The thing I liked most about fence building was that I knew what I was doing, I knew how to do it and, if I didn’t, I knew how to figure it out (like the time I had to learn how to run a chainsaw or else hold up the entire process. I can now trim a post by holding it in one hand and the chainsaw in the other) but at the end of the day I could see what I’d accomplished. I knew what needed to be done the next day in order to finish a job so we could move on to the next. We would move to a new job and I knew the first thing I needed to do, get all my tools on the four wheeler, ready to brace and pull out wire. I knew what needed to be done, I knew how to do it and I could see what I had done at the end of the day.
My favorite part was putting in the strainers, if you don’t know fencing terminology it’s the part where you tighten all the wires, it meant you were basically done. The posts were in, the braces were installed, the wire was up, all that was left was tightening it up (yes daddy, we had to hang gates yet but you get my point 🙂 it was also the point where you could easily tell if you had gotten any wires crossed while slogging through mud. I could verbalize and even put on paper what I had accomplished. And it felt good!
Our ministry this month was Unsung Heroes, a month were we my team is looking for potential ministries for Adventures in Missions to partner with in the future. We created a goal at the beginning of the month to contact 45 people and to have 10 potential hosts.
First off there is not 45 ministries to contact in Serbia, or at least we couldn’t find them, and second we didn’t hear back from 10 people. From a fencers point of view we failed. And if you were to look at our success report you would agree.
However… we connected with a man who has a ministry to the neighborhood kids and their families. Next thing we knew we were spending a lot of time with him and what he does. We went from being in bed, sleeping, by 8 and waking up at 4am, to going to bed sometime after midnight and waking up between 9 and noon because our evenings got so busy spending them with our new friends.
We had the opportunity to join him in his ministry among the neighborhood kids at the bible study he has with them. We also visited some of the families; I drank 8 cups of Turkish tea in one night, (Iraq throwback). There were game nights with people from the small group, we went sledding one day, visited a farm the next where we had a home cooked meal and got our “mom” tanks filled up, learned how to make doughnuts, saw community in action…
Our month turned into finding ways we could encourage these Christians God had put in our path and in turn being encouraged ourselves.
We also found out that we made an impression on the waiters at our favorite restaurant. “We all talk about you. The first time you came in we noticed you were happy. The next time you came in we knew there was something different. We noticed you praying before you ate and you thanked us for everything. I knew I had to talk to you.” (this came from a conversation two of my team mates had with one of the waiters when they went out with him for coffee.) It was a simple act of fulfilling a human need, eating, that turned into opportunity because they saw Jesus in us.
On one of our last night’s there our new friends had a farewell party for us. He told us that the night before he was thinking about snow (which he hates) and wolves (our team name is wolf pack). He saw a picture of snow and felt God saying “look at the wolves”. He was like “I don’t see any wolves”. “Look closer”. And that’s when he saw the wolf prints in the snow. He said “you don’t know the impact you’ve had in Serbia because you’re going forward and you don’t see the prints you’ve left because you’re not looking back”.
I can’t look down the line and see what I’ve accomplished this month. I can’t see if the posts are all in and straight, if the wires are all up and tightened with no wires crossed, and I don’t know if the gates are hung.
If you were to look at the success of this month on paper… we failed- we contacted 19 ministries and have maybe 8 potential hosts. But if you were to ask us how we felt we would tell you, because of Jesus, we succeeded.
Bible study/game night with the neighborhood kids
Game night with friends
Sledding
My happy place, a home in the country…
…it’s not a lamb but it’s close enough
I have officially passed the halfway mark, which means I’m half done but I still have the other half to go. Please pray for me to not lose heart but to finish this race well.
