(A combination of random things from the first two weeks)
1. One of the biggest realizations I’ve had is that while I have a tendency to try
and define the stage of life I am in, the Lord simply wants me to live with Him.
It wouldn’t be serving Him to let the World Race define my life for nine months;
as the World Race is not a necessity of serving the Lord. My life is defined by
serving the Lord and serving others each and every day of my life. While the
next nine months is indeed a new stage of life, this isn’t month one, but month
228. The Lord didn’t just now start working in my life, He has been faithfully
and consistently working on my heart since before I was on this earth; the
World Race is simply another tool He will use to reveal Himself.
2.There is something intoxicating about watching God transform someone from
death to life.
-late night thoughts after hearing testimony
3.During the first few days there was a lot of spiritual warfare and as I was trying
to decide how I should process it all, a quote from C.S. Lewis’, Screwtape
Letters, came to mind. “We either make the mistake of attributing too much or
too little to the Enemy”
-C.S. Lewis (probably not exactly right bc I don’t have internet to look it up)
4.Quick shoutout to Josie/ Everyone: I was trying to explain to someone what
kind of things I did with my friends and the only things I could think of were
going on walks and daydreaming in the car while listening to U2. Also
someone asked me to describe what my friends are like and I had no words to
describe you all.
5. Funniest Fail of the Week: Abby, Maggie, Casey, and I finally decided to watch
a movie. So after making the biggest deal about it, setting up a sleeping pad,
making tea, and finding a way to make the headphone splitter work, I was
tragically informed that I had forgot to download ALL my movies from iCloud…
Jace on the Race saved us all by letting us watch one of his movies, The
Secret Life of Walter Mitty, where I determined that it’s one of my favorite
movies and that Hollywood makes a point of villain-izing corporate America.
Also a great moment in Secret Life of Walter Mitty is when Sean tells Walter
that he sometimes misses the picture if a moment is too good to be distracted
by the camera.
6. Me: “your country is so beautiful”
Local: “tell me exactly what about it is beautiful”
Me: “the mountains and all the different plants”
Local: “mmm… no”(nervous laugh)
Maggie: ”what do you love about Swaziland”
Local: “there is peace here. you see other countries struggling with wars and
violence and I do not see that here. one thing that is missing is freedom. I
don’t see that here, like I do in other places”
7. Ministry: Ministry is a bit slow and because the kids only know a few phrases
in English I spend most of the day inside my own head. It’s through this that
the Lord reveals things to me. After the first two days, I realized that I was
feeling differently from most other people in that being with the kids has been
mostly sad; there is no real explanation other than that we are temporary and
these kids have no permanent looking after. It’s clear to see that these kids
are neglected in big ways like physical and mental abuse, but it’s witnessing
the small things everyday that breaks my heart for their poverty. For example,
today we pulled tiny worms out of a 3 year old’s neck without the smile coming
off his face, as if this was a daily thing. When a small girl pointed at her foot
and I saw a nail had come off revealing a bad infection, all I could really think
was that I wish there was someone who made these small things a big deal. I
think that it’s human to look at suffering, no matter what scale, and to worry
how someone with no worldly comfort could further understand that the Lord
of the universe loves them. True love must be difficult to understand when
there is no one who cares about the worms in your neck, no one changing your
diapers for hours at a time, no one to be playful and laugh and dance with. Of
course these things are not necessities of love, but the small things are big
indicators that someone is there to genuinely care about you. Understanding
how to separate the difference between culture and a need of Jesus is
difficult, because we are here to build up and speak life into these people not
to tear them down and label them broken. The sadness that I feel during
ministry isn’t solvable by anything other than these people knowing Jesus.
The Lord is showing me that big change happens through first noticing the
small changes that need to be made.
