This past week, I’ve been looking back at my time in Myanmar.
Most of you know that our squad had a few people go home in a short time span. It hit me pretty hard.
I wasn’t thrilled about ministry, I’ll be honest. After finding out my team was going to be split, I said, “Fine, let’s go ahead and split.”
I wanted to get it over with. I didn’t want to deal with more goodbyes.
We still did ministry together for that month. And I’m so glad we did.
Our ministry was teaching English at a bible college. When we first heard we were like, “teaching English again?”
We arrived and fell in love with the students. We made so many friends in Myanmar. I loved ministry. I got to teach grammar and one student taught me some guitar.
The ministry was a gift from the Lord that I could’ve missed out on if we had split into our teams earlier.
My personal journey was a little more different in Myanmar. I had a lot of anxiety that got back specifically at night.
I started having nightmares, waking up terrified, sensory overloads, all the things that make sleeping really rough. So, I woke up exhausted every single day.
However, I didn’t want these things to effect me in my ministry. With children, they don’t really seem to notice if you’re sad or tired. Grown adults though, tell you that you look sad when you’ve been laughing all day. I didn’t want to try to explain to them what was happening. (Especially if they aren’t fluent in English)
So, I figured out what it means to choose joy.
It doesn’t mean pushing aside all your problems for a later date. It means being joyful regardless of what seems to be wrong.
I woke up every morning and saying “Today is going to be a good day.”
I prayed with Elli Gerber before bed every night. Intentionally pushing myself out of my comfort zone so I could really be content.
I WANTED to be better than where I was at. All it takes is for you to say you want things to be better too.
