Where in the world is Shawndell?
If you guessed Mozambique, you are correct! Winner, winner chicken dinner!
Team Abundant Life is currently located in Mafambisse, Mozambique along with team Last Place, serving with a ministry called Mama Rita’s. We arrived here safely on Tuesday after 2 days of God-ordained travel, including bus drivers that took physical hits from corrupt police, a night in a random hotel that kicked us out at 6 AM, a minibus overcome by gas fumes and a surprise ice cream treat just when we needed it. God is so good!
Our ministry here was started by a woman named Mama Rita. Its focus is widows and orphans, Mama Rita herself houses 15 orphans and there are 15 more that the ministry helps who live with guardians in the village. Mama Rita herself is a widow; her husband was attacked and killed in an ambush by individuals of the Muslim faith in 2007 when he was sharing his faith. Initially caring for her own 7 children and 9 orphans, her main form of support was her nephew Peter’s teaching salary, who is blind and teaches agriculture to other blind students. Now several outside ministries help financially support this ministry, and we are blessed to be the 11th and 12th World Race teams to partner with Mama Rita’s ministry.
There are many opportunties for ministry here including Bible studies with the orphans, outreach and evangalism in the village, prison ministry, teaching seminars and much more. The interesting part for me is that I have been here for almost a week and I have yet to be involved with any ministry. In fact as I type this, I’m sitting at the house while most of the others have left on an overnight outreach in another village. You might wonder at this and assume that I’m not feeling well or have some over-arching task to work on in their absence, but that would be false. I’m literally doing nothing. And it is much harder than I thought it would be.
The first day that we arrived to Mafambisse and were hearing about ministry for the month, I knew this would be different for me because my initial thought in response to the many ministry opportunities was: “I don’t want to do ANYTHING!” And that scared me. It wasn’t because the ministry wasn’t to my taste; I love kids and Bible studies, and not even those appealed to me, in fact they repulsed me. I was very discouraged and I didn’t understand how I could have so little enthusiasm for a ministry. Sure, sometimes it isn’t exactly what we love but for me it’s always been an opportunity to grow.
I was confused and frustrated when I shared with my teammate Megan and Lauren from team Last Place and then I discovered something. APPARENTLY, it’s not good to go 5 months straight without making yourself REST. My team confirmed that while I’ve had days off of ministry, I haven’t made a practice of resting my spirit and restoring what I have given out. Those have been my days to do my checklist and make sure I do everything that I haven’t been able to get done at other times. Did you know God actually has a rule about Sabbath? And that it’s for rest, not to catch up on your to-do list? I guess God felt I needed to learn that now, and that is why I could find no joy in the idea of ministry… I had nothing to give.
So this first week God has made me stay back from ministry to catch up on my Sabbath (which poses another challenge all together… How do you really REST? Not just a physical nap either. Yeah, think about that one for a while). He is teaching me how to just BE, I don’t have to always DO, so when I start going to ministry again it will probably look very different than my usual in-the-thick-of-things approach. I don’t have to out-serve anyone, my worth in God’s eyes is not based off of how many orphans I hug or how many hand games I learn. My relationship with my Father is all that matters, and I need to be full to pour out to others. That is all that matters.
So bring on the rest and restoration. I’m ready for more.
