Hey friends and fam 🙂
Well week two was a hoot haha. So much happened it’s hard to go over all of it at once!
For starters, a fresh theme we have been talking about these last few days is giving thanks. I know, it’s not thanksgiving time- I thought the same thing- but it’s really important to give thanks daily. We started a bible study yesterday (Monday), and we’re going through the book of Romans. In Romans 1:21-23 it talks about how we (humans with flesh) have a tendency to idolize the creations the Lord has gifted and given us, rather than giving thanks to the actual creator that literally made them for us. It reads:
21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.
This posture of heart can lead us down a path of independence from God, because instead of looking to Him and thanking Him for the blessings He’s given us, we just look at His work and take such hold onto them- instead of Him. These are things as simple as like clean water. For example: We love clean water, right? Taking showers, drinking, swimming, etc., it’s a blessing for sure. But when we begin to idolize it and putting our time with them over sitting and spending time with the Lord, we’re not being grateful. It’s like when your parent buys you a new phone, and you spend all your time on that phone and you never talk to your parent anymore, that’s not showing much gratitude, is it? Which it’s also a hard topic to talk about because I’m not saying you can’t appreciate all the beautiful things in life, we just have to make sure we’re being careful and thanking the Lord for it all.
Sorry that was a bit wordy, I just felt very convicted this week over the topic, because honestly it’s been a little rough. I have gotten stuck a few times really missing some things at home like driving, Starbucks, cheeseburgers, my dogs, and other things like that, and like verse 21 says, my heart began to feel darkened. I was convicted because I realized I was idolizing my things at home, and didn’t feel content with my time alone with the Lord now. God was over here like “Really? I give you all those things and just asked you to separate from them for 9 months to spend time with Me and spread my word and you can’t get over the fact that you have to change your clothes laying down?” Yeah. Like I said. Convicted.
Anywho, sorry that was really deep, I just felt like I needed to share a little of what God has been putting on my heart. I’m learning to be grateful for all that I do have, rather than the material things that I don’t.
Well into more fun stuff-
actually first, I wanted to apologize for not posting last week. Honestly, there’s not much of an excuse, there’s just so much going on every day and I am constantly trying to simply just process what in the world is going on haha. But my goal is truly to post at least once a week, God willing of course and as long as I have access to internet.
-But the fun stuff. This week was cool. I’ll keep it short because I already said so much. Earlier last week we did like a situational type thing where we role played a food market in another country, and it was a challenge. We were given a certain amount of money for dinner for our team, and some of our responsibilities were: exchanging the money into different currencies, staying together, not getting our stuff stolen, communication, getting food, and showing kindness to all. However, that last one was probably the one majority of us didn’t think about. The way they had it set up, there were two rows of tables and we all had to stay between the tables (all 150 of us), all the staff dressed up as people from the cultures, none of the food vendors or bankers spoke a lick of English, and the cherry on top- a van would drive through the crowd- back and forth. Nearly hitting people because of how close it was. Of course nobody was hurt, but it definitely put a lot of things in perspective and I’m extremely grateful that they gave us that insight before we went on the field. One thing that did break my heart, though, like I said the kindness part was surprisingly the one we mostly looked over. The staff that dressed up as locals, were beggars. SO some of them were pregnant with children walking around asking for help, some had makeup done to look like illnesses and malnourishment, there were drunkards and homeless begging for help. And so many people just walked past them. After dinner, a few of them got up on stage and expressed how they’ve never been treated so badly as humans. They were literally shoved to the ground by some. Even though it was fake, it really hurt my heart. When we all sit in a circle and talk, or while we’er studying His word, it’s so easy to be like “oh yeah well of course I’d help the hurting and sick” “well duh of course I’d help a broken soul find salvation when given the chance”. The truth is, the first time your put in a situation where you’re told to survive and you get in there and are unable to walk straight without getting shoved, it’s scary how fast those thoughts of helping someone flies out the window. I don’t know, I could talk about this for hours but I just looked up the screen and realized how large this paragraph is. I just get so carried away haha. Anyway, my takeaway was that I need to be mission minded ALL of the time, not just during “ministry” time but all the time. I was so focused on not getting my water bottle stolen for a 3rd time I didn’t even ask them what they needed. Anyway, just a great experience to learn from.
On Wednesday we got to go practice evangelism in Walmart, that was so crazy but fun. I have a cool little testimony on that if anyone wants to know, feel free to message me and we can chat about it. I’ve just already written so much and I wanna keep this readable. That day we also got to go to Panera, chick-fil-a, and to a big church. Just for a little change of pace. It was really nice 🙂
We also had squad wars!!! Super fun!! I played dodgeball haha anddd didn’t do great but it’s okay we had a blast. even though our team got last, it was the most fun I’ve had. It was just nice to let loose and cheer for everyone and throw balls at each other. A hoot and a half I tell ya.
On that note, I made a YouTube video with some footage I took over the last two weeks, ya’ll should go check it out. Please hold judgements on my editing haha, I’m still learning lol. I don’t know how but I’m trying to attach the YouTube link to this blog, but I’m not sure where it’ll show up. If you can’t find it, just look up my name on YouTube and it’ll be there somewhere.
Last thing, I just wanted to say thank you so much to everyone who has supported me in any way as I’ve prepared for this trip the last two years. Without your guys’ prayer, financial support, or love I absolutely would not be where I am. God played the main role of course, but you all are incredible. I love and miss everyone so much.
Love,
Lilli
