9 months.
9 months I’ve been living with and doing life with 44 other people. We have seen things. Done things. Went on many adventures. Seen the Lord do crazy things. Grown spiritually and some people grew in the way of how to wash dishes and clean up after themselves(: (sorry not sorry T squad) But for real this year has been amazing and I got blessed with an amazing team and squad all together.
Guatemala was a place where the Lord really worked in me. I learned so much and gained so much knowledge that month and found a passion for reading the Bible (started in John & Acts and would recommend it for anyone needing to find a starting place). I learned about the influence I carry and that people follow me without me trying. I had to learn how to channel that and use it well because it can be used for bad things. Learning those things I thought were just preparing me because I was a raised up team leader for my team but now I know I was learning and put in that for my next season which is alumni team leading in September again. I saw the power of God and how he loves to heal people. I heard testimony after testimony from the people living there that had seen God work so many miracles and it was truly a place God was moving through. I really loved the culture and how sweet everyone was to eachother you never walked past someone that didn’t say hi and have a welcoming smile on there face.
In Asia I saw spiritual warfare and felt it in our first couple weeks coming in without noticing it with feeling fatigued all the time. We learned how to fight it and how to pray against it. I struggled with not being able to tell people about the Lord and why we were there. Asia is a place where woman are house wives and that’s what they grow up wanting to be because that it their culture. Woman are looked at as objects that men are able to buy and use for a night. It was a time of learning how to pray for the people doing that to them. It was us learning how to pray for our enemies and realizing that those men are our brothers in Christ and we need to pray for them because that is not who God called them to be. There was a lot of sickness on my team in those months and it was hard on me just seeing them sick and trying to stay in high spirits with everything going on. I had to work on my patience and just trusting God that he would take care of them. All in all I loved Asia so much and we saw such beautiful things and we met some amazing Christians that are doing amazing things for their country. It is a place of hidden treasures and some of the nicest people I’d ever met.
Swazi. What a place Africa is. I picked this route for the main purpose that it was going to Africa and I wanted to go and was so excited. We were all squad in Africa and lived in a team house. We learned what living with 44 people was like again since we hadn’t all been together in Asia and it was hard at first. The culture here is something I am not a fan of if I’m being honest. It’s a place where woman again are at the bottom. Woman don’t have a say. We would get asked by men every time we went out to marry them. One time we were even being harassed saying that we didn’t have a say and that they would buy us and we would have to marry them. I struggled a lot that day with just feeling for the women that live here and praying that they do have a voice in things. Again this was a time where I knew I had to pray for the people I wasn’t fond of. Our ministry here was full of kids climbing on you and pulling your hair because they are trying to braid it. Also learning how to love the kids that just want to hit you because they don’t know how to show love so you just wrap them up in your arms and hug and kiss them. We are now best friends with all our kids that hurt us in the beginning. (: Swazi has been a place of excitement and emotions of leaving everyone and going home.
As much as I have loved this season of life and the people I am with I am so excited to come home and I believe the Lord has given me that peace. I think he is preparing my heart for leaving this community but peace because I know I will be entering another community after this. I know there will be sad days when I walk out of my room and there aren’t people doing things all the time and if I want to go on a walk or paint with someone I can’t just go to there bed or hammock and have a friend. Leaving this community is honestly just hard to understand enough to put into words because we just have eachother all the time here and when we go home we will be in different states doing different things and that’s so weird to think about. I’m so excited though to see what life at home will be like, to see all my family and friends gives me so much joy even though I’ll only be home for a little over a month and gone again with a new community.
All in all I loved the race with my whole heart. I loved every part of it and I am so thankful that God opened this door and that I had so many amazing people support me and love me through it.
Thank you to everyone who helped me get here and I am so excited to see y’all when I come home!(:
Our plane lands in New York on June 1st and me and a couple friends are staying there in Manhattan to rest and also just have some extra time together to sight see and see 21 pilots(: then I will be flying home June 5th and I’ll be spending some time with family and then I would love to host something to see everyone and have pictures and just talk to people but that date has yet to be decided but if you’d like to go get coffee or lunch to hear about it let me know and I’d love to meet up!(:
