, faced difficult challenges in getting visas, and it’s much colder at this altitude.
As a team, we are facing miscommunication with our host despite having an “official” interpreter and Jess who speaks fluent Spanish. We are facing very cold temperatures. We are having to daily find ministry instead of being given tasks (including manual labor for the first time! Yay!!).
Personally, it’s been a challenge because since leaving La Paz, Bolivia, and now being in Uyuni, Bolivia, I’ve been learning a lesson I’m not particularly fond of. For the past four months, I’ve been team treasurer and voluntary team cook. These have been my ways of ministering confidently because I know I am good at these things, especially cooking.
Starting this month, however, I am no longer team treasurer due to team changes. We’ve also not had a kitchen to use thus far. Both of my ministries have been stripped from me. I’m having to learn how to be useful and minister in other ways.
I find it no coincidence that while waiting on getting our visas in La Paz that God put Romans 12 on my heart. Actually He put the word “sacrifice” on my heart, which lead me to Romans 12. He was preparing me for my latest lesson: serving others. Now, I’ve served others before, but He has been teaching me how to serve others.
I tend to serve others because I like making people happy and I love cooking and numbers. However, God has been teaching me through Romans 12 that this isn’t quite the right heart posture I’m supposed to have behind serving.
In Romans 12, I am instructed to be a living sacrifice to God. Not man. I am to think of others before myself. I am to rejoice when my teammates rejoice. I am to weep when they weep. I am to serve as unto God, not man.
So even though I want to make people happy by serving them, this isn’t quite right. I am to serve as unto God first, which will have a trickle down affect and my teammates will be blessed.
This is a hard lesson for me because I love cooking and I loved being treasurer. It helped give me purpose on my team. I would even venture to say it started to become part of my identity on the Race. God knew this wasn’t good for me because my identity should be found in Him.
I must keep my identity in Christ. If I can identify in Christ, I should be like Christ.
And He was the greatest Servant of all.
