If I could go back to day one there is one thing that I would change, I would write blogs. I want to take you back to my first month out on the field. This is where I redeem my wanting to write more blogs and take you on a reading frenzy.
Ireland
On the Race, community is a word you learn real quick. Sharing and grace were never on my list of how I wanted to grow, but if you want to survive in community your going to have to learn them. Petra was my team name, and on my team were: Martha Lemke, Danielle Cantorino, Tim Fizzell, Joel Williams, Jennifer Mitchell, and Liz Bureman.
We had our launch in Dublin and traveled to our ministry site city called Coleraine. Our days were very scheduled and packed full of things to do. We did all sorts of ministry: door to door, handing out suckers just to let people know God loves them, cleaning business’ toilets, visited a retirement home, window washing, litter pick up, kids camp with the church, prayer walking the city, and healing on the streets (this ministry changed my life, thank you Mark Marks).
August was one of the first times that I stayed longer than 24 hours with REAL Christians. I don’t even know if I could have called myself a real Christian until this month. I learned a lot about the Bible and more about how to treat people. I learned how to surf and be adventurous.
The most important thing I think I learned was who I was in Christ. Drea Stratzer was prophesying over me in a stairwell where we were worshiping, and she said, “do you know who you really are?” I didn’t! She told me to go in a quiet place and ask Jesus who I was in Him. That’s how I got one of my blogs of who I am in Christ.
We did a lot of site seeing: castles, Giant’s Causeway, and a rope bridge where I saw Scotland. Ireland had the greenest greens I have ever seen in my life but it was very expensive there.
One of my first journal entries said: Watching people in Ireland driving on the wrong side of the road (to us) makes me think of life. Maybe while living life, God has planned for you to live on the wrong side of the road in order to be the person God needs you to be.
I know I wouldn’t be the person that could walk up to broken women of the world, with no fear and tell them “I know” if I hadn’t lived the life I did before the Race. If I hadn’t felt the sorrows or hurt or made the decisions I made, I wouldn’t be the Lauren Christ Maldonado everyone knows today!
