Our First Week
If anyone was to ask me a week ago if I was excited to be
going on this year long trip, I would have said no. I had completely lost all
of my desire to go.
This past year was a rough year for me, and I was slowly starting to lose my
passion for ministry. I was not in any
mood to be around a bunch of people who were going to challenge me to grow in
my faith or to be put in a situation that would give me a taste of what I used
to love and crave, because I feared regaining my passion for ministry. Now I am so thankful that I made this
commitment long before I lost my passion. I know this is where I’m supposed to be, even if it does get really
difficult!
This past week our entire squad of 32 young adults was
together for a time of training and preparing for the months of ministry
ahead. It was a time of getting
acclimated to the culture, of praying together as a team, and preparing
ourselves for the hardships that were going to come with every aspect of this
trip. All 31 of my team members are
absolutely beautiful people, and I’m so thankful that I have had a week to get
to know them and see them shine in their gifts and their love for God. We are very quickly becoming a family and a
strong community. Our prayer is that we
will mold together as a strong community and that God will use us in
unimaginable ways this next year.
Please be in prayer for our smallteams as we head out to begin working in the city and the surrounding villages
near Palenque. Half of our squad will be working in rural
villages outside of Palenque
where there are 212 different villages with 5 different dialects. Our team and two other teams will be staying
in Palenque and
working with some of the local churches. We are meeting with one of the pastors tonight to see what he has
planned for us.
This week’s highlights….
us when we go into town. On our first
day here one of the girls on my small team met the boy and bought him some
lunch. He explained to us that he did
not have a mother and his father walked out on him when he was 4 years
old. He is a sweet little boy and he
knows that he is always invited to join us for meals when we are in the
city!
We also made a trip to Agua Azul as a squad, which is awaterfall that we were able to climb. It
was absolutely beautiful!
