We passed the official half way point of these 11 months earlier this month. God has done so much.
We just finished up our second squad-wide time of debrief, this time in Budapest, Hungary. Debrief is an intentional time of rest and reflection from ministry, and also a time to have some fun. Even though this debrief was a little jam-packed (mostly because I overbooked myself), it was still a meaningful time of reconciliation, hearing from the Lord, having fun, and getting perspective on all that’s happened.
A bracelet that someone had given my team and I in Thailand back in January fell off of my wrist finally after stretching out more and more over the past six months. What’s so interestingly symbolic of this seemingly insignificant event was that it happened on the presumed official middle day of the race – that day that represented the official half-way point of our entire race. God is starting a new season within this World Race adventure, that’s for sure. Old things are fading away, and new things are sprouting up all around me. What’s even cooler is that I was given two new bracelets just this past month while in Ukraine. What fell away was replaced two-fold, that’s the beauty and the goodness of our Lord.
This past month (June) was spent in Ukraine. Our ministry was predominantly teaching English. We partnered with Salvation Church, which is located in Rivne, Ukraine. We worked with two ministry hosts, whose names were both Tania. For people who tend to struggle with remembering names, it was a delight to find this out. One of the Tania’s is from the States, and has been living in Ukraine for the past seven or so years as a missionary. The other Tania is Ukrainian and is married, her husband’s name is Dima. My team and I found out that we were their fifth world race team, so it was nice knowing that they are well acquainted with world race procedures and policies and with how world race works as a whole. Right before beginning our month in Ukraine, our whole squad had three days of LDW – leadership development weekend. We learned how all of us are leaders, and learned some ways to be more effective leaders. During LDW we also had team changes. So my new team has been and presently is: Hilary (team leader), Sang (fellow dude), Loren, Danielle, Kristen, and Denise. It’s been a great time of growth while serving alongside these friends.
Coming in to this month after LDW, I was shaken up. That may even be an understatement. Regret, fear, anxiety, and sadness consumed me. I mentioned in my last blog how you can tell what a man is truly made of when things are shaken up in their life un-expectantly.
Sometimes in life you are forced to make decisions that you feel are right and are out of obedience to the Lord, but they still have negative consequences on those around you, and even cause hurt and pain on those around you, despite that being that last thing you want to happen. The enemy seized the opportunity to make me feel like a complete failure and cause me to think that no one really cares about me in light of such an event. It’s crazy how we can be so prone to such obvious lies when we are wrapped up in our circumstances and emotions. I’ll return to this in a moment.
Our ministry was mostly to teach English at a church. The first four days of this camp took place at the church in Rivne in the evenings for a few hours. The last four days of the camp we all traveled to a nearby camp about an hour outside of Rivne. We made so many friends with the students who attended the camp, as well as with the leadership team from the church. We taught English using stories from the Bible, which was pretty cool since not everyone who attended the camp were believers. Especially while at the camp during the last four days, we were able to spend lots of time hanging out with everyone there and built meaningful friendships. We were asked to teach various master classes to the students, to help reinforce learning English. Some of my teammates taught dance, art, DIY clothes design, etc. I taught two classes. One was on soccer and involved teaching some basic techniques in kicking a soccer ball. The second class was on how to barbeque; I taught them how to prepare the grill for cooking the meat with charcoal, how to season the meat with some basic spices, and how to cook the meat adequately. We cooked pork, chicken and beef. It was a special treat getting to teach the barbeque master class. This eight-day camp was a memorable experience, mostly because of what God started at the very beginning of the month.
To pick up where I left off two paragraphs ago, I began our month in Ukraine in a rough state of mind. Our ministry hosts informed us that they had five levels of English to teach. Since there are seven of us, two of the classes had two of us teaching them. Loren and I paired up to teach the intermediate class, and it was while we were preparing for our first evening of ministry in teaching English that God moved powerfully. Mind you, I was full of regret, fear, anxiety, and sadness, but I hid that reality as best as I could. During this time of preparation with Loren, we decided to take a break from preparing and take some time to get to know each other. At some point she started sharing about an experience she had last year at an outdoor worship event. During one of the worship sets at this event she received a vision from the Lord; what she saw were beams of light coming up from the people who were truly tuned-in to the worship time, and there were other people without the beams of light because they were distracted and oppressed from tuning in. Loren then felt God prompt her to begin praying for the distractions and oppressing spirits to leave. While hesitant at first, Loren began praying and in her vision it became apparent that the distractions faded and the oppressing spirits were bound to the trees in the surrounding area, but weren’t allowed in to the worship area. After this there was a steady bright glow coming from the entire worship area, as everyone was tuned-in to the time of worship. After Loren finished telling this story I immediately knew that I needed to ask her to pray for me, due to my negative state of mind. I told Loren that I was simply dealing a lot with those four specific spirits already mentioned, and so she began praying. Never in my entire life have I experienced such a 180 degree change in spirit. It was pure freedom and immaculate peace that rushed in after she finished praying. It was a starch reminder that we as Christians have a common enemy that is dead-set on sealing away our joy and pulling us away from God’s goodness and implanting lies in our thoughts, and we need our brothers and sisters in the faith to come along side us and help us when the warfare gets super heated. Later that night during our first time of ministry for the month, I was the man God created me to be, to a degree that I don’t think I’ve ever experienced. It was an incredible time of simply living in joy and peace and freedom. God revealed to me more about Chris White than I had ever previously known before that evening, and His perfect design on my life.
I’ve learned more and more that to most effectively reach others for Christ is for us as Christians to simply lead changed lives in Jesus. Often times, that will speak for itself. When we are doing just that, we become room changers, we become bringers of peace and joy and love. We become conduits of God’s grace to all we encounter. And that’s a powerful thing. So much time can be spent studying deep theological truths to share with skeptics, or study apologetics, etc. Those aren’t bad things, but it’s important that at the end of the day we ourselves are living the life that we are essentially trying to lead others to live. There were several students that we encountered throughout this past month that came up to not only me, but also others on my team asking about why we seem so different in spirit. It’s Jesus alive in us. Jesus was evident in our lives.
These are simple truths, but God has led me to deeper depths embedded in these truths, and how to be wise in living out what I know.
On a different note, returning to the situation that I opened with that shook me up, my prayer is that God would move me to the position I need to be in for His purposes to be fully accomplished not only in my life, but those on my squad, and that that position would be well with my soul. May it be well with my soul. Dying to self is key in embracing the true life that God so desperately wants us to discover and live in.
This was a long one – thanks for reading along in what God is doing. I’m asking for your prayers right here, right now. Please pray for me. God’s moving, and things are getting heated up subtly in terms of the growth and healing that is being brought into my life. I’m humbly asking that you would remember me in your prayers, please intercede on my behalf as I enter in to this second half of my world race. I desire healing, growth, and restoration in every sense of those words.
Thank you.
