So I'm ending my time here in Honduras and I finally feel like I can write a blog about my experience last month in Guatemala.
When I think about Guatemala the phrase "what the heck was that?!!!" comes to mind. It took me a whole month in Honduras to process my time in Guatemala, partly due to the fact that I didn't want to think about it. If I could sum up my time there in one sentence I would have to say "It was hard".
It started with training camp. I have to admit that when I arrived to training camp in May I was not so enthusiastic about the world race. At the time I was very involved with work, ministry and my home life. The thought of leaving it all did not sit well with me. To be honest I believed I was a bit depressed. I went through a period were I did not want to think about the world race or leaving home and when ever someone asked me about it I had a hard time trying to muster up excitement. I didn't want to think about the world race and I didn't want anyone to remind me of it. This continued up until the week before launch in July. A few days before launch I began to feel excitement again but it was short lived. When we arrived in Atlanta for launch everything felt surreal. Somewhere in the back of my mind I felt I was gong to be going back home any moment and returning to my so called life. So as this attitude carried into my time in Guatemala I found myself very home sick and playing the comparison game. And as the old saying goes comparison is the thief of joy. So on top of experiencing homesickness, severely missing my mom, my friends, my church, my family and community I found myself comparing every person, place and experience to home. From the way people talked, to the way they worshiped and even the way they prayed. I found no peace because I did not let myself find rest in Christ, His sovereignty and the fact that he had place me right were I needed to be and that my new community wasn't meant to be compared with my old community because there was something different and special that the Lord wanted me to learn from this new group of people who were invading my life. I let these negative feeling continue on without putting up much fight to seek change. I feel that I slipped in to a mild depression at some point. On top of that there was a very real spirit of heaviness that I experienced in Guatemala as well. Every country carries an oppressive spirit and the spirit of heaviness in Guatemala greatly effected me. Even walking from my tent to the bathroom I felt weighed down. It not only effected me physically but spiritually I felt weighed down as well. All these things effected how I interacted with the people on my team and my squad. I was not fully invested in getting to know the people that i would be spending the next 11 months of my life with. I also felt at times that I was walking through a cloudy fog that obscured my vision of what was going on with me. After some time in prayer and talking with my squad leader lizi the Lord began to reveal to me the nature of my heart. He began to show me that one of my problems was an issue of love. First he revealed to me that I did not love me team nor did I love my squad. Then I began to question what did it mean to love my team and squad and why did I have a problem loving them. And then he pulled back the vale over my eyes to see myself as i truely am. The Lord showed me that the root of my problem was that I did not understand love as much as I thought I did. The reason that I was not able to love my team and squad was because ultimately I did not fully understand what it mean to love Him, what that was supposed to look like and what it means for Him to love me.
It was amazing once God revealed this to me. I finally felt like I was getting somewhere. The cloud had been lifted and i was now seeing clearly. And now I knew what to pray for. At this point I began to pray that God would teach me about this thing called love. He told me that my world race would be a story of love.
I wish I could say that once this revelation happened the Lord then revealed to me all things pertaining to His love and his goodness and I wish I could say that I came out of Guatemala renewed and a new person walking in the fullness of His love but that didn't happen. I am still on a journey of discovering what all this means. No more questions were answered for me in Guatemala but I have to say I'm ok with that. At training camp the Lord gave me a word regarding my world race. He told me that he wants to do a work in me. That it won't be a quick work but it will be a deep work. One that will change me to the core, one that will be lasting. He wants to perform surgery on my heart and it's a time consuming intricate process but it's so worth it.
And I'm ready.
