Psalm 46:10

It has been a strange past week or so, but let me begin with one of my last journal entries:

“Father, please forgive me. I think I am always searching, always hoping, always waiting for my life/ministry to begin. Forgive me for having expectations of what that is supposed to look like. I have this false idea that it will be something huge, something dramatic and life changing, and once I get involved, I will know that this is IT. This is what you created me for. I have always believed that my entire life is my ministry in that I should be showing Jesus’ by the way I love those around me, but either I have not really understood what that means or I just often forget.”

            I often am trying to figure out what I am actually doing for the Lord, asking myself, where is the fruit of my labor? I fix my eyes on organizations and specific ministries that Jesus may be calling me to. More importantly than loving others, God desires for us to love him first. More importantly than what I do for the people of Rwanda, God has been asking me to be still in his presence and just spend time building my relationship with him. Which is so consistent with everything I know to be true about God’s heart, yet I still can so easily be distracted by my own thoughts and Satan’s whispered lies.

            It is so incredibly easy for me to become goal oriented rather than relationship focused. In the past few weeks, we have had so much more down time than I expected, and I slowly become angry that I came on this mission trip to sacrifice myself to serve, yet I was spending hours with little to do. The more time I had to spend however I wanted, the more frustrated I became and defiant to listening to anything the Lord was trying to speak to me. I was so distracted with thoughts about home, expectations of what ministry would look like, and anxiety that I wasn’t doing as much as I should. Without even recognizing it, I was measuring my faithfulness by works. So YET AGAIN, I have been smacked in the face by God’s grace. Will I ever learn to trust that he is living inside me and takes me just the way I am? Engrave it in my heart Lord! As annoying as it may be, it is simply beautiful that he continues to teach me the same thing over and over again in all different ways.

            This trip started out with such a bang with the absurdity of the church and the push to preach, that I expected it to continue in growth opportunities and uncomfortable steps of faith. This is what I thought mission trips are all about, right? But this lifestyle of the same meal every day, long walks across town multiple times a day, sharing a living space with eight other people, etc. has begun to feel pretty normal. And most days go by pretty quietly. (Well almost…being stared at everywhere I go, while people shout “mizungo” from a million different directions, and the drama of cultural differences, has yet to feel normal haha.) God took my expectations, per usual, and flipped them all around.

            I have felt him calling me, yearning me to be still and sit in his presence, but I was incapable of doing so while I clung to my anxious thoughts. As I became more frustrated, I spoke to my team about how I was feeling and they taught me that most of the time on the World Race, you have to decide for yourself how you want your ministry to look. So they encouraged me to ask the Lord if there were any people in the community he wanted me to get to know during our time off or anything else he was leading me to do. This brought me to the realization that I was depending on the structure of the trip rather than the Holy Spirit’s leading.

            We don’t need any human to lead us to the love the people God calls us to love. Having an organization, structure, and fellowship are all very important and definitely beneficial, but they are not the essentials. The essentials of ministry are the Holy Spirit, the Word, and a willingness to trust that the Lord will use you for his kingdom work. God brought me to Africa to teach me, once again, he doesn’t need me, he just wants me! He chose me, and he chooses you, because he delights in us (Psalm 22:8). He doesn’t desire slaves to obey his list of commands. He wants your heart, soul, and mind to be totally captivated by his heart and offered to his divine power.

            God may be glorified just as much in a conversation with a family member as he may be glorified in preaching in a church, or as he may be glorified by spending an afternoon in solitude, listening to what he has to say to you. I need to remember to let go of expectations of how I think God will work, and let him surprise me in the unique and sweet ways he always does.

Prayer Requests/Answers:

-Praise the Lord that he spoke through me in preaching again! I talked about learning how to recognize the voice of God, and how eager he is to have a communicative relationship with you. We even took a couple minutes at the end to be still, ask our Father to speak, and listen. I loved that God lead me to preach about being still because it is just not something this church would normally do AND it is something that I am learning right alongside them. They are all about singing and dancing (which I absolutely love), but sometimes God just wants us to listen:)

-My teammate Ada has a sinus infection or some type of head cold and is absolutely miserable. Please pray for her healing and that she would take the time to rest.

-God is also already working to help the street boys. There is an older boy in the church (I think around 18 years old) who has totally taken over loving on these kids. He and Johnathan have been becoming super close and have already written letters to local agencies and Unicef about raising support!

…I don’t have much time left so I will post more on here soon. Love you!       

“Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth”

-Psalm 46:10