A huge part of the reason I went on the race was to serve others. But oh how different this looked once I came to the field.
Peru, at least the part we are in, is what we like to call “the ghetto desert”. To explain a little bit, it is really hot and sandy here in Trujillo, and our neighborhood is a little sketch. For example, the first day we drove in on our bus, our ministry host explained that the man passed out on the street corner had probably been there since the night before as a result of drugs. Like I said, the ghetto desert.
Now that you have an idea of the setting, I can tell you how my first two days of ministry started out a little rough. I was in an obvious funk that several of my squad-mates called me out on. In this funk, I had a bad attitude of entitlement, comparison, and little patience. I had no motivation to teach English or help out at VBS. I was frustrated that our team seemed to be doing so much more. I was short with my teammates. I was obviously just a joy to be around.
It would be easy to blame this on the heat, but I just knew deep down that it wasn’t the root. I could tell there was something deeper going on as the heaviness and discontentment was setting in. I had so many people speak words of encouragement about my joyful character the prior week, and I really feel like the enemy was trying to attack it.
Thankfully for this amazing community in my all squad month (all 57 of us are living together on the same compound), people spoke truth against it and prayed over me. What really clicked was when it was pointed out that the enemy cannot take away my identity or change who God created me to be. BOOM.
With that assurance, my funk was kicked out the door, and ministry received the best version of me. Two days later, with an energy that can only be credited to the Holy Spirit, my day was packed with English in the morning, dish duty, bathroom duty, VBS… One thing after another. Despite being filled with joy again, I found myself comparing my actions to others. I was getting a little frustrated with feeling like I was doing more than other people were. Every time that feeling started to creep in, I heard God telling me to do it anyway, to be his servant, to serve as he would.
It can be easy to peg serving to ministry and stop there, but what I’m learning is that Jesus never turned the switch off. He didn’t preach to a crowd and then leave His disciples to fend for themselves. He loved on them and served them in the big and the little things. So, by his example, serving my squad is just as important as serving the church in Peru. It looks like staying up late to pray over some struggles of a friend even when you’re exhausted. It looks like taking on extra chores or helping someone with theirs. It looks like hanging back to let others get the prayer slot they wanted and taking the leftover one at 1:30 AM.
Funny how the Lord works, but just 2 days later, He put it on my friend Chance’s heart to preach on this exact subject. One point that he made during his sermon is that to serve means that it needs to benefit someone and you must lose something in the process. This spoke volumes to me as I realized that is why I’ve been struggling -the selfishness of my flesh was taking over in not wanting to give something up, whether it be time, sleep, energy, etc. so, my prayer has become to overcome this selfishness and find ways to joyously serve in the little ways.
I can quickly see fruit in my relationships when I serve the other person with all that I have. People appreciate it when you make a sacrifice to help them; it brightens their day. If we could all apply this in our everyday lives, the world would be just a little better off.
