Now I remember at Training Camp I sat through a whole seminar that said, “Don’t have expectation.” Well…I didn’t listen hard enough. Maybe I thought it meant don’t have expectations about the food, or about the travel, or about housing, or…what??
No, it meant “DON’T HAVE EXPECTATIONS.” Period. About anything and everything. Why didn’t I listen?
Month 1 in the Dominican Republic has come and gone, but the lessons I am learning from the expectations I had are beginning to trickle in.
1. I expected to love every country I went to these 11 months.
2. I hoped to go to sleep exhausted every night from ministry.
3. I expected (and others did of myself too) that my blogging would come easily and share everything.
4. I expected to actually feel like I was on the World Race when I was actually on it.
Lets just say, I expected one thing, and God DID another thing.
Expectation 1:
I will admit the Dominican Republic didn’t settle with me as a country that I love. I enjoy it, I appreciate it, but I don’t love it. I can push and pull for that love to show, but there will just something about it that turns me up empty handed. Don’t get me wrong; I loved the people that I came in contact with. I loved seeing the heart of the pastors, the faith of whom could move a church to their knees. I was awed by the beauty of the DR and blown away with the food, but something was not matching up with love.
Honestly, I wish I could put my finger on why that is, but even left as a mystery- I do not know why. Now hear me out. Even though I do not love the DR, I know that I was placed in the country of the Dominican Republic for month 1, I was placed with my team, I experienced many things culturally or challenging and ALL for a God ordained purpose. That I do love.
Expectation 2:
I thought that I would work myself to exhaustion from serving out my life calling at ministries each month. This month I worked at my ministry maybe a total of 10 days. My time was spent working on bonding my team, working through challenges I was going through, and finding team ministries outside of what we were assigned.
I expected that the ministry would use up all of me, but it was outside of ministry where I gave all of myself. I gave all of myself to my team. I gave all of myself to pressing in when it was hard. I gave all of myself to fight for the hope that would come through the challenges.
Expectation 3:
I thought that blogging would be one of the easy things that I would need to do while on the race. I didn’t realize just how hard it would come to be. My heart for writing still thumps at the door to be released to write all my experiences, thoughts, and God moments for everyone to read about, but it seems that writer’s block follows me around like a keyless padlock on the door of my heart.
My mind soaks in things second by second by second. I feel like a thought I had a minute ago has already changed or been added to. I am constantly searching for how I see God in all things. I am searching for what this or that means, and all the while I am still experiencing 100 new, foreign, cultural, and different things a day. The lessons I learn are through ministries, teammates, words, actions, visions, prayers, nature, people, churches, slums, car rides, sunrises and sunsets.
I pray for the ability to write out how God works in and through everything. Pray with me that writers block would release me from a lockdown. I do know that God wants me to experience these things to the fullest capacity before I try to go around telling everyone about them. I am enjoying my time with the Lord in many moments of intimacy being a student again with the Great Teacher of Heaven and Earth.
Expectation 4:
I don’t know if I will ever not expect this or ever get out of this rut. I can honestly tell you, I still don’t actually feel like I am on the race. Crazy. I know. I am on the race, yet I don’t feel like I am. I wish it were easier to explain. I feel like I planned, fundraised, and talked about this for months, now that it is finally here it just feels like a dream. I hope that after the “honeymoon” phase goes by then it starts to feel real, but what I have heard is that you go all 11 months and it still doesn’t feel real. It feels real when you are home at your 12th month.
I have a new hope from this: I hope to live out this journey in the present. I don’t hope for one month over the other. I hope for the present. I hope for the Lord to dwell and bring his presence into the present.
With one country down, 10 more to go. I will have to continue to say it to myself. I am on the World Race. I am on this journey with the Lord to do great things for His kingdom, for His namesake.
I, however, can't avoid telling you the lessons I learned from Month 1, the DR:
I desire prayer to be my one and only addiction.
I need to take time to be completely alone with God and THAT is going to be the way I recharge my spirit.
I thought I gave up Coke in the States, but it is the only way I can get internet. 🙂
Intimacy breeds conflict: Conflct breeds intimacy.
Running has become something of a habit not a rare activity.
Worship is much more than the music that is played at church.
