Embracing the struggle!
I made it to Moldova: Embracing the struggle
Well after a 19 hour train ride, a 5 hour bus ride which turned into a 7 hour bus ride because our bus broke down, and then another 2 hour bus ride on top of that, we finally made it to our debrief site in Moldova! It was a long two days of traveling in hot and sweaty conditions, but I was really thankful for it. My eyes and heart has sure been opened to what it feels like to be on the world race!!!!
We had a weeklong of debrief which is an event that we have after every 2 months. It is a time where our coaches, squad leaders, and whole squad come together for a week long retreat. It is a time where our team meets with our coaches and squad leaders where they evaluate how we are doing individually and as a team. They ask us many questions and interview us by seeing how we are doing physically, emotionally, and most of all spiritually.
The week was such a blessed week of getting to see everyone from the squad. It was a great debrief where the Lord really used our coaches and squad leaders to help us get motivated to dig deeper as a team to really go deeper spiritually as a group. It also was a time where people reflected on my leadership and me as a man of God! I felt really blessed by the experience and what the Lord is stirring up in our team and I am learning a lot about what it means to be a leader and a man of God.
The week was especially good for me because it gave me a time to rest and to just be with God! I never realized how much I miss being alone. I found a room by myself and loved getting the opportunity to spend time with God alone and just be able to rest with not worrying about anything else.
After the week long debrief we left for another 2 hour bus ride back to the capital of Moldova. Then we met our contact and he drove us about an hour to the village where we are staying at and in working in. We are in a place called Rassvet, Moldova.
We are in a pretty remote place where we have an outdoor shower, an outhouse which is a wooden box with a hole in it to go to the bathroom, and a well down the street that we have to walk to when we need to get drinking water, cooking water, and water for the shower. We are blessed to live in a house on mattresses but it is definitely the most growing place physically that we have had to endure so far. Yet I believe we are being very humbled and blessed by living here. It is giving our team such an appreciation for everything that we have grown up with and taken for granted back home. It is also a month for God to prepare us for what awaits us in Kenya, Africa next month.
It has been somewhat hard for me personally to be here. The physical conditions have been a little bit hard just because there are always things that need to be done. But the part that has been harder for me is missing home. I was really struggling about two days ago with just a spirit of sadness and feeling like home is so so far away. Nine months feels so long away and there is a part of me that feels like I can’t even imagine what it feels like to be back home because it seems so far away. Yesterday I felt like the Lord called me to “fast” to really help me get past this sadness and to seek him intimately.
Even though yesterday was really hard, I felt really blessed by God giving me the strength to do this fast. I also got the opportunity to wake up yesterday at 5:30 am to go to a grape vineyard and cut grapes off of the vineyard for the harvest. It was hard, but yet so peaceful. It was exactly what I needed, to work hard, get dirty, and be alone with God!
I felt like yesterday God humbled me a lot reminding me of all the things that I need to be thankful for. I was really thankful for the blessing of food, especially as the day went on and I became more and more hungry. I also started to be so thankful for all of my friends and family back home and everywhere that God has blessed me with. I started to remember and realize how blessed I am by how God has given me so many people who truly love me. I remember when I was starting high school and I didn’t have many friends. I remember praying for friends many, many nights. As I look back at my life I am completely in awe of how many people God has blessed me with that once again truly loves me and are people who are “For” me. They are people that I would trust my life with and are people I see Jesus in, in so many great and true ways!
So how I am doing: I am struggling a bit, but yet I am thankful for the struggle! I truly am, because God is using the struggle to bring me closer to Him! He is reminding me of His true love, His intimate Love that never leaves me or forsakes me. He is reminding me that I don’t need to worry about what my future will look like when I get home. He is reminding me that He is with me now and that since He is with me, I am home because He is my true home! God’s reminding me that He has better plans for me that I could ever hope or imagine – Ephesians 3:20
He is reminding me that I am on adventure, even when it doesn’t feel like I am. He is reminding me that when I am weak, He is strong – 2 Corinthians 12: 10 He is reminding me that He will never give up on me and that He is control of my life – Philippians 1:6. So I am embracing the struggle and trusting that God is using the struggle to mold me, shape me, and make me more like Him and more of the true man that God has created me to be in Him!
* God is bringing me back to being truly in love with him. Somewhere along the journey I have lost my true love for him and I am so thankful that He is creating my heart to fall back in love with him in a deeper way than I ever have before!
So whatever you are going through today and whatever struggles that you have, be encouraged that the Lord will use the struggle to help you be closer to Him. Have hope that God is using the struggle to help you feel His true and unfailing love in your heart and life. Trust that as Philippians 1:6 promises that God is a God who is faithful to complete the work that He has started in you! Cling to the promises that He will never leave you or forsake you and that He will always, always be with you!
And wherever you at in this world, whether it is far from home or far away from family and loves ones, know that you’re truly home! I am learning that it’s not where we’re at that makes us feel home, but rather who we are with! Jesus is with us in our hearts so that means we are home and that we never have to feel lonely, because we have our Savior and greatest friend is with us and in us!
Without Christ I have no idea where or who I would be. I would be so so lost. He has truly given me a true hope and love that I don’t even know how to explain or fathom. As I type this it brings tears to my eyes because He truly is the Hope of my life!
Wherever you are at and whatever your going through know that you’re not alone and that you have a true Hope in this world there with you! If you cry out to him and talk to him, I promise that He hears you and will answer you in ways that only He can! Just have an open heart and cling to him, I promise He won’t ever leave you and will always be with you, even if you can’t see him there.
God Bless you all and thank you so much for being the friends, family, and people that you are to me in my life! It means so much that you read these blogs and that you pray for me and write to me!
I love you and so does Jesus!
Here are a couple of verses that I would like to share:
“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character, and character, Hope! And hope does not fail us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.” – Romans 5:1-5
“Consider it pure joy, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish it’s work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.” – James 1:2-4
“In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials these have come so that your faith – of greater worth than gold, which perishes even through refined by fire – may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Through you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” – 1 Peter: 1:6-9
“Come near to God and he will come near to you.” – James 4:8
“Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you, so we say with confidence, The Lord is my helper, I will not be afraid, what can man do to me?” – Hebrews 15:13
I pray that you know God is with you and will always be with you – He will never leave you or forsake you, you are his children who He loves, who he died for, and who He continues to fight for! God loves you and will always, always be there for you, He will never give up fighting for you!
I pray that we can all remind each other this, because we all need to be reminded when the storms and trials come!
God Bless you all and again thank you for being the people who you are to me and in your lives. Know that you are making a big difference in this world, a bigger impact than you will ever know or realize!
He Lives in You – there is always Hope in Jesus Christ – the hope of all glory living in you! – Colossians 1:27
Here is a video that I recorded last night talking about my struggles and what God is doing with me and in me. As always I am posting a song that the Lord is really speaking to me through! It’s called “Worn” by Tenth Avenue North!
God Bless you all,
“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”- Romans 15:13
Your friend and brother in Christ,
Ryan
Below are some video's from Moldova:
