The ministry of the Race is done. The only thing left now as I start this last week is debrief, a time of adventure, goodbyes, and reflection on the past 9 months. I can’t help but to think of how far I’ve come. Flashback to Albania, I was working on a farm. The first week of ministry, I whitewashed the same wall three days in a row. And I spent a lot of my time wondering what I should do with all the free time I have. I still had a sunny outlook on my situation. I knew God had me there for a reason, though some days it was hard to see how what I was doing was serving God. Is this what the rest of my time would look like? Would this be all the Lord allows me to do during this journey He sent me on?
The rest of the Race wasn’t like that, but my favorite ministry story didn’t happen until my last week of ministry, and it happened on the very last day. I met this man named Lucky, he was on crutches. We approached him and talked to him a little bit before asking of we could pray for him. After we prayed for him we asked him to try walking. Holding onto the crutches he slowly stepped along, he was a little better, but not great. We wanted to keep praying, but before we did I had a thought. What good is it if he doesn’t know the God we’re praying to? Our faith doesn’t mean anything if he doesn’t have faith too. So we told him about Jesus. We explained it to him in a way he had never heard before, he seemed to be particularly effected by the fact that Jesus bled for us, and went through a painful death because he loves us.
This time the prayer became effective. We prayed for him, and he also prayed for himself. The whole time we were praying I was reminded of when Jesus healed a lame man in Luke, He told him to take up his mat and walk. I felt like Lucky needed to do the same. I asked him to put his crutches aside and walk in full faith knowing that he is healed. Lucky was a free man now. He walked with no restraint as his crutches lay behind him on the fence. He also walked with freedom from sin, knowing that His God loved him enough to save him from himself.
I love that story, I am blessed to have been a part of it. I think my favorite thing about it is the timing. I think that there is beauty in the fact that it didn’t happen until the very last day of ministry. Out of nine whole months of serving, my favorite thing didn’t happen until the very last day. It’s like my whole time on the Race was building up to that moment. It was building up to me having enough faith in God to experience His power in a way many never get to. It was building up to me having a relationship with God like I never have before, and this is the the embodiment of it all. It’s like God’s reward to me, It’s Him saying I’m ready to go to a new level with Him.
I never would have thought this is how my Race would go. Looking back on that first week I had no idea what beauty I would find at the end. I see it kind of like this, my ministry grew as my faith did. At the beginning, I loved God, I really did, but I wasn’t acting on that love. I wasn’t spending time with Him, I wasn’t praying or reading my Bible. I thought that I had a lot of faith, I thought that I was close with God, but how could I be when I would go weeks without talking to Him? I really wanted to feel close the the Lord, but I wasn’t doing anything about it! The ministry I received was the ministry that my faith deserved. How could I spend time ministering to other people’s hearts when my own heart wasn’t getting what it needed? In South Africa my ministry was all that I had been craving, I got to work with people and see real change. God finally gave that to me because He knew now I could do it. It took time for my relationship with Him to grow, but wonderful things came from that growth. I’ve been able to see salvations, healings, miracles, and lives changed. Jesus knows what He’s doing. That first week made me appreciate the last week a whole lot more. But through it all I had still been serving the Lord, and I always will be.
