The ladies of Team 2:20…Me, Kip, Ash, Da
We just finished our 8-month debrief here in Antigua, Guatemala. The focus of this debrief was to prepare us for going home in 3 months. Ashley, the representative from the World Race alumni department, and an alumni Racer, told her story about going home. I will share with you one part of her story because it brought me to tears…literally, alligator tears streaming down my face in the middle of the session. She shared about the moment at the airport when in the midst of reclaiming luggage, making connecting flights, etc., she turned around to realize that all but three of her squad mates had dispersed – and she didn’t even get to say a final goodbye. Aghhh…break my heart!
I’m being prepared for saying goodbye to my World Race family (or at least hello to a new season of what those friendships look like)…and I’m also being prepared to enter back into a world where I want to have a place and an impact…not knowing where that place will be or what impact I’m being called to make. With that, here are some questions I have been asking myself:
1. Do I search for and fight for big things, or do I rest contently in the little things?
2. How do I balance the fact that my “life is not about me” – and also go after “the plan God has for me” which assumes that on some level something IS about me and specific for me…is one maxim right and the other wrong…or am I supposed to somehow merge these two concepts?
3. If the latter maxim is valid…What is my unique Kingdom contribution and what am I specifically being sent out to do from here?
4. Is it prideful and foolish to think “it” is something big? Should I be less of a dreamer and just go home and live a “normal” life and do so with love, a servant’s heart, and a passion for sharing the Gospel in the community he gives me there?
5. Am I thinking that life can be something it’s not?
6. Am I called to what makes sense and comfort, or am I called to what makes me grow?
7. Am I choosing to limit myself – and God – by staying secure in the ordinary, or am I choosing to push myself to find true security that comes from dreaming with God in the extraordinary?
While I’m allocating a healthy amount of my thoughts to preparing to go home, I am also in a place of deep hunger for what God is going to do in these next 3 months and I’m more excited than ever to be in ministry. I don’t know what it is but I have felt “it” ever since arriving here in Guatemala. My heart feels renewed…more open, more vulnerable to brokenness, more expectant and willing, and more hungry than ever. This month myself and six other women from my squad will be serving at a clinic for children suffering from mal-nutrition. We will start tomorrow with a volunteer orientation. The clinic itself is not Christian-based, so there will be ample opportunity for us to be Christ’s witnesses, hands, and feet.
