And just like that…
I’m nearing the end of month 2 on the Race.
If someone asked me, “How was month 2?”
And I said, “It was good.”
That would in no way encompass how incredibly awesome, challenging, heartbreaking, precious, frustrating, hilarious, exhausting, and inspiring, my time in Guatemala has been.
I know when I look back on this month in Guatemala, I will forever remember it as a month of growth.
LOVE
The first couple days here at Los Gozosos, I asked the Lord for a Supernatural love for the children here, and boy, did I ever receive. One of my teammates said it best… “If I’m sad, and cry when I leave a ministry site, it’s good. It’s good because I know I gave all of me. When I leave, I’m going to be leaving a piece of my heart behind.” You bet the tears are going to flow like waterfalls when I leave here.
JOY
A Christian artist, named Matthew West, has a song called, “The Last Ones.” In the song he talks about a fan of his named Taylor. Taylor has Down’s syndrome, and West, beautifully articulates how we shouldn’t feel sorry for people with special needs. In fact, most people with special needs, have something that most of us seem to miss in course of our “busy,” and “important,” lives. Joy. How have we missed it? These children at Los Gozosos (Gozosos, in Spanish, means joy filled people) have been blessed with overflowing joy. We could all take a lesson in infinite joy from these kids.
“Maybe the last ones, are the lucky ones,
The ones who’ve got this whole thing figured out.
Cause when they go looking for something beautiful,
They start looking from the inside out.”
PEACE
While on a large porch swing, a chicken pox scarred, yet beautiful face, looks up at me, and finds joy and rest in my eyes. We break the gaze to look at the flame like colors of the setting sun. Those precious moments that you wish would freeze and you could keep forever? Yeah, I have lot of those this month. Most of them involve sitting on a swing with one of my kids. It’s in those quiet moments, that I am overcome by supernatual peace and it completely envelops me.
PATIENCE
Working with children with special needs isn’t all butterflies and rainbows. It’s hard. It’s hard to maintain that love and joy when you are continually getting pinched, or you just got stabbed in the face with a pencil, and not by accident. It’s in those moments that I am learning to pray harder. Pray harder for a spirit of patience, and pray harder to see the kid as a child of God. Not even just that, praying to see the child as the most beloved prince or princess of the Most High King. You don’t mess with a prince or princess of the Most High King.
KINDNESS
Being kind is easy right? Not when you live with 12 other women 24/7. Community is hard. You have to work at it every day. There were times this month, that I didn’t feel like being kind. There were a few times, that I wasn’t, and I spoke out of frustration, and I hurt people. The cool thing about this community though is that they don’t put up with that, all in a spirit of grace, though. They know who I am. They know how Christ sees me, and they encourage to go forward and to walk in a spirit of kindness.
GOODNESS
It’s easy to get discouraged working in a special needs orphanage. How is any of this good? How is God’s goodness prevalent in this situation? In these moments of doubt and frustration, God reminds me that he is sovereign. I see His goodness in the nannies that care and love on the children. I see His goodness in little Lila and Daniel learning how to lay hands on someone and pray. I see His goodness in Helen dancing with a fierce Spirit of the Lord upon her during church. His goodness is all around. You just gotta be open to seeing it.
FAITHFULNESS
Learning faithfulness this month has been super heartbreaking. I often get this vision of Jesus and I dancing on an ocean shore. Every time that I choose to give into to selfishness, comparison, and just plain, crankiness, I allow them to cut into me and Jesus dancing. And I start dancing with those other things. This month has been super full of remembering to continually dance with the Lord, because He is super faithful, even when I choose to dance with others.
GENTLENESS
(Dear future racers) When they tell you at training camp to do feedback with an oreo method. postive, constructive, positive, do it. One thing that can really destroy, not only unity within the team, but friendships inside the team, is a lack of gentleness in feedback. I’ve been blessed with a super awesome team, and it’s cool how we are together in the learning process of gentleness with our words. For me, this month, I really learned how much my words have power to either build up or destroy. I am continually seeking how to best speak with gentleness in the forefront of my mind.
SELF-CONTROL
This month it’s been cool because we’ve had WIFI at our ministry site, which is also where we live. It can be super easy to get caught up in catching up with friends and family, or just waste myself away on pinterest. Times like this is where the whole self-governance thing comes into play. It’s cool that the Lord is showing me that I do have a lot more self-control than I thought I did. I hope and pray that this self-control, this discipline, can be carried further into other aspects of my life.
Hopefully now you can see a little more into what I’ve been learning and can see that I’m in this thing for the long haul.
With that all said…
I still have $3,000 left to raise by my next deadline of October 1st.
You can donate online under my picture at the DONATE HERE button, or you can make checks payable to Adventures in Missions, with MY NAME (Which is Mary Middleton, btw) in the memo, and mail them to PO Box 534470, Atlanta, GA, 30353-4470.
Thank you so much for supporting me so far, and I can’t wait to see what God has for me in the next 9 months of my World Race.
😀
Here's a video about my time at Los Gozosos
