Personal relationship– Recently, I’ve seen a lot of growth in my relationship with the Lord in several ways. I have grown to have a much deeper affection for the Lord as a result of reading a new book, finding more appreciation in the small things, and as I have mentioned in the past, adopting a heart full of gratitude. A new sabbath practice that I started a couple weeks ago is writing love letters to God! It’s actually helped me to acknowledge my love for Him more often. This started because about a month ago, while I was in prayer, I felt the Lord convict me that I hadn’t told Him that I loved Him in a bit of time. Like maybe 8-10 months-ish. Which may or may not seem like a big deal to you, but for me, saying “I love you” to people is huge. I always tell it to everyone in every interaction. So the conviction was pretty eye opening to me, and I began to be more mindful about being affectionate towards Jesus. As the weeks have gone by, my affection has grown abundantly, and the more letters to the Lord I’ve wrote, the more I see the love He has for me that surrounds me. During recent feedbacks, I have been encouraged by my team to step out in boldness more, to speak my voice when there’s space to do so. Also, one teammate gave some really interesting feedback, she noticed that I often excuse myself from deeper conversations. She encouraged me to not believe in the lie from the enemy that I don’t know as much as other people just because I am newer to Christianity than others. That struck me. I hadn’t realized that I had been giving so much into the enemy by holding back. She confirmed to me that my knowledge of the Father and my experiences from Him are just as valid as everyone else, even if I had only decided to follow Jesus yesterday. Since then, I’ve been stepping out more and sharing my thoughts.
Biblical knowledge– Over the last couple of months, I have been reading over the gospels. It’s been really good and really interesting. And, actually, i’ve been reminded a lot recently of a teaching I heard a couple years ago. He had told us about how we can go numb to hearing about the gospel. The things that Jesus went through, everything that happened to Him, they weren’t nice, they weren’t easy, and quite actually they killed Him through crucifixion. I’ve heard so many people say that we must not grow tired of hearing these things, but the truth is I don’t even really think it impacted me as much as it should have in the first place. In my head, I only acknowledged it as a story. Of course, a sad story, but not really to the degree that it deserved. I have read through the first 3 gospels by now, and the other day, I was reading the last few chapters of Luke where Jesus is being killed, and I just cried. It finally set in, the things that my Savior went through, how awful He was treated. I have heard and read that story probably about 100 times now, and only then did it truly wreck me. Then, I got to the point of reading his resurrection, and the joy I felt was unmatched. I got so excited. It wasn’t reading anything new, it’s a vital part of the gospel that I’ve heard and shared myself over and over, but I think it’s just finally hit me. I don’t know that this really counts for biblical knowledge, but it’s really been an impactful part of my reading lately. Oh also!! I’ve been listening to more BEMA podcasts lately, and it has encouraged me sooo much to ask more questions and look deeper into the stories I read. So far, it has been looking deeper into the first 11 chapters of Genesis and I have found such a new appreciation for how precise and articulate the stories of the bible are. They are farrr beyond my comprehension.
Biblical worldview– As most of y’all know, I was recently in Palacaguina, and my time there was truly incredible. Also as I’ve mentioned, the ministry there was really young so as we went around evangelizing, there weren’t too many people connected to the church yet. Each house we went to, every person we met, I just wanted to invite them to the church and into local study groups, and just into community in general. Realizing how disconnected most people were from an authentic biblical community really put into perspective for me how grateful I am for community. As well as how important it is. In the States, I often took for granted how easily I was able to connect to the church. There are local churches everywhere, and even on out phones we can connect to anybody, anywhere, anytime we want. I’m sure there’s even apps for it haha. But yeah, I just really began to feel how awesome it is to be able to be apart of a group that also longs to know the Lord’s heart.
Ministry application– In the last few weeks that I’ve spent in Palacaguina, I got a lot more used to sharing the gospel! We actually even had a team time dedicated to receiving a short little practice session of sharing it, so that we’d be more comfortable when in ministry- and in life. I had a little practice from times at youth leadership training, but it’s a lot different when you’re sharing with people that had never really known much about Jesus, people that are older than you, and in different cultures altogether (especially sharing through translators). So, I got the opportunity to share it for the first time about 2 months ago to a woman in Granada. It was really sweet, she received it well, but as we got further into the story, it was clear she actually did know more about the gospel than she let on- which is great- so then we got a chance to clear up some questions she had about it all. We were then able to continue and invite her to the local micro-church that is active in that neighborhood. More recently, I got a chance to share a few more times while evangelizing in Palacaguina, and I’d say it went well. I’ve met some really sweet people who have been going to church their whole lives, but they had never been told directly that Jesus died for them specifically. And that the Lord wants a relationship with them specifically. I found it super sweet to be blessed to share that good news with them, or at least a part of them hearing it, maybe even for the first time 🙂
Servant leadership– As a part of our team, we each have a voice for how our team is ran. Sometimes, our team leader allows one of us to run a team time! Like 2 ish weeks ago I got to run a team time and it was so fun!! For the first half, I had each of us pick a name out of a hat and then we each had to draw that person, and at the end we all had to try and guess who it is they were trying to draw. It. Was. Hilarious. Then for the second half, I realized it was towards the end of the week and we had a night ministry that day- which means it’s a long day- so I had planned that for at least an hour we should all spend time at rest, whatever rest means to us. I felt like it was a really important thing to set aside for our group because we have a lot of busy bodies on the team, which is great, it can just be easy to get tired fast and since we still had a lot to do, I thought it was important that we got rested up so that we could fully pour into whatever ministries we had coming up.
Thank you all for reading! I love you all much and miss you tons. I have it formatted this way for this blog so that it is easier for my professor at Athens to grade it 🙂
- Lilli <3
