It is month 5. We are in beautiful Mendoza, known for being the beautiful wine country of Argentina. I don’t even like wine, but it’s pretty here with all the vineyards.
This month we are working at a church and living with the pastor and his family. We spend the mornings scraping old layers of paint off the church walls, and soon we will repaint the walls a fresh, new color. We stop for lunch around 1 and then have nap time until 5 (we realize this is an aggressively long period of time for a nap, but we use it to nap, workout, run to the grocery store, and spend time with the Lord). At 5 we go with the pastor for house visits where we visit different families in the community, share the Gospel with them, sing songs, and hear about their life experiences. That has been a very sweet time. We usually do not eat dinner until around 10PM and then go to bed after that.
We also have our new teams now. I am living alongside 4 other girls. It was hard to say goodbye to my old team, but I can already see that the Lord is going to teach me a lot through my new team. We have a TON of fun together.
All that being said, today was hard. We had the day off so we got to sleep in. I woke up late, but woke up feeling overwhelmed and upset. I sat with the Lord and asked Him to help me work through my emotions. I journaled and wrote down everything that I find “hard” right now.
Sometimes it is hard to have to learn a whole new team. I love my new teammates and want to know them, but sometimes it is hard to want to ask the intentional questions because I feel like my feeler is fried.
During one of our house visits, God gave me a vision of one of the members of their family being sexually abused. I believe He gave me that vision so that I could pray for that person, but I have felt an incredible heaviness and sadness since then. It broke my heart, and I’ve spent a lot of time trying to process those emotions with God.
Transportation is hard. You can’t just catch a taxi easily on the side of the road like in every other country we have been. We have to call a taxi service and then wait for at least 20 minutes, sometimes an hour, for the taxi to come. We have waited hours for taxis, waited hours at bus stops for buses we weren’t sure were coming, and taken the wrong bus and gotten very lost. Last night we waited for an hour outside of the grocery store with all our bags for a taxi that never came. I miss having a car and being able to drive. Gosh that was so convenient!
It is hard to change ministries, cultures, and living situations every month. There is so much change. It is sometimes exhausting to pick up and travel to a new ministry where you have to relearn everything. We are currently living in a family’s home and it is a constant dance of trying not to step on toes. We cook our own food, but use the same kitchen as the family, so it’s hard to know when is a good time to cook without getting in their way. When is it ok to use the laundry machine? Is it ok to take a shower in the one bathroom we all share? Does someone else need to use it more before they head to work? How can I be helpful? Where the freak do these dishes go?! Where is a freaking knife? I JUST NEED A CUTTING BOARD.
Just when things make sense, we adjust to the schedule, we figure out the norms, what is expected of us, and how to be helpful, we pack up, board a bus, and travel to the next country.
Then there is the weight of not knowing what is next for me in my life. Some girls on my squad are getting married when we return to the States. I listen to them dream about their wedding day, talk about what the next six months hold for them after we land in the U.S. I ask God, what’s next for me? I hear nothing. The waiting is hard. The unknown is exciting, but hard.
It’s hard keeping in touch with people back home. When friends and family ask, “So, how are you?!” I have no idea how to answer. There is so much going on in the ministries we are serving, in my mind, and within my team that it’s hard to even know where to begin.
After I wrote down everything that I’m struggling with in my journal, the song New Wine by Hillsong began playing through my headphones. The first verses of the song say:
In the crushing
In the pressing
You are making
New wine
In the soil, I
Now surrender
You are breaking
New ground
Shoot. Who knew that while living in wine country the Lord would make new wine out of me. The Lord is using the things that I find difficult right now to continue breaking new ground in my life. God is good. I am learning so much about Him, others, and myself. I am learning about His kingdom and my role in it. I am being challenged, I am growing, and I am so incredibly thankful for this opportunity. Today was hard, but that is to be expected. Today I am asking the Lord to continue to crush and press me to allow the growth.
So, that’s where I’m at. Thanks for reading. Thanks for supporting me through the good, the bad, the happy, and the sad. Love you all!
