Another week, another testimony of how God has been moving! This week has been hard in many ways, but through it all I see how intentional and loving the Lord is. This is going to be quite a long blog as a heads up! Honorable mention photos at the end ❤️
To start off the week, I got very sick (of course), and I had to miss multiple days of ministry this week. Monday and Tuesday were the worst of it. While the rest of my team (those who also weren’t sick) were doing ministry in Palima, I had a pounding migraine and was constantly throwing up, as well as my voice being almost completely gone, warranting me to only whisper to talk or say nothing at all. This was more than just being sick to me. It was missing out on ministry- missing out on how I could serve the Lord. After Tuesday, I was so miserable being alone all day at the base so I went to ministry. I was a little better at the start of the day- by the end I was sick again- but Wednesday was still such a fruitful day. Let me tell you why!!
Wednesday was a ministry day at San Lorenzo! We started off the first few hours of the day cleaning the entireee field, getting up all the trash and whatever else we could so they could set up a worship night for the kids and young adults later that day. I think almost our entire group wasn’t the most content with this job, with our trash bags breaking and having no gloves to pick up the trash, BUT, so much fruit and laughter came from it. The faces of our One Way ministry hosts when it looked visibly more clean- even though we were only halfway through- was priceless. San Lorenzo uses the side of the hill that the field is on as the dump, sadly. So whenever it rains or the wind blows too hard, all the trash falls down lower and lower until eventually it sits in the field. Anddd it’s rainy season, so it happens very often. After a few hours we finished and had lunch, and my feeling of sickness started to come back. I knew that something amazing would happen however, something that would make me just be overwhelmed with the Lord’s love. And I was right!!
Kids ministry is one of my favorite areas to serve in. I always feel overwhelmed with how much love and innocence a child has, and being able to be used as a vessel to love that child how God does is always so amazing. Although I was feeling not the best, with my head pounding and vision blurring in and out, as soon as I saw the kids start showing up my heart was immediately overflowing with joy. These kids- wow. They are just so loving and precious, and even with the language barrier they love us as well as we’re loving them. I have some little girls who I bonded with the first week that might be my favorite children on the planet. As soon as two of them walked in, it was a beeline to each other. We spent the time hugging, playing, then attempting to teach me some more Spanish (lol- key word attempting), and so much more. I left this ministry day feeling so full of the Spirit, leaving the attacks from the enemy and my sickness behind me for some time.
I woke up on Thursday and yet again was sick. I felt almost debilitated- I felt useless to my team and the trip if I was always sick. The Lord taught me some important things about surrender through me being sick these 3 days however. Surrender is one of the most important things in having a personal relationship with God. He asks us to surrender our thoughts, our worries, our control. And I wanted to keep it all. I wanted to control my health, control if I could be at ministry or not, control my thoughts and worries about everything going on around me.
Long story short- I couldn’t.
God used this time to make me still in where I’m at. He used my being sick as a way to get me to finally slow down- not overwhelming myself with schedules or logistics or any team lead duties. He wanted me to rest, and I didn’t want that for myself, so He made it so I finally could just stop everything for a second.
He also used this time to show me exactly how much grace I have to give to not only my team- but myself. He kept telling me that He was proud of me, over and over again. I was feeling so guilty for everything- for missing ministry, for feeling like I wasn’t doing enough as a leader, for feeling as if I’m not stepping into the servanthood that I prayed for because of all these obstacles and distractions in the way. But the thing is, all of that guilt was literally just the enemy trying to distract me from remembering who I’m rooted in.
This week my squad mentor, Alayna, told me an analogy to help me understand what I was going through a little better.
Imagine yourself as a tree. You are rooted in the ground, standing firm. That ground, those roots- that’s God. Everything that you do and all the fruit that you bear comes from Him. The enemy’s goal is to try to distract us, to confuse us, and to harm us. Although we are rooted in the ground and firm in Him, it’s almost like the enemy is having himself portrayed as bunch of crows tearing apart the top of the tree. Because it’s hard and it hurts, those distractions end up taking up a large part of our minds- making us not remember who we are rooted in and where our nutrients come from. The reality is that no matter how hard the enemy triens to destroy and distract us, we will always win, because we have God. He is fighting our battles for us while we sit in peace with Him, and that’s why even if the top of our tree is falling apart- we will forever be firm.
Friday was my Team Lead day, where I take a half/full day off of ministry to do the work and scheduling that I need to do as well as being able to be distraction and stress-free intentionally. This day was the one where I finally broke through the depletion of the physical and spiritual warfare I was facing. Throughout the trip I felt almost as if the me from home, the me from training camp- the me that was on fire for God no matter what- was gone. With all that I was struggling with, I think this lie from the enemy took a toll on me and my heart in ways that I didn’t even notice while it was happening. I spent my TL day at my favorite coffee shop, Melendrez, and started it off already feeling better- I had time to reallyyy spend in the Word. I do these “deep dive Bible studies” in every book of the Bible and I’ve been putting off doing it since I got here because I was so overwhelmed with everything, but I got a chance to start my study on Acts and immediately felt a sense of peace. Not just a peace that I am finally still with the Lord- but more of a peace that myself- the me that I thought I no longer had- is still there, and I needed that reminder. I was sitting and writing while thinking of how I let the enemy affect my sense of identity within the Lord, and once I finished my page in my notebook I felt as if I FINALLY remembered who I was and WHOS I was!
After my study the Lord gave me a vision of Christ praying. Whenever He does this I immediately have to pull out my notebook and sketch it out, it helps me really visualize the weight of what I read and what He helps me to see. Once I finished my sketch, I was just going to close my sketchbook and do something else. I look up and see this older lady, one that I saw earlier but didn’t really give a second thought about going up to, getting up to leave the coffee shop. I felt a strong sense that I needed to get up and give her my drawing. So I did. Because of the language barrier it had been not the easiest to communicate since I have gotten here, and this lady spoke only Spanish- maybe one or two words in English. So without exchanging any words, I hand her my drawing. She immediately is brought to tears, and as they stream down her face she hugs me so tight. I knew in that moment I was used as a vessel for Jesus to reach someone else through me, and after this hard week I knew I also needed to be used just as badly as she did. That experience changed my mindset almost immediately from feeling as if I’m not enough and not doing enough to knowing that I’m EXACTLY where the Lord wants me to be in this season with Him. I finished off the day with some worship at the base, a prayer circle, then popcorn/game night! I came to the realization that I am not the best whatsoever at Monopoly😂 Praise God for the patience Zachary, Will, and Sophie had for me during that game and for the lovely people who stayed awake with me while I was waiting for my lovely friend Lily to arrive at the base!
This is the sketch I gave to the woman at the coffee shop!
Game night! The patience these guys had for Monopoly is amazing😂
Sweet Lily arrived at base!
Saturday was sabbath again and I spent the day restfully with my close friends Lily and Caroline! Lily is in the prayer mountain team from our squad so I don’t get to see her too often, but circumstances allowed me to! Although the circumstances were unfortunate, I think that the Lord knew how much we needed to all see each other. We bonded so well during training camp so it was so difficult for all of us to not be together daily during this trip but it’s so fruitful as well. We went to one of our ministry spots/a coffee shop, Serve Hope, to start off the day. After that, we headed to the tattoo shop for me to finish off a small part of my vine wrist wrap tattoo and for Caroline to get an ear piercing. After that, we went to go get lunch and ended up sharing all of our full testimonies to each other as well, for we didn’t have time to do that at training camp or since we’ve been here. And then we went to go get our nails done and wow was that an experience!😂 To finish off the day we went shopping in some boutiques then dropped Lily off back at Serve Hope to reunite her with the prayer mountain team, say hi/bye to everyone, then went back to base to play games and get some rest!
The pics of me and my girls!!
Serve Hope cafe!
My nails!
My tattoo addition!
Sunday was our ATL day yet again! We started it off with going to Starbucks before church at Shoreline City, and we heard people raving about it during our time here but it was so much more beautiful than any of us could have imagined! Seriously GORGEOUS!! And then church was also so beautiful, and the message impacted a lot of my team as well because of all the spiritual warfare and distractions we have been facing. The sermon was delivered beautifully.
She said something along the lines of “in ministry it’s so easy to fall into the lies of the devil: that you aren’t seeing the fruit that comes from your work, that you aren’t doing enough, that you’re useless, etc. But the beautiful thing about the love of the Lord is that not even death can separate you from it. Even if we may not always feel as if we are following in our callings well or doing our ministry correctly, we are intertwined with His spirit, so any of those thoughts are just lies.”
That message was just wow, but that one part caused me to look at my team with some of us now crying. Impactful for sure. Then after that we went to lunch with our friends from the prayer mountain team, then back to Serve Hope to help them grab their bags and such! Then we ended up walking around the market with some people while others got tattoos, then met up to all say goodbye and my team came back to base to just eat, play games, and rest! An amazing way to end the week if you ask me 🤗
The beautiful Starbucks!
Although this week was hard physically, emotionally, spiritually, and mentally- God is so faithful. His intentional love for me has overcome me in ways that I didn’t even know that I needed. The enemy tried to bring me down- but God is my shield and my protection who will never let me fall away from Him. This week was yet another one to praise God for! ❤️
Also, ants bite. Who was going to tell me this😂 Becca and I have a newfound appreciation for the chill ants up north who don’t want to harm us!
HONORABLE MENTION PICTURES:
Sophie’s shoe choice! 😂
Manuel and Panther!
Late night Tienda run!
Caroline was a little tired😂
Group pic with our wonderful cook, Theresa!
There were 40 high schoolers staying at the base with us… need I say more
Pre-church photoshoot!
The best mango smoothie everrrr! My order at Melendrez every time😍
The base after dark!
Kara and I got scammed on the chicken bus late last week… we ended up making a friend through it though, a girl around our age named Sofia who spoke English as well! On Sunday, we ended up seeing her again, and I got her contact info and now we’re all besties!!💗
Carolina and Baden getting tatted up😎
The cutest photo op spot!
My girls are twining! How cute💗💗
That’s all for this week! Thank you all for coming along this journey with me, I love and appreciate all of you!❤️
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