So maybe that isn’t my lot for the rest of my life, but I did just eat pb&j for lunch every day for three months, and now I eat curry 2 meals a day. (For the record, I choose curry. There’s much more variety than pb&j offers.)
I learned something new this month–answered prayers sometimes look radically different than I was anticipating. Here are some things I have been praying for:
1. To learn that I am 100% approved and valued by God completely independent of what I do “for Him.”
2. For a month where my only ministry was prayer so I couldn’t take any credit for the fruit bourn that month–all credit would go to God.
3. For India to be a big month with incredible testimonies of healing and opportunities for me to step out in faith.
4. To grow in worship
The whole squad has been gearing up for India to be an epic, game-changing month, and I was anticipating working with women in need of emotional healing. Instead, I find myself assigned to a school of worship populated entirely by men, in a society where women cannot talk to men. What am I doing here?
I took it to the Lord and got all kinds of answers. If you look back at my list of prayers, numbers 1, 2, and 4 are very obviously answered by my ministry assignment this month–I just expected it to look very different, more like number 3. As for number 3, the Lord revealed my motives to me. Mixed with my pure motives were also impure motives–wanting stories to tell to my squadmates and supporters back home to prove I am doing something valuable here.
God revealed something else important to me–you don’t always get to be in the foreground. My role this month, and honestly for the entire Race, is to be in the background. The long-term missionaries are the ones who will be involved with these communities for the long run, so they are the ones who belong in the foreground. We short-termers are here to give them encouragement and support and free them up to focus solely on their ministry.
So that’s why I’m doing this month–praying and worshipping three hours a day, covering this ministry and this nation in prayer. I’m doing administrative work like re-painting the facility and creating promotional material so the long-term staff are free to focus on the ministry. And I’m embracing opportunities given me to visit the slums, preach, and share my testimony. And remembering that the answers to my prayers might look different than I expected.
Signing Off,
Katie
