I have to be honest that I’m having a little bit of a hard time expressing what last month entailed. So I’m sorry if I blubber my way through this. Though the month was wonderful, it was a bit of a blur. I learned lots and love the kids and staff that we were able to pour into.
The bus ride from our debrief spot to the mountain was thankfully only bout 5 hours. We all crammed into 2 buses pulling trailers with all of our luggage. We made it to the Swazi border and fairly smoothly went through their process. By this time it was pouring down rain and many of us had a little fun actually running cross the border in the rain. Gotta create memories, right?! As we ran through, I remembered that we had been told never to go down the mountain if it was going to rain because you wouldn’t be able to get back up. Hmmm….I thought and began to pray. We arrived at the bottom of the mountain and the drivers began discussing the best course of action. Thoughts flooded our minds with stories from how past racers had to walk up the mountain with their packs and people began to show a little anxiety. I can’t lie that the thought was quite intimidating. I celebrated as we learned that 4 wheel drive trucks were coming down from the top of the mountain to pull our packs and the busses would carry us. They arrived and we began our journey up the mountain. We prayed and prayed and worshipped as we slowly moved up, fish tailing and briefly stalling in some spots. Our faithful God provided some very skilled drivers and we arrived at the top of the mountain, from which I didn’t come down for the entire month. This was both a blessing and a challenge.
As we sat through a meeting with more info than my brain could retain, people’s hands raised with excitement about different ministry opportunities. I began to have thoughts of insignificance and not being needed. My heart felt numb and I wrestled with wondering what in the world was wrong with me. “I have a passion for ministering to orphans! Why am I not more excited to be here?”, I thought to myself. Over the next couple of days, I asked the Lord to reveal what was going on in my heart because I couldn’t put my finger on it. He showed me pride in some specific gifting, looking for significance in an “assignment”, and comparison to my brothers and sisters. Ouch. He also began planting seeds in my heart about learning to rest in Him at debrief, and I foresaw much opportunity to begin practicing this while I was atop this mountain.
Opportunity certainly came! God laid a very specific task on my heart about a week in that took that focus off myself and put it on others around me. He gave me joy in mucking through pig poop and cleaning their pens many days out of the week. I even had a special connection with a pig named Billy Jean! He gave me a running buddy and I began conditioning myself to run in the mountains. He allowed me to lead in worshipping Him multiple times with the most incredible backdrop I’ve ever seen. We were all given buddies that we would work with one on one from 3-5 every day after school. One of the biggest things he did was give me a buddy who was “one of their most difficult cases”. I will write a separate blog about my buddy, Peter.
So my days consisted of running, cleaning pig pens or participating in intercession, buddy time and team/ squad time. Close to 30 of us stayed in a concrete building that had 2 rooms on each end, 2 private rooms for our married couples, a kitchen, and big coming area that turned into a sauna most afternoons thanks to the African sun and tin roof. My room had 12 of us ladies that lined the 4 walls with mattresses an sleeping pads and we shared one bathroom….sorta. We did have other options available, just not as convenient. This was fun and challenging all at the same time. We got to spend a lot of time together. I got to know others on my squad that I hadn’t spent much time we before. We challenged each other. We encouraged each other. I’m sure some of us got on each other’s nerves. We celebrated several birthdays. We worshipped together a lot. We served together. It was a good month in my books!
Let me share 2 stories and then I’ll let you go. I know this is long, but I didn’t write anything for a month, so no complaining!
Both stories are actually from our last night. We has some money given to us during debrief and we used that money to buy food to cook for all the kids and the staff. Some awesome squad mates arranged everything and did a fantastic job. Racers and buddies lined up to eat together. The kids received hotdogs, Mac-n-chese, apples, and milk. As I sat eating with my buddy, he didn’t stop smiling. He said multiple times with great enjoyment ” this food is so nice!” He took a gulp of milk, and moved his cup to reveal the greatest milk mustache ever covering a very satisfied grin and “ahhhhh”. This brought me such joy. We took the kids to the chapel, turned out the lights and had candles lit. My teammate, Amanda, read scripture over them and we worshipped together with them. It was so beautiful to stand in front of the group and listen to the power of the unified voices of racers and their buddies. Then we were treated with a couple of songs from the 4 oldest girls who sound angelic! So beautiful!
After all that was said and done, a spontaneous time of worship was birthed with just 5 of us left in the chapel. It was the most amazing time of worship I’ve ever experienced. Voices rose and fell together with a sense of power and declaration of God’s glory even though most of the time it wasn’t even with words. I couldn’t even sing. I just relished in the closeness of His presence. This doesn’t even fully describe the environment that evening, but I’m not sure I even have the words to do any better. I can’t think of a better way to have ended my time on the mountain at El Shaddai.
Check out more pictures at: https://www.facebook.com/TheFunderama/media_set?set=a.10152208656647856.1073741832.507187855&type=1
