Well since my last post, I’ve had a lot to think about and work through, to talk about and get on top of. The mind is a powerful thing and your words and thoughts can build up or tear down. Our squad leader, Amy, came to stay with us for a week. Saturday morning, she mentioned that I seem on edge, which I was. Talking with her was quite helpful. Voicing your thoughts can allow you to see the truth behind them and the problems in your thinking. Working through shame is a continual thing for me. I don’t have to have shame for not being joyful and positive. I can acknowledge that there’s grace for me, and receive it! I expected Amy to invalidate my feelings or shame me for my negativity and the moment she didn’t, I got emotional feeling like I wasn’t worthy in that moment to receive grace. Agh I guess God is trying to do something with me through this month. We went to a bookstore that had lots of Christian books, so I got three. I read the smallest one in about 90 minutes and wrote the answers to the reflection questions in my phone. It was titled “Finding God in the Hard Times”—-it had a strong focus on lamenting and worshipping God, despite your pain and struggle. It was good! I like books because they help to change my mindset and get me thinking in a fresh way!
Something else to share: Friday marked “40 days until I’m home.” Many of my squad mates chose to fast something and our squad mentor encouraged us to start a habit now that we want when we get home. On July 1st, I started a dream journal. Every morning I write in it any dreams I can remember. If I for some reason can’t remember the dreams, I write what I’m thinking. It’s a habit I feel is worth having because I’ve had an usual experience with dreaming throughout my whole life: lucid dreaming, dreams with meaning, prophetic sometimes. So, I want to also improve my lucid dreaming abilities but also just log my dreams. I’ve successfully kept up with that everyday and secondly, I’ve begun listening to worship music in the mornings—-its definitely helped me to be more focused, positive, ready for the day, aware of my Spirit. That’s my other new “habit” sort of. The next book I started reading is called 10 Days Without (Daring Adventures in Discomfort That will Change Your World and You), by Daniel Ryan Day. It’s essentially about a guy who chose to go ten days without different things for the sake of raising awareness and potentially funds for organizations that help others. He invites others to join him in the experiments and spread the vision, and many people have. Together they served God and others while experiencing significant personal change in the process. “Join a movement that is confronting apathy and ignorance around the world to make an impact on people’s lives in a God-honoring way.” It’s totally my kind of book. I’m about halfway through and so far he went barefoot to raise money for people without shoes, went coatless to help provide coats to homeless people, went without any furniture to raise awareness of extreme poverty (I’ve witnessed this kind of poverty); and he went without his legs to raise awareness and understanding of people with special needs. I love being inspired and I’m loving this book!
This week one of my teammates reached out and raised money for our hosts to have enough money to finish building their home, about $1200 USD to be exact. So, in our last few days we will probably be laying concrete and/or painting the concrete wall. We spent about 5 hours throughout three days using shovels to level the dirt. It was so satisying to see our work done. We leave at 5am Friday morning to spend all day driving to Uganda, and goodbye Rwanda. I actually learned a LOT of the language here. It’s a little sad that I probably won’t use it any time soon. I’m impressed honestly with my ability to learn language so quickly, and I’ve gotten much notice and compliments from the locals because of it. I hope when I go back to America and start trying to complete my learning of the Spanish language that it comes this easily. It’s a goal I have for the next year.
Anyway, here’s a little compilation of some of my random videos this month.
