Hey everyone! Quick update and then a story: So our giant squad was living together for a month in White River South Africa. It’s been a blast helping the mama’s all over this area with the children. We’ve been playing games, painting nails, sharing skits about Jesus, worshipping and even cooking at the ministries. Our hosts have even been kind enough to show us every beautiful sight from waterfalls to South African safaris on our off days.
We all have split up into our new teams and made our way to Lesotho. If you want to see the awesome girls on my team you can find them on the left hand side of my blog page. We are in Maseru and Khubetsoana, Lesotho. We’re living in our hosts living room so it’s like a giant slumber party for 2 whole months! But as a team we will be working with Youth for Christ. I think we will work with kids and youth teaching them about their identity in God and telling them about their worth in God’s eyes and not society’s.
(By the way sorry for the few updates, wifi is scarce here. We have a restaurant with wifi a mile or so away from up that we can walk to so I will hopefully update you more.)
A few weeks ago in South Africa I sat down with a lady from a bible school we were able to visit and worship at. Her name was Eunice and she was a pastor who wanted to learn more.
After we got to know eachother at a first name basis and talked about life she asked me a few questions.
“Why are you here?” Well we’re here on a mission trip to serve the community and whatever our hosts mission is.
“What is the mission teams intentions?” We want to serve and help in anyway possible. We want to take a load off of our host so they can really focus on what they’re aiming to do. We want to share the gospel and share love with everyone.
“What are your personal intentions?” I have a big passion for making people feel seen and heard. I want to love on them the way Jesus would and show them how much value God has given them and that they are actually seen and heard.
“What is a missionary supposed to do?”
We’re supposed to make an impact with whoever God puts in our path. We’re supposed to create relationships and discipleships and bring people to know who Jesus Christ is.
She looked at me with a sad smirk. She explained how she hasn’t always experienced what I told her from other missionaries. She told me she was always a little confused with the intentions of missionaries. Then she explained I was the first missionary to take the time to sit down and talk to her.
I asked her what we as missionaries could do to make a better impact and a different impression. I wanted to know how we could change her outlook on missionaries and how we could better serve.
She looked at me for a second and her sad smirk turned into a smile. “LOVE” she said. She explained that the biggest impact someone could make is to love, even in the smallest ways.
She explained how missionaries would file in and out DOING things but they never stopped to LOVE .
She was so happy to tell me how I was one of the first to take time to stop and talk with her. It was a bit sad for me to hear that. 1 Corinthians 13: 1-3 says “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.” It’s sad to see the most important action (love) gets lost in all of the Do’s of the world.
A challenge that I have for everyone, whether you are on the other side of the world in a new culture, at a coffee shoppe down town, or even in your own house; take time to love. Slow down, stop doing and just take a moment to love those around you whether you’ve known them all your life, you just met them or you barely speak the same language. Love is universal, it’s simple. You don’t have to perform or do anything big. Just take time to focus on those around you, listen and share your heart.
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