It’s been a couple of quiet weeks… But it’s not that the LoRd has not been moving. No. I believe He’s been doing great things. At any point in the last few weeks in Canoa, had you asked me what He was up to, my answer would have been short, including the dreaded response of “I don’t know.” There seems to be many unspoken expectations of missionaries that are hard to live up to. Missionaries should be working all the time without times or rest, “suffering” for the LoRd in poor accommodations and questionable meals. While in coastal, surfer towns, missionaries should be healing all the sick, bringing dead people to life, and baptizing everyone in the Pacific. There is a lot of pressure, especially having fundraised, to portray something glamorous is happening all the time. Something different than reality. Something “worthy of being sent” on other peoples’ dime.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that whether you’ve realized it or not, just because I’m a missionary doesn’t mean I’m any different, any more worthy, or any more called. I’m living life, just like all of you back home, in multiple different places from a bag. Although I’m on fire for Him and intentionally working on hearing and obeying His voice is a missional context, my dreams, desires, battles, questions, and wounds came right along with me. While it would be incredible to report grand results to all of you, I want you to rejoice with me in what He has done through prayer in the spiritual realm. In my team. And in me. Throughout the hills and valleys of the last few weeks, an incredible foundation has been built for the rest of this trip and for the rest of my life. I believe He is shaping. Stretching. Growing. And molding. I have found such beauty in the continual process of being refined.
In my experience the refining process always starts with a question. Have you guys ever asked for big things from the LoRd and then gotten frustrated when or how He answers it? A couple of years ago, when I was desperate to move from religion to relationship, I found myself praying over and over again, “LoRd, break me down to who You intended me to be, and build me back up from there.” At the time, I had no idea how bold that prayer was, how seriously He’d take it, or how powerful the results would be. I also didn’t realize the pain of the process I was asking for. Over time He broke thought processes, tore down walls, changed sin habits, established my identity, shed light on the lies I believed, and redefined love and relationship. The LoRd turned my life around through that prayer.
Before my time in Ecuador started, I asked the LoRd for more. I wanted to see more. Experience more. Do more. He did answer each of those prayers…. It just wasn’t in the way I was hoping for or expecting. He revealed to us that after a life-changing earthquake in Canoa two years ago, spirits of confusion, numbness, and distraction settled in with the locals. Bits and pieces of those spirits started to creep into our team before most of us even realized it. I began to get so frustrated with myself, my teammates, and the people around us for reasons I didn’t even understand. The days were long and hard. Everything felt uncomfortable. It felt as if there was a cloud all around us, and it didn’t lift until we were on the bus on our way out of town that I finally gained some vision. Some clarity. Some purpose for our time there.
On top of building relationships, volleyball on the beach, asking certain people about their earthquake experience, and organizing a party for our last day in town, much of our ministry included prayer and fasting. What a quick way to learn about spiritual warfare. I’ll speak for myself, but I wasn’t fighting properly. I wasn’t prepared or praying for the right things. It felt as if we were a team going into battle without the right strategies or equipment. We were on the defensive more than we were on the offensive. At CFNI I learned that in battle, the safest place to be is in a posture of prayer in the general’s tent. Somehow, that principle slipped my mind in Canoa, and it was messy. It was hard. The growth was more painful than it should have been. It was a valley.
The LoRd has been teaching me a lot about hills and valleys. Even though great things happened throughout our time, Canoa felt like a valley. Even in the midst of the struggles, we learned so much. In our next place, we will be more prepared having learned from our mistakes. One of the greatest things about knowing Jesus is that He is with us on the mountaintops and in the deepest of the valleys. No matter how far He may feel, there is no changing the fact that He is there. It’s encouraging to remember that there is purpose behind every high and every low, and that valleys are always between two mountains. What’s curious to me is that what felt like a valley was that the LoRd was answering my prayer. He’s funny like that.
