At the end of our first month, I wrote about how I should look at each month as if it were month 11.
Which is still true.
But this month, I learned the hard way that I also need to imagine that every month is month 1.
It’s been a hard month, if you couldn’t tell by the fact that I’ve only posted one blog the whole time we’ve been here.
After leaving Ecuador, I never wanted to deal with that kind of goodbye again. I loved our hosts like family, our ministry was my favorite so far, we had so many incredible relationships everywhere we went, and leaving ripped my heart out. I spent most of debrief in bed crying. When we got our exit stamps at the border(something that usually excites me because it’s filling up my passport and it means I’m about to be in a new place), I got back on the bus and bawled my eyes out for twenty minutes.
The whole thing was awful.
So I went into Colombia convinced that 1.There was no way this month would be better than the last one, and 2. I would NOT get attached to anyone. Maybe later in the Race, but definitely not a second month in a row.
The rest of Fearless BoZo(teams Fearless Laughter, Bold Radiance and Sozo) will tell you this was the best month yet, and for them that was true. Me, I spent the first two weeks complaining about the cold(in my defense, it WAS freezing and I had given away most of my warm clothes at debrief), missing Mabe’s cooking, pushing my team away in preparation for team changes at the end of the month, and feeling like our ministry was pointless because it wasn’t as relational as last month. Then I spent the next two weeks scrambling to make up for lost time and trying not to let myself look too forward to a new month and a fresh start. When you waste the first half of your month, it’s easy to feel defeated and just want to get the rest over with so you can forget how horrible it was.
Notice that 98 of my 99 problems stemmed from comparing this month to the others. In Bolivia I couldn’t do this because I had no other months.
Earlier this month, Esther shared how she’d been struggling with getting attached and not wanting to say goodbye. Wes asked her, “Why else are you here?”
Why indeed? We signed up to have our hearts ripped out 11 times. That’s the whole point of everything we’re doing. God sent us to love like he does, and he doesn’t pick and choose who to love based on how much it’ll hurt.
I need to start loving more like him and less like me.
Next month I get a whole new continent to love…God has done so much in me in South America, but I can already tell he has even bigger things in Asia! Pray for us as we start traveling late at night on the 2nd!
