Friends and Family,
I have survived my 1st week on the mission field! I don’t mean survive as in stay alive, I mean survive as in not cracking under pressure and wanting to come home! So far we have done some pretty awesome, yet challenging, things and we have only completed 3 days of ministry! I will tell you some of what I am doing here in Matamoros, Mexico and what God has been doing in my life.
We arrived at The Gateway (AIM’s base that I am currently staying at) late last Wednesday’s night. We woke up Thursday morning and were told we were going to be starting a period of solitude. Solitude is basically spending all your time with Father God. You don’t look at, touch, or communicate with anyone except for God. I enjoyed, and had some trouble with, this. I am very easily distracted, and being surrounded by my teammates and friends that I got to be with for just a few hours the night before and then not be able to talk to them was difficult. I am also very prone to comparing myself to others, and therefore struggled with seeing other people having a great time with God, while I’m just reading the bible. On the 2nd day of solitude I cracked and ended up “breaking the rules.” I went outside with a bunch of my teammates, while it was raining, to play in the insane rain puddles. We splashed around and then went swimming in some of the lakes. After that incident, I made it a real point to buckle down and have my Jesus time. Nothing miraculous or amazing happened during my solitude, I just was able to learn more about God. I learned that he isn’t going to “show up” because he is showing up for everyone else. Ironically, he showed up the next morning just showing me what I did wrong and how I can fix it. We should be doing more solitude in the future, just not for a period this long.
We arrived at The Gateway (AIM’s base that I am currently staying at) late last Wednesday’s night. We woke up Thursday morning and were told we were going to be starting a period of solitude. Solitude is basically spending all your time with Father God. You don’t look at, touch, or communicate with anyone except for God. I enjoyed, and had some trouble with, this. I am very easily distracted, and being surrounded by my teammates and friends that I got to be with for just a few hours the night before and then not be able to talk to them was difficult. I am also very prone to comparing myself to others, and therefore struggled with seeing other people having a great time with God, while I’m just reading the bible. On the 2nd day of solitude I cracked and ended up “breaking the rules.” I went outside with a bunch of my teammates, while it was raining, to play in the insane rain puddles. We splashed around and then went swimming in some of the lakes. After that incident, I made it a real point to buckle down and have my Jesus time. Nothing miraculous or amazing happened during my solitude, I just was able to learn more about God. I learned that he isn’t going to “show up” because he is showing up for everyone else. Ironically, he showed up the next morning just showing me what I did wrong and how I can fix it. We should be doing more solitude in the future, just not for a period this long.
AIM provided us with an “adopted family” to do ministry with Monday-Friday during our 8-week stay here in Mexico. We met ours on Monday, this time with a translator, and got to know the family and they got to know us. It was just so inspiring to see how God is working in this relationship when we had only known each other for an hour! There was a lot of vulnerability that day as our “adopted mother” opened up to us about her troubled childhood. In a couple weeks I will be able to tell you even more about this family, and possibly show you some pictures. I am not able to now because we are still building our relationship and working to break the language barrier. But, even though none of us speak Spanish fluently, and only took it for a couple years in middle/high school, we are doing pretty well!
On Tuesdays and Thursdays, we have morning ministry in addition to serving our “adopted family”. This past Tuesday we went to a children’s home. It’s set up is like that of an orphanage, but is actually a foster home. All of these children do have parents, its just that the parents are in jail or are not equipped to be caring for these children. Let me tell you, the moment I stepped out of our van, my life changed forever. Since this is my first time doing international missions, and missions involving children, I didn’t know how my heart would react to seeing these children. My heart really broke for them, and it’s such a beautiful thing. For a couple hours, I held countless children’s hands, ran around with several children on my shoulder, swung so many children around and around, and received so many hugs and kisses. Although my body was saying,”NO MORE! I can’t handle the heat and all this activity,” I wanted to give these kids so much more than what I was physically able to give them. There are a couple particular events that really stand out in my mind. There were 3 little boys that I met, and they loved being spun. One example is, I would spin them and spin them, but eventually I would get dizzy and have to lay them on the ground. Some of the times I would get all wobbly and almost fall over. But one boy in particular would come over and hug me, just so I wouldn’t fall over and hurt myself. I’m so excited to form relationships with these kids. And I am so thankful that God arranged for us to be working with this children’s home because it really is preparing me for the ministry I will be doing in South Africa and Mozambique.
So I really don’t have much else to say because this is my first week on the mission field. Some (silly) things I learned are:
*Most days, you WILL get sunburn. And in most cases, the sunburn WILL be gone when you wake up the next day.
*You WILL be bitten by bugs at any and all times. (This morning while brushing my teeth and washing my face, I killed 2 mosquitos on my body leaving a bloody mess. That isn’t including the bug bites I did get in those 5 minutes and the mosquitos I shooed away before anything happened).
*Savor having chocolate
*Cleanliness is a gift…a gift that I won’t have for a long, long time.
*If you want to have a good bonding time, go in the kitchen at 10:30 pm and have some pb&j with friends!
*You aren’t a missionary unless you have a terrible farmer’s tan, and tan lines from wearing chaco’s on your feet (seriously, just kidding).
And some other things you probabally would like to know:
*I am leaving Matamoros, Mexico on November 10th and am heading somewhere. I am not positive of the location right now.
*I am flying to my ministry location, tentatively, on November 23rd .
*I do have access to internet every day now, so feel free to contact me!
*Right now I need $1770 more in support money. If you are interesting in supporting me, you can click the “Support Me” button on the left side of this blog and send in money that way. Let’s watch God provide!
Some prayer requests:
*My team going to South Africa. That we will be able to come together as a whole and be able to bond more.
*My leaders, Rebecca and Blair, who are discipling us everyday. That they will be working not through their own understanding, but through the Lord’s.
*My leaders, Rebecca and Blair, who are discipling us everyday. That they will be working not through their own understanding, but through the Lord’s.
*The other leaders who are bringing my teammates to Nicaragua, Uganda, and Swaziland. That Brittany, Tana, Jesse, Blair, and Rebecca will be open to what God has to say.
*My adopted family. Selena is 7 months pregnant and is worried about the health of the baby due to their small income and financial problems.
*Me! That God will provide all the support money that I need to get to South Africa and Mozambique, that I will be challenged more than I can bear, that I will not feel the need to compare myself to any of my other teammates, that I will be more open to the Holy Spirit and what God has to tell me, and that I will be even more aware of Satan’s attacks.
Thank you all so much! I am sorry if it didn’t seem like I would miss any of you when we said our goodbyes for the last time. I really do miss you guys!It’s just that I am, and have been, so ready to enter this adventure with God. When God wants you somewhere, you want to RUN, not walk, right?
