CAN YOU BELIEVE IT!?
I’M FINALLY A RACER!
I’M A MISSIONARY!
I’m having trouble believing it myself.
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I have been struggling to write a blog for a while now.
Not quite sure what to share and what not to share and finally I just decided to let my fingers do the talking and to stop thinking about it.
So, I left on January 5th to Atlanta, Georgia for what AIM calls Launch.
Launch is three days of just really getting prepared a bit more for the race.
One of my team mates had mentioned that launch just felt like we were in limbo and I thought how perfect of an explanation that was.
We were gone, but we weren’t quite there yet and I was more than eager to get started.
Finally, we got on a plane (MY FIRST FLIGHT EVER!) and headed to San Juan, Puerto Rico where we packed 12 of us, 12 big packs and 12 day packs into a 15 passenger van and drove for about an hour and a half to Arecibo, Puerto Rico.
The whole way to our ministry sight the Pastor was trying to memorize our names and he had them all by the time we got to the church!
He just needed to put the names to the faces which he also got just as quickly!
The church we have been working with is called Iglesia Viva and it is also where we are living.
This church has become my home this month and the people that are here are my family.
We have been so incredibly blessed by our Ministry contact Pastor Peter.
He completely took us under his wings and he has been working his tail off trying to find work for us and even working with us every day!
This man NEVER stops working.
We like to joke and call him Machete Man because he is constantly cutting tree branches down with a machete. Just because. No rhyme or reason.
Another person we have been blessed by is a man named Oscar!
He (and a lady named Salome) has been cooking our dinners for us every other day!
He has been cooking INCREDIBLE Puerto Rican meals.
I’m pretty sure we have all gained a few pounds from eating so good.We are being very spoiled.
Its crazy how we are here to help these people and doing work for them and they have ended up helping us and working with us!
It has been incredible and beautiful to see how Gods love can break the language barrier and we can all just laugh and have fun together.
Love knows no language.
One day we went to the beach and my hair was wet and my bangs were in my face and pastor peter looks and me and gives me a small smile and pushes my bangs out of my face and behind my ear then he pulls out his little pocket comb he carries with him everywhere and brushes my bangs a little bit.
Its crazy how just a simple gesture like that can make you feel Gods love.
I hope that on my journey through life I can share Gods love with people in ways like that.
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What ministry looks like this month:
We have been doing a LOT of manual labor which if I’m honest, It’s my least favorite thing to do EVER. I have been struggling with feeling connected to the ministry that we are doing because I dislike it so much and its hard for me to do but I haven’t given up and every day I try to work harder and do better than the day before. My team leader knows how much I don’t like manual labor and she said that she has seen a huge growth in me this month, which is very encouraging and pushes me to continue to try harder.
At night we have been doing what we call “Home services” which is when we go to someones house (all 12 or groups of 6) and we do some worship and prayer and then we share a small message and then pray and just talk with the people who live at the home for a while and that is always incredibly amazing to hear people stories and be able to pray with them.
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Puerto Rico has been amazing and a piece of my heart is definitely left here and I can’t wait to come back some day!
