So a part of my ministry this month was doing manual labor to prepare an empty lot to be ready for a high school to be built on it. It started with digging roots out of the ground and then we shoveled wheel barrow after wheel barrow of dirt onto the lot to level it. The last part of the work we did was to dig a trench along one side of the lot. I believe the purpose is to pour cement into the trench and help prevent flooding into the school but I am not sure. Anyway, digging the trench was hard tedious work. I am on an all girls squad and most of us have little experience with manual labor. As well each day got more and more difficult as the rain caused the dirt to become mud that stuck to everything and became heavier and heavier each day. Add this to our growing tiredness and soreness from the work each day and it was just a very difficult couple weeks. Then on Thursday night, the night before our last day digging the trench, our squad leader came and spoke to the group. He spoke about how you have to desire change, you have to make the life you want to live. The world race is not always going to be full of adventure and you will not change if you don’t work for it. He challenged us to really think about the ministries and place we are at because it was for a very specific purpose that we were placed there. So on Friday our team got to our ministry sight and began digging the very wet and heavy mud out of the trench but our perspective had changed. We all became determined to reflect on the trench and figure out why it was that God had placed us at this specific spot digging the trench. We were more motivated than we had been since the beginning to not only finish the trench but to learn a lesson from digging the trench. After we had finished digging the trench we celebrated our accomplishment and then gathered together to talk about how digging the trench had been for each of us and what we learned through the process.
As I was digging I had been thinking about what Michael had been saying the night before and also about my expectations for the race. One thing I anticipated for the year coming into it is that I would be transformed by the ministries I am a part of and the people I met. However, I had this view that this would be a beautiful change. That it would occur through interactions with orphans and the poorest of the poor. That it would happen through the beautiful mountains, oceans, valleys and other sceneries I will be able to see over the next 11 months. But God taught me something through digging that trench. Change is not always going to be beautiful. Sometimes it will be messy, dirty, hard work. If I want to change I have to work for it and look for it not just in the beautiful moments I will experience on the race but also those ugly, uncomfortable and hard moments. I still expected to be changed on the race but it might not just be through the people I meet and the adventures I go on but just as importantly it can happen in the everyday mundane activities I do that will not always be fun and exciting but rather are dirty and uncomfortable and hard.
On a completely different note we have found out our ministry for Nicaragua. My team will be staying on a Island in the middle of lake Nicaragua (that also happens to have a volcano on the island) and will be working at an orphanage. We have rooms to stay in and bathrooms with toilets and hot showers and we will have people to prepare all three meals a day for us (we will eat the same food as the kids at the orphanage). We don’t know much beyond that but I am super excited!
Thank-you for your prayers and support. Please pray for safe travels to Nicaragua. We are getting on a bus at 4am Thursday to go 6 hours to Guatemala City and then we will be boarding another mega bus and making the 16-18 hour bus ride to Granada Nicaragua where we will all stay for three days before separating to our specific ministries. Our site does not have internet next month so to go online we will have to walk about ¾ mile into town so I am not sure how often I will blog next month. SO if you don’t hear from me for a while that is why
Take Care!
Stefani
