Well month 1 is officially complete and as our squad regathers and shares stories and lessons of our personal experiences the big question we all have ether asked or been asked is “What was your month 1 take away” And lets be honest if you have ever spent 1 month in a 3rd world country just to simply serve there is no limit to the amount of take aways you may get. One of my favorite sayings is a simple one “Personal Growth begins where your Comfort Zone ends” and wanting personal growth was something I desired more then anything this year. I remember a specific moment a few weeks before I left where I got down on my knees, humbled myself to the Lord and prayed. I prayed for safety, for health, for comfort for my family and friends for the year but what I prayed for most was this change I desired and the ability to actually accomplish something for those I got to reach. I said “Lord take me where I need to be to find this change, give me the will to simply say Yes, show me what I can do to change the lives of these people because they need you, I give myself to your plan, pull me far from my comfort zone. For I believe it will make me a better man”
The funny thing about me saying this was I wanted growth but was so scared to step out of my comfort zone. But that’s the beauty of prayer, It wasn’t up to me, I asked and I received. Month 1 ministry was something I had zero desire in. We found out we would be evangelizing to Muslim Truck drivers in West Africa… Thanks a lot Lord you couldn’t have placed me further from my comfort zone.. I spent the first week just a mixture of scared, uncomfortable, uneasy, unprepared and well simply out of my comfort zone. But isn’t that exactly where I asked to be? I laughed to myself one night thinking, why did I ask for this? The thing about when God answers your prayers is most of the time it doesn’t just happen, He didn’t just change me in that moment of prayer and all of a sudden I was a new man, He simply creates an opportunity for you to prove that its what you truly wanted. He’s our guide, our teacher. He cannot place all the knowledge we need in our heads but he can use the beauty of the world to give us chances to strive for it ourselves. And what I was given was not just a ministry assignment but an opportunity to give the men of Africa what they needed in that moment and what I needed as well, More of HIM. I started to realize also that my comfort zone was not just a physical space or mindset. A part of our comfort zone is the filters we apply to keep ourselves feeling safe or keep certain realities away from us. Realities I was forced to see just in one month of Africa. Things I never had to see safe in my home town, things like starving children who would play with empty cigarette packs because they had no toys. I saw men live under semi trucks for months at a time to simply provide food and shelter for their families miles and miles away that they got to see for a week or so at a time. I saw people living outside of hospitals because their relatives were deathly sick and that’s the only way they could be close to them. And so much more. Things that will never leave my memory and I couldn’t be more great full to have seen them so I have a deeper understanding of reality. It made me unexplainable heart broken. It made me angry at some times. It made me miss my comfort zone beyond measure.
I have no regret about our first month or being forced out of my comfort zone though. It was one of the most eye opening, beautiful experiences I got to be apart of. I grew a greater love and understanding for the work that needs to be done in these areas. I found a respect and appreciation for the men and women who have dedicated themselves daily to achieve the things some find “unnecessary or silly”. I found an amazing opportunity to step into the unknown, and the moment I accepted and said yes to this new chance was the very moment God showed me why he brought me here. Not for simply my personal growth but to do his work and find my growth in the process of that. It’s never easy to accept or make that step but I promise you will not regret it either.
So I do not write this to you to say for one second I regret that prayer. I would say it 1 million times over if given the chance. But I did learn that when that moment comes for me to get down on my knees and pray for something to appear in my life, I better be sure its coming from my heart and its coming from a state of honesty. Because the opportunity will arise and God will say “Alright if you say so”. I say to you be careful what you do pray for. Because God will make an opportunity in your life for it to come true. And if its something you don’t truly desire or want, then life will get weird and hard or very uncomfortable and He does that because he loves us and wants us to strive for those things. I pray now that your prayers start becoming more of a request to be given opportunities for growth, for a slight push out of your comfort zone. You may feel weird, it may anger you, you’ll probably cry and ask “What is happening right now?” But the one thing you wont feel is Regret…
And now I must say with a heavy heart that I have officially left Côte d’Ivoire, it’s hard to say goodbye to those who treated me like family, to the kids we were blessed to play with each day, and to the new life we have started out here. But I’m excited to say it’s time to start Ghana off the same way, praying to God, unsure of what’s next, and just a little more comfortable with being thrown out of my comfort zone.
