The first month of ministry is done and now we are in Ecuador
Month one was great we had an awesome host and ministry and we learned a lot saw God in a lot of places.
Some of the things God was teaching me was about self-worth, the gifts he has given me, and the love he has for me.
Gifts. God has given me amazing gifts that I can use or not use. with being on a team we are all given gifts that are sometimes different or sometimes the same. I have an amazing team that is talented in a lot of ways some of us are gifted in the same way. It is easier to look at the gift that I share with others and say that they are better than I am at it. Or to be jealous of the gifts that I don’t have. I was struggling with finding my place on my team with what I brought to the table I felt like everything was already there. This is where God was showing me two things. One, with all our we each bring very different perspective and second that it is about being at the table not what I bring to it. My gifts don’t earn my salvation I cannot earn the grace that God has Freely given me. And I have put too much weight on my abilities.
Self-worth/Gods love for me. I unknowingly and knowingly have struggled with self-worth for a long time. When I was young I was told I am dyslexic after doing some tests and I let that become the thing that made me who I was. it became my identity it became something that I felt I had to work around, that I started thinking in ways of what would be easiest for me to get around this problem. It is hard to accept yourself or even farther love yourself. If you hate a part of yourself and I couldn’t begin to grow if I wasn’t accepting myself as a whole self. the good parts and the parts that needed growth. To receive love from God and others I need to be a whole. Jesus came to love the broken and make them whole. To be made whole by God I am leaning to accept my brokenness and let him put me back together. Letting go of the shattered pieces of life and let him turn it into something new.
We are in Qutio and it is all squad month there are 60 people in one house / some tents we get to go on adventure days with other teams and get to better know people outside our team. We have multiple ministries this month we are working with a preschool, church plant, teaching English and cooking. Our plate is very full.
Prayer requests
1 find rest in the Lord and in the business, with having 60 people here it is hard remember to set aside time to get some R & R and not feel like I might be missing out on something.
2 for focus on the tasks at hand. We have a lot to do this month and it is easy to get ahead of our self and start planning for something that we aren’t working on yet or that we start thinking about the past and missing something that is already gone.
3 A thankful heart. This is one of the bigger struggles of this month, is the poverty mentality that we can slip into we have smaller meals here. And instead of being thankful for the wonderful food we are being blessed with. We sometimes complain about how much it is and think we are going to starve.
With blessings Stephen Carver.
