Ok guys, this tiny human is Sarah. She is the cutest human you will find anywhere. Her smile is like a lighthouse on a hill. Shining bright for miles. I have spent many hours with her, playing games with her and the other children. I just want to share this picture to explain that I am just as much a child as this little girl is. God has allowed me to stay a child in his eyes, but also allowed me to exprinced so much growth this month.
I have been rememinded by these kids that God sees us all the same but uniquely different. He wants the same things for us but our journeys to get there look a little different.
God started this month with deep conversations about unity on our team, Something we have been struggling with. I felt God telling me that humility was something he needed me to grow in. Of course he didn’t just say that to me.
We had to get dinner on our own one night and I was so excited, we had decided on pizza!! Only, God had told me not to eat dinner that night. I was confused! I was hungry, this was dumb, I fasted last month! So I sat with him while my team went out to get food. This is when he gave me the word humility.
I was shown that night that I take so much without even thinking. Humbling myself is not saying I am less than but rather finding the difference between wants and needs. Too much and enough. He used food of course to show me that, but he taught me as I spent time with him, that humility in everything I do is powerful. With my words, with my phone, with my relationships, and with literally everything in my life I can find ways to be humble and grateful for just having enough.
Welcome to my first few days in Bolivia.
I have been feeling so much change within myself just within these last few weeks! I feel so much opening in front of me. Things I never even knew! About 2 months back I wrote a blog about my personality suddenly changing after leaving the U.S and my confusion of why. I hinted that maybe God was pulling things out of me that had been locked away for a long time.
Yesterday was the first day I felt like me again since being on the race. I felt like my body took a breath of fresh air. I was bright eyed full of energy. I just wanted to hug everyone and smile from ear to ear. What caused it to change? I don’t know, but I do know that because of that shift, I was able to sit down with two of my teammates and have one of the best deep, real conversations I’ve had in a long time as me, with real feelings.
I felt something move inside me, almost like a lock clicking open. I have held so much in with no healthy way of expressing it. Not because I didn’t want to, but because I never knew how. I’m finally learning how.
I Really struggled with why God had put me on the team he had, and in that moment last night, I understood. All these months have been leading up to this. The teammate I talked to specifically about this with is amazing at understanding her feelings and how to express them. Something I really struggled with as an insecurity. In my family emotions were kept far away and never talked about. As I’ve grown older I have suffered because of my lack of understanding of them.
When God put me on a team with someone so opposite of me, he was encouraging a space of growth. I spent the first couple of months fighting him, unaware of the simple thing he was asking of me. Only if I was willing to TRY would I actually gain anything from it. Instead of complaining about how uncomfortable it made me to be around someone so different from me, he was pushing me to embrace that feeling of uncomfortableness.
I am so loved and encouraged this month.
I feel so much more happening than just this. I feel like I can breath again, but the air I have now is so much different than what I had before.
I can’t wait to write about what he does as my time hopefully continues on the world race!
I have til the 31st to be fully funded!! I’m only $3,000 away!!!! I’m so close! Anything really does help. If you can give, that’s amazing! Thank you!! If not, just you reading this and sharing my story around is more than enough. Thank you to everyone who read this far down ?? love you guys , hope to write about being fully funded soon 🙂
