This month has been one for the books. I’m going to apologize in advance because I have a feeling that this is going to be one of my longer blogs. There is so much to tell you. So maybe go grab a warm drink and a blanket and cuddle up on the couch? Or.. you know.. just stay seated where you are – but you can’t say I didn’t warn you!
I’m going to start at the very beginning… at least the very beginning of this month. So, this past month I was with a new, all girls, team! We partnered with an organization called Neuva Generacion in Antigua, Guatemala. This month has been my favorite so far, even though it was probably the most challenging for me mentally. Let me tell you why.
Ministry
We started off the month translating a 70 some page document that is used as a textbook in some of the schools. None of us speak any Spanish so it was definitely a challenge, but I think it was a huge way to bless our ministry host. We were able to go into the city most days and sit at a coffee shop on our computers which was great.
One day towards the beginning of the month, we also did some construction. There is a family that has been living in a school that a house is being built for. That day we helped move 200 cinderblocks down a big hill. It took 6 of us all morning and into the afternoon to do that. There are only 2 guys really working on building the house so I think our manpower helped them out. I wish we could have helped them out more, but moving forward I think they needed people who had a little more construction knowledge than we have.
The last week and a half we were able to go to a school and help teach! I have fallen in love with teaching. I was able to help out in both a values class and an English class. The days we were working at the school were definitely the longest days I’ve ever had on the race (waking up at 4am, leaving at 5am, walking to one bus, taking that bus into Antigua, waiting 25 minutes for another bus, getting on that bus which was an hour long, finally arriving at the school, teaching all day, then the 2 hour adventure getting back home), but they were also some of the most rewarding! It was so cool seeing the change in the students’ attitudes towards learning English in our short time there with them. You could tell that they looked forward to our classes. We got them laughing, playing various games with them, singing Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes, and having basic conversations with them. It was so much fun. I honestly could see myself doing something like that for a longer period of time in the future.
Team
I fell in love with my team this month. Being on a co-ed team in the past was good, but it was also really good to have a month where we were able to come together as women of God. The girls on my team are positive, loving, caring, and willing to push you. Together, we had a Bible study going through all of the women of the Old Testament. It was really cool to see how digging into the Bible together brings you so much closer. A bunch of us also worked out together throughout the month which led to lots of laughs. Together we pressed into what it means to have gentle boldness. I’m going to miss these girls so much!
Food
This was the first month on the Race so far for me where we were able to cook for ourselves! It was awesome!!! Colleen, a girl on my team, loves cooking and is super talented at it, so she cooked the majority of or meals and boy were they delicious! J
Housing Situations and God’s Provision
So, we started the month off in this little log cabin. It was great. We had bunk beds, and hot showers – World Race luxuries. We were all settled in and then found out that a retreat was coming and we were going to have to move to an apartment a ways away. We were all quite confused because it seemed to us that there was plenty of room for us to stay where we were. There were two huge rooms that we weren’t in – more than enough room for this retreat. Yet, we packed up all our stuff and moved to the apartment.
The apartment was great – except for one small (or not so small) problem. There were rats! Not in the apartment, but in-between the false ceiling and the roof. And, they’d only come at night. So, we would all be lying down trying to go to sleep and then the rats would go crazy. They actually sounded as large as cats. They would pounce and they scurry. Let’s just say it led to quite a few not-so-great nights of sleep.
Even though we had accepted it and were ok with it, we were still confused as to why we had been moved to the apartment. However, I’m definitely not confused anymore. A few days after we had moved our ministry let us know that a huge tree had fallen on the house and completely destroyed the rooms we had been staying in. Everyone that was in the house at the time was safe – not even a scratch. But if we had been there and in those rooms, I don’t think the same could have been said. God was looking out for us. He placed it on our ministry host’s heart to move us. He had made sure that apartment was available while we were there. He protected the people who were in the house. Isn’t God’s provision great?! What do we have to worry about?
And, about the rats… it really wasn’t that bad. If anything, it helped my team to have lots of laughs and screams together and now some pretty great memories!
Internal Battle
So, as you can probably tell, I really loved this month. It has by far been my favourite. Yet, as I mentioned, it was mentally challenging for me. This month I struggled to be as positive, loving, and serving as I know I can be. I felt worn down from the first three months and felt like I had the space and ability to slack a little more in those areas this month. But that’s not how I want to ‘run this race’. I want to choose the best me every single moment of every single day. I want to work on growing myself and learn more and more about what it looks like to live like Jesus.
I was tired. I was sick. I was worn out. Why? I was trying to do it myself. I wasn’t going to God for my strength and energy. I wasn’t going to God in the hard moments. I was learning a lot about Him and the women of the Bible in our team times, but I let my personal devo time slide to the side when our schedule got busy and as a result I wasn’t as joyful, loving, and serving as I know I can be when I let God fill me up. Where does my help come from? It comes from the Lord. Where does your help come from? It comes from Him too. So, I want to challenge you reflect on your life and see if you are letting God fill you up with those things to then pour out to those around you.
Thank you so much for reading this! Central America has been great, but there are some big changes coming soon! So stay tuned for those!
