Well, with the race over it would seem like I would be bored of other countries and other people and I would be eager to get back to friends and family. But whilst the second part of that is true, the first is somewhat not. For one thing I don't think I will ever be bored of other countries and their peoples and I hope to do a lot more travelling, specifically for missions, in the future, however that may look.
But as things stand I will be flying to Miami with the squad on Saturday (since that plane ticket had been booked for me by AIM for a while) but the next morning I will be boarding a plane (followed by a bus ride) back to my ministry location in Guatemala.
I'll cut to the chase: whilst I had a great time with the ministry in Puerto Barrios during May for manistry month I was also blessed to start a good friendship with one of the staff of the ministry:
I particulary like the Britishness of her t-shirt that day
This is Andrea (pronounced And-RAY-ah, rather than AND-ree-uh). You may remember her from the video of us singing 'How He Loves / El Nos Ama' together, on
this blog.
Well, we hit it off well and have stayed in touch since and so I will be heading back to see her for a week. (Anyone who has been paying attention to my Facebook timeline may have noticed an ongoing countdown to my return :-P)
During the World Race we agree to forego relationships for the year for the sake of focussing on ministry, so this wasn't necessarily something I was expecting to find on the race. In fact that month in particular was the month that all of the men were together and before getting there it hadn't even crossed my mind that we might be working alongside any women – I was expecting to have a solely testosterone fuelled month 😛 But there she was, a key part of the ministry for the month.
Once it became apparent that there was some chemistry between us we sat down and spoke about both being in a position where it was not something that we could actively pursue given our respective positions at the time, but we knew we could explore our friendship in our free time and maybe look into it deeper at a later date. We made sure that both of our respective team leaders knew and spent the month putting ministry first, making our respective teams a priority for ourselves and then spending some free time together – playing guitar, watching a movie, talking about the Bible, drinking tea and just generally hanging out.
She is someone who inspires me – for instance, one time when we were at the children's hospital praying for some of the sick kids, she started talking with the mother of one of the toddlers we had just prayed over and turns to us a couple of minutes later to say "this woman would like to accept Jesus for the first time"! I was blown away by her passion for and ability to share the gospel and how she pursues God's kingdom so whole heartedly. She has a similar heart for missions as me and some shared hopes, dreams and values for life and so I hope in this coming week that we can explore more fully whether God is in this and whether this is something we see a future to.
Since I am currently already in Central America it makes more sense to return for a bit now before heading home, rather than heading all the way back later on, so that is what I am doing.
Please pray for us as we seek God's will in this and for Him to be at the centre of our friendship, however it looks 🙂
