All throughout my experience with the World Race I have been extremely blessed with comfortable living situations. I’ve always had a bed, and the only discomforts came from lack of air conditioning. It’s never been too difficult for me to live in community . Being an extrovert, I usually prefer to be where the people are. In all of that I have had the desire to be stretched more in this way- I remember having a conversation with my 2nd team on the race about how we wanted to rough it and we even made plans of going out with our backpacks and trekking during our ATL time. Yet again the Lord blessed us with abundance of comfort. We often joked throughout my race about how different our experiences had been from what we expected and trained for in Georgia.
Last time that I was in Guatemala I worked with a ministry called Dar para Dar. During our time we did manual labor on “Prayer Mountain”. Our hosts have a dream of making this mountain a place of rest with the Lord to seek him without distractions, and for families to come together on this mountain. We would spend 1-2 days a week on this mountain essentially moving dirt around. Once I learned that I would get to be back with this same ministry I was so excited! I would get to see the progress on the mountain as well as see friends that I had made in the village the year before. The only difference about this time was that I would now call “Prayer Mountain” home.
When I was in the DR in the fall I remember seeing instagram stories from the team that was with Dar para Dar from Z squad about their life on the mountain. I would show my friends and say “dang they have to live on prayer mountain, that would suck”. I can only imagine that the Lord was laughing at me knowing that I would be in their place just a few months later. During my first few weeks on “Prayer Mountain” I quickly wanted to take back all of the times I had wished for a more stretching experience. I would lay in my tent at night, shivering in my less than ideal sleeping bag at 7:30 PM. My clothes reeked of campfire and my hands smelled like garlic from cooking dinner. Everyone on the team that I was with was introverted and preferred to retreat to their tents at this time. I was definitely being stretched and fighting the urge to give in to my frustration. There was no refrigerator so we became vegetarians for our six weeks on the mountain. We built a fire every night to stay warm (and by we I mean Tanner). There were many times in the first week that I was counting down the days and the hours until I could get off that mountain.
Here are some things that made life on the mountain easier:
- Every weekend we lived in an airbnb in Antigua. During the week we camped but on the weekends we got to be in civilization.
- In the second week my friend Alexa gave me her very nice sleeping bag and after that I could get warm enough to actually sleep through the night.
- A couple weeks in we had a solar panel installed so that we could have lights in our bathroom and kitchen after night time without using the generator. This also allowed us to charge our phones without the generator at any time of the day.
Here are some of the beautiful things about living on “Prayer Mountain”:
- The views that we got to wake up to were absolutely insane. “Prayer Mountain” is one of the most peaceful and beautiful places I have ever been and I got to live there.
- As time went on and team FROG got to know each other better they would stay out later with me and we got to have fun conversations around the fire.
- I learned to trust the Lord more deeply and abide in him moment by moment.
- I got to rest with the Lord without distractions.
- I heard the voice of the Lord more clearly.
- Many cold nights in my tent I thought about how this was reality for some of the people in the villages up here, and gained empathy for them through this experience.
And finally here is some scripture that I often meditated on during my time on the mountain:
- All of Psalm 119
- The Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-12)
- Hebrews 11
- 1 John 3:1-10
- Matthew 11: 28-30
“And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.” Hebrews 11:6
“One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple” Psalms 27:4
Thank you for taking the time to read this blog! I appreciate your prayers and support. I am slowly catching up on blogging about Guatemala but my team is now settled into Eswatini. If you don’t know where that is- it was formerly known as Swaziland and is a country that borders South Africa. I will update you soon on life here! I am still support raising for my time on the field with F Squad. Join me in prayer for how the Lord will provide the remaining 45% of my funding! Would you ask the Lord if He is leading you to donate and help me reach fully funded?
If you would like to donate you can hit the support button at the top of my blog page and it will take you to the donation page for a tax deductible donation.
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Love y’all,
Lex <3
And now for a little photo album of mountain life:
