Here is a ruthlessly honest testament about month one:
Currently we are at debrief in Bangkok, Thailand, after our first month spent in Cambodia. My team was in Kampong Cham and leaving was one of the hardest things I’ve had to do. I fell in love with the place and the people, how could anything compare to how awesome that month was? I got slightly depressed and overcome with sadness of leaving, a constant negativity. Negativity that actually manifested before we even got there, and grew tremendously on day 3.
Before our ministry even started, we spent the first week in Siem Reap as an entire squad. I was surrounded by 51 girls but have never felt so alone. Walking in, I walked in a victim mentality. “No one likes me” “No one wants to spend time with me” “I’m not worth it” ect ect. Lies from the enemy that I let myself believe. My teammates obviously noticed and brought it up in feedback and in reactions towards me (will be addressed later as well).
First here is a little background of my team and myself:
We are a team made up of six girls. At training camp, none of us talked to each other and we were never put on a trail team together (they made multiple trial teams before actual teams were chosen to see how well people worked together in certain situations). There were seven teams the trail before teams were chosen, and once the final team announcements were made, an 8th team was created with six random girls. It made no sense to us and everyone began feeling defeated. My feelings at the time were that my personality was so bold I could not get along with any team they had tried me on so they just threw me on a randomly new one for the outcasts. THIS STATEMENT IS NOT A TRUE STATEMENT, it was just a statement the enemy lead me to believe. So this was how our team started, and as it continued it was often repeated “yeah I wouldn’t necessarily choose these people as my friends in real life so we aren’t close” and similar stuff. We repeated how we were awkward together and how personalities just didn’t click or how it just didn’t work. How we didn’t work (it wasn’t us, it was the enemy I repeat). For me, this was soul crushing to hear. I’d listen, and get mad at my team for not feeling the way I did (the enemy again). He began to grab ahold of our lives when our team was formed, and grew to be a stronger and stronger presence in our lives as time continued.
My team made up of five introverts and me, the only extravert. I am not quiet nor do I have a small personality, it is quite big in fact if you didn’t know me. To begin with, I felt targeted, hated, and misunderstood. My opinion was always different, my approach was always different, my free time was always different, my life was always … different. The enemy..again.. used this for his advantage lemme tell you. I have never felt more of an outcast than I did for our first month. When in Siem Reap, it was brought up who I was, and I instantly took defense and held it inside, feeling like I sucked, and feeling like my team did for reacting so negatively towards me. I had a different way of life so I felt like my way of life was unimportant, BUT MY LIFE IS IMPORTANT and the way I live it is important because it is the way that God made me, buttttttt, the enemy took a strong hold.
So here was all these problems after only week one and after finally getting to Kampong Cham, on day 3, we encountered a demon possessed woman. That day we went to a temple to do a prayer walk. There were two Buddhist temples, and in the middle, was a Killing Field. The temples alone are heavy on the heart, let alone a Killing Field, let alone a demon possessed woman who was cursing us, telling us to die, touching us, and bringing evil to all of our surroundings. Our hearts weren’t prepared going into that temple, and we weren’t aligned with God so when this happened, the devil grabbed ahold of all of us. Those problems we had before grew and we never ran to God, we ran to negativity and hate and rudeness and destruction of ourselves and of our teammates. We almost never discussed about how great our God is or how much we needed him. We didn’t even know how far we had drifted, or even that we did drift at all. That’s how much of a hold the enemy had on us. Every thought was negative, whether about each other, our conditions, ministry, every thought was negative.
Our team was negative, and me personally was negative. I thought I sucked, I hated who I was, everything I did, I thought no one loved me, that I was incapable of being loved, I thought my team was all negative, and got mad at them for it. I thought they were passive, and got mad at them for it. I thought all these things, and my reaction was anger, my reaction was never God. My answer, was NEVER the true answer, Jesus! I ran from Him when all I needed to do was run to him.
I never realized how much the enemy had on me until at debrief, and our team had to debrief our month. Everything that had happened came out, and again I felt targeted, and again I reacted inside with anger, but then I realized, why reply with anger, when I should be replying with prayer. My emotions will change nothing, but the creator of the universe can! And I can talk to Him whenever I want, and He promises us, that if we ask in his name, He will literally do anything for us. He wants to love us and fix everything, but did I ever turn to him? Nope. I kept my back turned the opposite way.
After, I felt called to read Amos. It’s a pretty aggressive book in the Old Testament. It was written during the time of the corruption of Israel; they became obsessed with money and power and lost all sight of the fact that they were children of God and their life was created for Him. In the book it describes how the people will practically be destroyed but the Lord calls and tells them
“I gave you empty stomachs in every city and lack of bread in every town, yet you have never returned to me” Amos 4:6.
Dang. That’s exactly what the Lord did. He starved us. He gave us empty stomachs, and no bread, but did we ever turn to him? No. Our team was Israel, we were corrupt. We just continued living corruptly and we never returned to God. That is all He wanted, that is all He ever wants! He wants His children to turn around and run to Him, not from Him. Sometimes He will purposely starve us, just so we can realize how much we need Him. We are all sinners, we have all done wrong, but He is begging for us to go to Him and live with Him… we just didn’t.
The Lord continues in Amos and tells us to “seek good, not evil….hate evil, love good.” Evil was manifested inside of us, but we have the Lord God on our side, so He will always win this battle for, we just have to let Him. We have now chosen to love good, to love each other, and to love the Nations, because we were created for love, by love, and in love.
Before the enemy spoke lies into our lives, like that our team was very random six girls who didn’t belong together. Lie! God hand chose our team, with full intentions of it being us six girls. Even our leaders have stated, if they were confident about any team being together, it was ours. It was spoken over our team that we were a team of power and strength, and I believe that is why the enemy targeted us so heavily. We are SO powerful and have so much light to bring, so he infected us with darkness to try to distract us from our true purpose. When I believed I was worthless, that was a lie. When I was full of hatred, that was his hatred. When I was full of self-doubt, that was him knowing I was strong, and trying to deceive me. When our team stated we wouldn’t be friends or our personalities wouldn’t click, that was him telling us that to try to drive us apart. He even sent a demon possessed woman to try to attack us, because we are powerful and we have the Lord’s power on our side. We have now recognized we were starved, and will no longer succumb to darkness. We are the light of God and we have come to return to Him.
This was a hard month, but it was worth it. I learned a lot about myself and I learned a tremendous amount of God’s character and about how much He loves and how much He is desiring of a relationship. All He wants is a relationship with us, so do not allow yourself to be starved, he wants to feed you, you just must first turn around and go to Him to accept the bread.
