This is all about my first month in Serbia! The Lord taught me so many things, but one thing in particular. Read all about it below! If you want to see a video recap of my first month, there is a video at the bottom of the blog for you to watch. Enjoy!
Words cannot even begin to express how much the Lord did in month one of the race. Our ministry consisted of long term discipleship and building relationships with local teens. This meant every night we were playing games, doing sports, going out and evangelizing with teens from Sombor, Serbia. Every morning we would walk around the city and pray and ask the Lord who we were supposed to talk to. If he laid anyone on our hearts we would talk to them, and if not we would just continue to cover the city in prayer. It was such a beautiful month of wonderful relationships built. We learned so much about the Serbian culture, and also developed a wonderful relationship with our ministry host Zoli and Tanja. Now this was just the gist of the month. But it doesn’t in any way describe what the Lord taught me during the entire month. So what was it that he taught me?
We all have our person we go to when things get tough, right? Maybe it’s your sister, mother, or even a best friend. Whoever it is, if you need to vent you immediately call them up and tell them what’s going on in life. Well I have that person as well. Only problem is I’m on this mission trip and that person isn’t on the trip with me. At first I thought it would be pretty simple, I could just call up my girlfriend at night when everyone was asleep and I could still vent to her when I needed it, but I began to face some problems. The first problem is I didn’t have wifi at the church that we were staying at. Then there’s the time difference between the United States and Serbia, and also the fact that the World Race is BUSY. Between juggling team time, feedback, ministry, rest, and meal times, there isn’t a lot of free time (if any at all). So I quickly learned that the person I constantly ran to wasn’t going to be there when I needed. I started by going to my team when I needed to process. There were numerous things that happened during my first month that I needed to process.
I got asked some very difficult questions, which I didn’t know an answer to. The habit I had developed of going straight to my team was great when processing some things. In fact, it is a beautiful display of community, but it’s still not how it should be. I realized the Lord was who I went to last when going through something big in my life. When I got asked those questions it wasn’t my instinct to go straight to the Lord, first I thought how I could call my girlfriend, then I thought, “Oh I wonder where my team is so I can talk to them about it?” Then I felt what could only be described as the conviction of the Holy Spirit. I started to wonder why it wasn’t my instinct to go straight to the Lord? Why wasn’t I taking difficult things to him first and everyone else second?
So that’s what I started to do. I spent time with the Lord. I found what the Bible said about the questions, I asked the Lord what he thought about them, and just spent time taking everything to the Lord. Let me tell you it was beautiful, and I realized that’s what I needed to do every time something difficult happened. The Lord would answer if I was just willing to spend time and process with him. The following weeks were filled with more difficult questions, more difficult times, and things that I can’t go into but you best believe I processed with the Lord before I processed with anyone else. It created a dependance on Christ that I hadn’t experienced before. So much of my faith journey has been me talking with Jesus and hoping to hear back, but all of a sudden I understood that I am supposed to go to him first for things regardless. No questions asked. That’s the biggest thing I learned in month one of the World Race. As simple as it sounds, I learned that I should go to the Lord first for EVERYTHING. I’ve always strived to have a relationship with the Lord where that was a norm, and I’m happy to now have that relationship. It’s not something I just talk about anymore, I don’t just “say” I’ll pray about it, I really pray about it now. In Exodus 33 it says that “the LORD would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend.” It’s a conversation. Just a friend that speaks to a friend, and I’m learning what that looks like by immediately processing things with the Lord rather than the people I used to do it with. It’s been such a perfect precedent for the other things I’ve faced on the race, in fact I wouldn’t have been able to handle some of the things I’ve experienced if I wasn’t taking them to the Lord first.
I’m so grateful that that’s what the Lord taught me month one. What a great God we have! He’s preparing me for the rest of this trip I’m on, and he knows that it was exactly what I was supposed to learn.
Here is a random vlog/video from my entire month one in Serbia! I realize that there aren’t any videos from ministry, but as you can imagine pulling a camera out during ministry could face it’s problems. Our ministry consisted of mainly discipling and we even saw several people accept Christ, which was beautiful! The Lord did so many great things, and sadly it’s hard to fit those all in video form. I want to grow in the coming months and hopefully embody that in a video better! Regardless, enjoy a little look into my first month on the World Race.
