I am in San Salvador, El Salvador. At any given moment Bassnectar's Womping music, complaining about the days plans, worship in espanol, grooves from the dance class at the gym, and the humming of buses on the streets fill my ears. I'm on the race, and it's not anything like I pictured. I thought I would be living in a grass hut in the middle of nowhere, praying over villages, seeing crazy miracles through the holy spirit, experiencing crazy love in community, learning new languages, trying strange foods, surviving on rice, fighting off monster bugs, being eaten alive by mosquitos, going into places I'm not sure I'll come back out of, without electricity or running water, no makeup, no mirrors, no movies, just open sky, children laughing, long nights of worship, and sleeping soundly in my tent under the stars.
This month looks nothing like I imagined the race to be. To be honest none of the race looks how I imagined. Our first month in Dominican Republic was the closest thing to what I thought I was signing up for, and even there I had a bunk bed, and a shower. I loved every minute of DR, jellyfish stings and all, because I felt God move in every moment. I was overwhelmed by his Joy, and his delight in me. In DR God told me who I am, that my worth comes from him, that I am beautiful in his sight, I hear his voice, he won't give me more than I can handle, I can be joyful in any circumstance and he opened up intercessory prayer like I have never experienced before. I loved our contacts Sanza and Pastor Raul, and the community we were a part of still is constantly on my mind, Buenos Aires. Every thing we did: prayer walks with Antia and the kids, sports time, slack lining with the kids ( "tu puede, tu puede"), preaching, leading bible studies, giving testimonies, cell groups, praying over esperanza, and just loving on the kids of buenos aires felt like walking with Jesus. I miss driving up the dusty road to Buenos Aires, and having every child run out of their stick and tin homes to greet us, "Raquel! Raquel!!.."(squeals of delight as they jump on the car with us, and fight for our affections..). I miss walking to Yogen Fruz and the sandwich and jugo shop around the corner. I got to know the owner at the sandwich shop and i didn't even have to order later, he would just start making fresh naranja jugo for me without sugar, and a panini. Praying over the foundation of the church in Buenos Aires, and having worship for the first time in the building with all the kids- the members of the body in Buenos Aires brought me to my knees in tears. I had word from the Lord through a little girl twice, saying I was Dominican, and saw myself living there at some point.
Me with my favorite boys: Louis and Elvy
~Katie, Denise, Erin and I- girls day we clean up nice~
Ecuador was an entirely different ball game. I prayed to release Dominican so I could move forward without comparing into Ecuador. Our team was going to the jungle! I pictured mud, tents, vines, surrounded by trees, beautiful mountains, waterfalls, endless starry skies, and a new perspective. The Lord was already moving in my life, and easing me into abandonment, what would this month test? Left the beautifully hilly city of Quito Huaticocha bound. We pulled up to a tienda right off the highway, which was also pastor Ivan's house and the church. Wait, I thought we were in the jungle? It was late, we were all hungry, and all of a sudden I was filled with feelings of defeat, and an inability to lead the team. We weren't controlling our finances this month, and our our contact who spoke english, Jim was wanting to arrange everything-where do I fit in here? Plus, we've brought along a 15 yr old ecuadorian boy, Marcelo, and another missionary from Peru Carina to add to the team. I'm just overwhelmed..I wanna run and be by myself. I don't want to be here..
The month was full of hard spiritual oppression, ups and downs- I felt like I was on an emotional roller coaster. The Lord taught me so much about speaking life, and gave me such Joy in Dominican, where did it go? I felt like it was just below the surface, and I couldn't peg exactly what was even wrong, but my joy was stifled. Our team was starting to digress instead of press forward into the spirit, and to top it off our ministry is all over the place. Literally we are moving from town to town, church to church, hardly time to build relationships. Our ministry times change everyday, nothing is on time, meals are sporadic, and we have little communication with Pastor Ivan and Nancy because they are always on the go and speak no english. I feel like I am living in a hotel, not immersed in the culture here. We are working in a community, Nueva Esperanza, that is actually a hike up into the jungle, and the first day of ministry we carried electric poles up a muddy mountain side that each weighed at least a ton. It took 32 men. I was helping, and then decided to lay down my pride and become water girl. At the bottom of the village is a hanging bridge with a 25 foot jump into the river below, an amazon tributary.. jumping off the bridge and then showering in the river below were my favorite moments. The place was filled with butterflies too...
I crowd surfed in this bus while in quito..awesome
The rest of the month we ended up having spontaneous prophetic worship, a 6 hour church service, intercession for the surrounding towns, finding the "one" woman who accepted christ, hiking back home in the dark with only 3 head lamps, getting my headlamp stolen by the Pastors annoying little boy, Isaac, a three hour hike to a paradise farm, riding horses on the farm and eating fresh picked grapefruits, helping give cows their vaccines, killing and plucking chickens, digging holes in the backyard to poo in when the outhouse backed up, waiting days for our laundry to dry- it rained everyday, but one.
There were so many more things, fresh manzanilla flower (chamomile) tea, our first explosion during a team time, valentines day smores, getting my hands dirty picking up trash in pacto sumaco, worship dancing with the little girls, getting smarter every conversation with ignacio, seeing maline's servants heart, cooking italian for the team, battling the monster moth, hanging my hammock in my bedroom, eating grub shishkabobs, peeing over the pee river in our back yard, holding my breathe to pee in solo urinario, cockroaches, rain boots, the best watermelon suckers in the world, dancing the robot with jeremias on stage at a youth service, screaming declarations while running down the highway, trying zapote and other various fruits, adopting kittens with erin, falling in the mud big time with erin, and finding out one of my team mates dislikes me for no reason-literally was told she just hasn't liked me since day one.
| What in the world? I'm realizing this month that community is going to be harder done than said. It's one thing to read about biblical community, and another to become it. I'm going crazy hearing people preach the word, and then deny it within our own team. Am I guilty of that too papa? I need to guard my heart more, and watch my words for sure. It's one thing to be vulnerable, and another to just give away all parts of myself...I feel like everyone's true identity is starting to come out and I'm not sure if we have enough grace and heart to Love on each other yet. |
The team with Carina and Marcelo
(Marcelo has the beautiful curly hair-he was obsessed with it..)
