Our squad came onto the Camino asking the same question: “Where will we go when we finish the Camino?” There was much debate amongst the group about where– but we all had the same why: to serve the Lord and the people wherever we went. After many morning prayer walks, conversations with our group, and phone calls with our possible ministry partners- all the signs seemed to point to Albania. So preparations were made, dates were set, goals were made, and after a week in Vitoria, Spain- we left for Albania. I felt encouraged that Albania was exactly where the Lord wanted us but upon arriving, I have never felt more homesick. In a taxi on the way to the dorm where we’d be staying for the next month- I began to question. It wasn’t clear the work we’d be doing here- “Lord, why did you send us here?”
As I looked out the car window, I asked the Lord these things. I looked at the mountains that surrounded the city where we were, I looked at the chaotic driving, I looked at the side of the road where flowers grew out of these huge rocks. My eyes caught on the flowers.
“Even if those flowers, that are grounded in the rock, have no buds or petals and don’t look like flowers, they are still flowers, and they are still alive and well.”
Even if I expected ministry on this trip to look one way, and it isn’t what I thought, it’s still ministry, the Lord is still being glorified and made known.
For me, thus far, I haven’t had many, “AHA!” moments or major breakthroughs on this trip, but the Lord has steadily been teaching me so much about His character and through that deeper of who I am in Him (which is a lesson he continues to bring me back to). He has used this trip in an unexpected way- to teach me to really rest in the kind of follower he has made me to be and to love and see people how he has specifically called me to.
One of the pastors here keeps saying, “You are not here to work.”
So when our big group of loud Americans walks down the street or goes to church or plays soccer with the kids of the church, I will trust that the Lord will use me how he wants- even if I don’t see the results or even when I don’t feel like I’m be of any help.
The Lord called me to this trip, and if by the end of it I know Him a little bit more, isn’t that worth it?
“But for me it is good to be near God; I have made the Lord God my refuge, that I may tell of all your works.” (Psalm 74:28)
