In Ethiopia my squad leader lead us through the value cards. The value cards are made up of over 50 values that could apply to us or not. Before we sat down as a team to discuss them we all chose our top three values which is actually hard. We were told not to ask anyone’s opinions or talk to our other teammates about there process, which even made it harder. Especially for my people’s opinions really effect me. Through a long process of elimination my top three are: freedom, connection and service.
I chose freedom because of my high value for the freedom that the Lord has given me. Freedom in my ability to just be myself. Also my new found freedom from fear and the lies of the enemy. Without freedom I dingy think we can be our selves to the fullness that we were created to be.
Connection, I chose connection because of my high value for people and communion. I had family, friends, dependability and communication all in my top ten and I could easily narrow them down to connection. Over the past couple months on the race I have really seen my highly value for connection. I find my people and I stick with them, which to an extent is a fault. I am refueled by connection and often driven by the people around me. I am a people person and my favorite part about the race is the people I get to be around 24/7 and all the people I get to meet on the way.
Lastly, I chose service. Through going on short term mission trips before the race I realized my calling of service. As I am able to use me freedom to connect with people I get to serve them. Serving people and helping them live the life we are closed to live brings me life. When I am serving I feel highly connected to the Father and I get to the love the people around me.
So when my team then came together to talk about these value cards the Lord showed me the hearts of my sisters around me and where I lack in some values. We all chose one that as a team we thought we should work on. Our words where: patience, happiness, growth, discipline, curiosity, honor, freedom and simplicity. I chose simplicity because I was tried of our team over complicating people’s intentions and over complicating the idea of living together in general. I wouldn’t say that that has improved a ton still but I learned a lot through simplicity for my self.
It was pointed out to my that on the whole race we have done everything extravagantly. With holidays, birthdays and basically anything that we could we have gone way overboard. With that I realized that I struggled to love people simply. I use birthdays and big occasions to go hard but in the normal and the mundane I don’t do much. I struggle with the simple acts of kindness. This was kind of mind blowing to me and shocking how true it was. I feel like it should be the opposite, that the simple things should be easy for me.
