The last week of ministry in Albania was life changing for me. It was the hardest work I have done in the past 6 months. The Lord was not only working through me but He was working on and in me.
We had a lot of different things that needed to happen this month for ministry. We put on a VBS, hosted our squad’s first Beauty for Ashes retreat (you can see a video and read more about it on Jenna’s blog), taught: English, voice lessons, piano lessons, guitar lessons; painted walls and murals, did construction work, and hosted American worship services on Saturday nights for the youth. In essence we did it all. We were also partnered with another team from our squad for the month: the co-ed team “Relentless.” Plus we had our married couple squad leaders Eric and Krystal with us.
We had 16 people living in a very small place. There was 1 toilet in the place and we walked over to the church to shower and there was another toilet there. Needless to say there was no place to really go and be by yourself.
We ended up needing to have all 18 murals painted before we left. It wasn’t mandatory but it was requested. Not all 16 people could be there at the same time due to all the other ministry things going on at the same time. The last week I really felt like the Lord was asking me to stay long hours to help finish the paintings before we left. It was something I could physically do and it would be a big help to our host.
The weekend came and “ministry days” were over. There were 2 more adventure/rest days before we left for debrief. I was informed it would be all hands on deck to get as much painting done so that I wouldn’t have to go back on my off days. It didn’t go the way I thought it would in my head.
On Sunday I showed up to paint before church. I took a break and went to church. Afterwards we had a luncheon with the pastor and both teams. Afterwards my plans were to go back to painting. My team asked to have a meeting first. It was the hardest meeting I have had on the race. I was being asked questions that I didn’t understand the point of them at the time. After about an hour of this going on I was done and couldn’t take it anymore so I got up and walked out against my teams request.
In doing this I caused a lot of pain and hurt. I hurt them because I was hurting as well. IT wasn’t the right action but it’s what I did anyways. I walked out and went straight to painting. I was crying and yelling at God with every stroke of the brush. Our host showed up to help paint. As I was talking to him as vaguely as I could, he pointed me in the right direction and gave me something that I still mull over today. He said, “how often do we let God down when he is expecting us to be somewhere and act a certain way?” We are constantly letting down God when we sin everyday. As I was hurting from expectations I put on my team and as I then hurt them, I realized I wasn’t giving them the benefit of the doubt or looking at the situation from their point of view.
Our host changed the subject and just spent a few hours talking with me and sharing his heart with me. We heard knocking a little later. I looked out and my team was there with food and ready to deal with the issues straight on.
As we sat there on that roof eating and discussing I realized these girls love me and support me more that I ever realized. They ended up giving up their time to help deal with this for me. The loved me enough to walk through the hard things and be there and call out the ugliness in me.
I learned that evening to paint through the struggles and take everything to God. To trust in the people God has you with for that season. To choose to see the best in every person in every situation. Most of the time things are happening or being said because people want to bring you up and call you to a higher place in walking this life like Christ.
Perfect love casts out all fear.
What I didn’t see or understand is they were wanting to see the joy in me in every situation and that I was not seeing that. I needed to understand that they only wanted what was best in me. They wanted to see the smile and joy across my face if I was all alone in doing something or if there were 100 people around me.
This season with these girls has been a very sharpening season and I know now that when they challenge me with something its because they LOVE me and want to see me grow in my walk with the Lord.
