My teammates and I have been able to see the Lord work in a lot of beautiful ways the last nine months, and we’ve gotten to participate in a lot of incredible ministries. There’s been so many sweet memories and things I’ll cherish for a lifetime!
We were able to see people feel encouraged and be reminded of or find hope–
We witnessed a man rededicate his life to Christ and ask lots of hard questions, his heart ablaze and excited and ready to step away from his old life of alcohol abuse and arguments with his wife and step into a new life. We were able to ask our friend to disciple him.
We saw a woman give her life to Christ and exclaim the pure joy and satisfaction she had felt for the first time ever!
We met a man who we had talked to a week earlier about Jesus tell us his life was forever changed, that he now knew he was forgiven and had purpose.
We got to pass out food to the homeless and share smiles and hope with them. We played and loved on orphans, and shared light with them. We sang Malawian gospel songs throughout hospital rooms, sharing hope in a place where there isn’t much. We taught English to many age groups, which opened doors to share with them after school hours. We got to motivate students to live a life of purpose and hope through the Lord and challenge them to move to the next level with Jesus.
We had an incredible outreach with Operation Mobilization where we worked on a sustainability farm pruning peas and showed “The Passion” to a group of villagers who had never seen a film before. We also had a bible study with an unreached people group discipled by this organization, and had to bike for an hour just to get there.
We got to pray over many people as they opened their hearts and struggles to us. We attended many churches and a few international churches, full of missionaries excited about all the Lord was doing. We watched a pre-school come together and helped build the building and program – now, it’s up and running, and students get to not only learn English there, but learn about Jesus!
We made some of the sweetest relationships with hosts and people all ages in every country we went to, learning from their wisdom and perspectives. We dreamed together and interceded for the ministries or countries together. We said tearful goodbyes to children and adults alike.
We got to proclaim the gospel in places where the Lord wanted it – in villages, in hospitals, in schools, in churches, and many different kinds of communities. We learned how to rely on the Holy Spirit as we were thrown into some crazy situations, where the Lord always spoke through us and gave us words to say.
There were also plenty of moments when we couldn’t see progress, couldn’t see any type of impact at all. I’ve learned a lot of ministry is not seeing, but believing and trusting the Lord is working.
Because, really, none of it is about me or my teammates. Nothing is about what we can see or what we’ve done. All the glory and power is the Lord’s! If it weren’t for Him, I wouldn’t have come on this journey to begin with! Only He can move and change people’s hearts! What a beautiful thing it is to let go, to trust, and to know that’s just the beginning of it all, it’s only skimming the surface!! So many of the ways the Lord worked I won’t know about till I see Him face to face someday, and I’m okay with that. In fact, I’m excited!!
But for now, on this side of heaven, I’m just deeply grateful and humbled to even get to be a part of it all. He is SO good to us!
