Answers

 

This is not a new concept or new idea that God has shown me, but recently God has been revealing to me more and more the importance of relationships, and what a treasure they are.  He has been revealing what a blessing every relationship is, and that I need to be a better steward of relationships.  It is easy to lose touch with people, even people you have known your whole life and been great friends with.  I really want to take time to pray over some of the relationships in my life, that I have let slip away, and start communicating with people I have lost touch with.  It would be real easy to have no communication with people for a whole year, and that would make things difficult upon getting home.  Also, I want to be better about blogging, to make sure I am including as many people as possible on this journey.

 

Something else (again not new) that God has reminded me of, is to pray for more love in my life.  I pray that God would give me more love for God, and more love for people.  This will ignite my prayer life, and spring forth amazing relationships with God and others.  If I am loving God more, I want to spend more time with Him, communicating through prayer and reading His word.  I also will have a greater desire to serve His people.  And if I have more love for others, it will make finding time to pray for them a blessing, and a priority.  It will also make serving others easier.  So I have been praying for more love!

 

 

First I will say that a lot of our ministry thus far, I have found, has really been simply serving our contacts.  We minister to them in prayer, and service.  We help them with physical labor.  We serve the people they serve.  The greater a blessing we can be to our ministry contacts, the greater a blessing they will in turn be to the people God has placed in their ministry.

 

That being said, in Central America, we were lucky because each team had a Spanish speaker.  We have Melina on our team, and she speaks fluently.  Kelsi also speaks very well, and the rest of us had a pretty good base knowledge of Spanish.  So we would speak through Melina or Kelsi, and if they weren’t around, through our contacts.  Sometimes we would share the best we could with the spanish we knew.  We also had contacts who speak spanish, so they would translate in churches when we would preach.  Thailand was more difficult, because none of us speak Thai.  We spoke in churches still, and spoke through translators.  We speak simply and to the point to our translators, and they are able to elaborate on what we say.

 

Also, we have gotten really really good at non-verbal communication!!!

 

~Jesse Lancour (Sunny D)

 

I know I will be different getting back to the states.  I think I am changing in a lot of ways that I may not even be noticing right now, but I think once I get back to the states I will start to notice the ways I have changed.  It is difficult to tell right now, because everyday is such an experience, that everyday you change.  I know that I have a greater appreciation for education, and hope to go back to UW-Milwaukee upon getting back and graduate.  I know that in America, there are tons and tons of resources.  You have everything you need.  There are tons of ways that you can minister back home, that you really can’t overseas.  It is easier to communicate, and organize gatherings.

 

I think that my ministry will be more focused on building relationships and meeting peoples physical needs.  When you take time to simply serve someone, it is a great representation of Christ.  A lot of what we are doing through with the World Race, is building relationships and meeting physical needs.

 

Also, I will be so excited that I won’t have to work past a language barrier.  It will be awesome to communicate so easily!

 

Finally, after living in some pretty humble situations, I will have a great appreciation for simple things, like running water and electricity 🙂

 

Final finally, I have such appreciation for things that can be easily overlooked back home.  When you are away from home for a time, you realize a lot about the life you were living.  I appreciate so much my family, my friends in milwaukee and elsewhere, Epikos (and the amazing worship band!), Cornerstone’s movement, Milwaukee, and even the cold weather!  I am excited to return.

 

I am sure that once the race is over, I will miss so much about it as well.  I really appreciate this opportunity that I have, and want to make the most of these remaining 8 months.

 

Next stop, Cambodia!!!