Happy Holidays from the World Race!
Month Three is coming to a close here in Honduras, and this weekend we head to Guatemala for New Year’s before traveling to Belize for our month of ministry.
It’s remarkable looking back on this month and thinking about how much time has flown. Now that I’ve made it three months on the Race, I’m starting to realize that this time will fly if I don’t take notice. It’s a constant reminder to appreciate every second of this journey, the good and the bad.
This month, God started uprooting ungratefulness and entitlement in my life.
And how did He do it?
With gifts.
That’s right, December – the month of gift giving – in Honduras, was where God taught me about gifts.
Going into Month Three, I was worried about one thing: Christmas. Halfway through our month in Nicaragua, I started to overhear other teams talking about the different locations they were assigned to in Honduras – some really beautiful places with awesome ministries that were perfect for Christmas. I still hadn’t heard yet what ours was, but because celebrating Christmas meant so much to me, our ministry home this month mattered more to me than any other this year. I chose to leave my home and family this year for Christmas, and I expected God to honor that by at least giving us a nice place to celebrate. And the more my selfish desire to have a comfortable place to stay in Honduras started to build, the more I started to doubt God’s goodness.
I just knew that my selfish desires would result in God challenging me with the opposite of what I desired. I imagined the worst-case scenario, and braced myself for it to be true. After all, World Racers are never guaranteed a comfortable living situation, and I knew my team had gotten lucky the past two months with the nice places we had lived. I was upset with God, feeling like He was doing this just to punish me for my attitude, and I tried to choose a positive perspective despite expecting to be disappointed.
So when we finally made it to our new ministry home in Honduras, I was shocked. Our house had everything – beds for everyone, hot showers, daily cooked cultural meals, and a beautiful artisan town to visit every day. The weather was cool, and the hosts were more than excited to celebrate the holidays with us. It was a Christmas miracle.
“But surely, there’s a catch…” I thought. “Surely, this situation is too perfect for God to have orchestrated this.” I knew there was no way God would let my team be this comfortable on the World Race, for the third month in a row, without making us suffer.
Sure enough, we started doing ministry and I found the catch.
Our ministry to the special needs home was tough. Waking up early in cold rainy weather, trekking through the mud, and keeping energy up to intentionally serve the dozens of special needs residents was a daily struggle. Doing ministry at this home didn’t feel much like ministry – teaching the Bible and sharing the Gospel was something that didn’t quite register with the residents. Most days, when the weather was good, our ministry had us working in a garden chopping trees with dull machetes, digging up giant tree roots, and moving dirt around. It was exhausting and not always fulfilling. I found myself looking forward to the weekends, as ministry started to feel more like a day job and less like a calling.
I knew I was here to serve God, but there were some days that I wondered if I really meant that.
As the month went on, other discouragements began to pop up. Not being able to visit some cool places in Honduras on off days. Finding out my team would be split up by the end of the month. Missing friends in the States, and wishing I could be with them. Missing family and the comforts of home at Christmastime. And I saw the kind of cool things the other teams on my squad were doing, I started to wonder if all of the nice amenities of this month were really worth having all this tough work to do.
About midway through December, I asked God what He was trying to teach me.
“Gifts”, He said.
At first, I second guessed this word. I figured it was just my brain picking a theme that would fit well with Christmas for my end-of-the-month blog. But then God asked me a question.
“What gifts have I given you?”
And so I said “okay”, and started to make a list of things to appreciate.
I couldn’t stop writing for almost ten minutes.
It was incredible. I couldn’t believe all of the amazing things God had given me this month that were better than I had expected. It was overwhelming, the dozens of small things that seemed insignificant but actually showed me that God really did see me.
He gave me cold weather to make it feel like Christmas. He gave me awesome teammates who love to be festive. He gave me opportunities to watch lots of Christmas movies and drink lots of hot chocolate. He gave me incredible hot showers. He gave me a cute little town with great coffee shops to visit every day. He gave me awesome hosts with huge hearts. He gave me a warm and comfortable bed at night. He gave me delicious Honduran food to eat every day. He gave me a wifi-free home so I could keep from getting distracted. He gave me a ministry location with incredible natural beauty all around me. He gave me another month to spend with my amazing team.
The more I started to see all of the little gifts God had been laying at my feet all month, the more I realized how selfish I’d been. I saw that God had been blessing the desires of my heart all month, and I had been distracted looking at my “hardships”. I was looking more towards what kept me comfortable instead of appreciating the ways in which my Father was stretching me, while still continuing to bless me. I saw that my God actually loved me so much, and knew me so well, that He had divinely orchestrated so many little details in my favor simply because He delights in me.
And I realized I didn’t deserve ANY of this.
But what from Him do I really deserve? What do any of us really deserve from Him? His very nature is love, and His very Son embodies grace. We don’t serve anything but His wrath, and yet He gives us the gift of His Grace because He loves us. And the whole spirit of Christmas is not that He rewards our goodness with gifts, but that out of His goodness, He gifts us grace. Life with Him, eternal pleasure in Him, the blessings of Heaven poured out by Him. And all He wants is for us to receive.
As my gaze shifted from my lack to my plenty, I started seeing the biggest gift God had given me this month. The large, shiny box under the tree. The one that I thought would be the biggest burden.
The residents of the special needs home.
I said it in my first blog, but I don’t think I even knew what I was talking about. These people are possibly the dearest people I’ve ever met. Each one of them brought me unbelievable amounts of joy every single day. At the beginning of each day, we sang songs and danced with each of them, and the joy that radiated from them was infectious. Some days, we went caroling house to house, and the residents of each home were ecstatic we came to visit them. Greeting them every day with a huge hug (which sometimes turned into a “koala hug”) filled me with all of the love and joy I needed for the day. Their joy became my joy, and once I learned to receive them as a gift of God to me, His joy became evident in every moment we spent at the home.
We loved spending time with these residents so much, visiting them soon started to feel less like ministry and more like friendship. Even on our off time, our teams would spend hours laughing and chatting about our favorite moments with each of the residents. The fact that Nino called Keaton “Papi” and always asked him for water. The way Guillermina would scream my name from across the campus. When Francis would say “yes” and “I love you” after we taught her some English. Adorable Moises, with his savage remarks and his killer dance moves. When Omar would yell “Ho Ho Ho” every time we sang “Feliz Navidad”. Getting stuck in a long embrace with Lupe as she smiled at you. Watching Milba down her breakfast just so she could sing with us in the other room. It brought us so much joy seeing them every day, we even visited them on our off day just to wish them a Merry Christmas!
God gives good gifts. He doesn’t need to, and doesn’t have to, but He wants to. A good Father knows His children, and delights in sharing the goodness of who He is with them.
Ada, my dearest friend at the special needs home, gave me a gift every day this month. Some days, it was something small – a special note written by her, or a piece of fruit, or a water bottle. Other days, it was something big – a sweater, or a soccer jersey, or a bouquet of flowers. Nobody on my team ever really figured out why she was so generous with me, because I was the only one she ever gave gifts to. But every day, she would tell me that she had another gift for me, because every day she told me that she loved me with all of her heart and strength. Not because I did anything to deserve a gift, but because she saw me, and she loved me.
And with every little gift that she gave me, insignificant as they might have seemed, God was reminding me of his heart. That He wants the best. That He’s not out to get me. That He loves me no matter what.
I learned that gift giving is so much less about the gift, and so much more about the heart behind it. God gives us good gifts, not so that we have more stuff, or that we’re more comfortable, or that we earn nice things because we’ve been good, but because He wants us to know His heart for us.
Not every month on the World Race is going to look as nice as this one did. I’m not always going to be in a beautiful home, with a bed, shower, home-cooked meal, and mild weather. I’m going to have months where ministry is even harder, and the weather is hotter, and I’m going to want to go home. Not all of his gifts will be things I asked for, but I’m reminded this month that His gifts are still always good.
Because even in these moments of struggle ahead, I can still walk forward confidently knowing that God’s gifts are all around me. Because even in times where my physical conditions are less than comfortable, He is going to comfort me with His presence. Because when He takes me through challenging seasons, His heart is that I endure them for the greater purpose of growing my intimacy with Him. Because His heart is good. Because God gives good gifts.
Christmas on the World Race was absolutely perfect. Our team came together, made a huge breakfast, and gave each other small Secret Santa gifts. This year, the gifts were small and unglamorous – chocolates, sodas, candy, small handmade trinkets. Getting these kinds of gifts at home in the States would be disappointing, but we as World Racers were overjoyed. We delighted in each of these silly little things because on the World Race, we’ve learned to take nothing for granted. And when I learned this month to abandoned my entitlement, I realized just how much of a gift everything around me was.
And to think, a year ago today I had just been accepted to the World Race, with $16,561 to raise and no idea how it’d happen. Old Jonathan would have expected God to only give me some of the money, and leave me in the dust to raise the rest.
But here I am a year later, in Honduras, fully funded and overwhelmed by the richness of His gifts this Christmas season.
God gives good gifts, when you open your eyes and receive.
“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” James 1:17
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Check out highlight photos from this past month serving in Valle de Angeles, Honduras! And scroll to the bottom for a video montage of our month in Honduras!
