Training camp, domestic ministry, and debrief week has come and gone. Now, it’s time to get on the field, to go to the nations.
First off, I wanted to just talk about my debrief week. The intention for last week was to have a restful week full of processing and rest. Honestly, the majority of my time wasn’t like that. I was able to get in some one-on ones with my leaders, and they were great, but everytime I didn’t have a meeting, I was just overwhelmed and stressed out. I think the main reason for that was that I had gone from such a spiritual high, to a place where the only spiritual intake I was getting was 30-45 min of worship, and maybe a teaching or two. Now that still sounds pretty good, but this was compared to like 3x that amount the past 3 weeks beforehand. Also, there was no longer scheduled devotional time (or as I like to call it, “time alone with God”), so it was up to you to make sure you’re getting time to get poured into by God. If I’m being honest, I wasn’t very disciplined with that. I mean I would still read my bible, but it definitely wasn’t how I started my day. And, I would schedule that into my day instead of scheduling things around my time with God. Because of this, I was stressing myself out because there was other stuff I felt like I had to be doing but I hadn’t finished my bible time yet and I wanted to/felt like I needed to do that (I think I started to start slipping into the “checklist” or “chore” mindset with my bible a little bit, though it was still something that I actually did really want to do). Also, one of my squadmates ended up leaving the race, so that was a whole thing that was hard and sad. As a result of all of this, I would get overwhelmed just thinking about my day and I would end up just sitting on my phone, doing nothing productive.
Then, on friday we had an amazing time of worship and I actually felt the Lord for the first time in what felt like forever. I decided that I was going to basically fast from people that day and just spend the rest of the day with the Lord. It was an amazing time, and I came out of it feeling so refreshed and I was no longer overwhelmed. I spent time reading my bible, praying, and then I journaled about all God had been showing me for a while. He also answered a prayer and doubt I had during worship. I had been crying and wondering if I had grown or changed at all since I had been here, and I was asking God to grow me and that I would be changed by the end of my trip. Later that day, I had called my dad because I had a question about something I read, and before I had even mentioned my doubt and prayer, my dad mentioned that he could already tell how much I’ve grown. It was something seemingly so small, but it was such an answered prayer and God moment.
One thing I’ve been learning about is how to live life with God. Basically, I’m trying to take off the mindset of God only as Lord up in heaven, and put on the mindset that He is Father and my best friend, and that He just wants me to recognize that He is always here for me, for anything and to just converse with. I’ve been working on this a lot by talking to Him a lot more, and praying about the small and seemingly worthless stuff, or just telling Him my thoughts about certain things and asking to see His point of view on it. Anyways, on Sunday, we were packing up our stuff, and I couldn’t find the bag for my sleeping pad. I had emptied my backpack and my bigpack and it was nowhere to be found. So, I went up to the lost and found/drop table (where you can put items you don’t want and pick out other people’s stuff that they dropped), and on the way I was praying about trying to live life with God and how it would be really nice if He helped me find my bag. Right after I asked that, I heard my “thoughts” say “sleeping bag”. Then my memory came back to me of putting my bag inside of the bag for my sleeping bag. Sure enough, it was there when I went back to check. Once again, it was such a small and simple thing, but it was a cool moment where God showed me that He really does want to live life with me and help me with even the simple things.
So those were a couple of testimonies from this past week. Now, I want to tell you guys about the ministry we’ll be doing while here in malaysia. Our host, pastor Thomas, is housing us in his church, where we will also be doing our main ministry.
Mondays-Wednesdays (9-12)- we’ll be teaching English at a refugee school. Each person has one student to personally teach and disciple. All are currently muslims
Monday evening- teaching, doing sports, spending time with people at a free educational center. Many of them hindu indians
Tuesday- evening house church services
Wednesday evenings- pastor Thomas is giving us music classes on keyboard, drums, guitar, and bass
Thursday- worship practice, spending time with the community, possible youth program, maybe serve at a special needs school
Friday- church services where we will help lead worship, skits, and maybe share testimonies
Saturday- adventure day
Sunday- sabbath
I am so excited for this ministry!!! We have been given such a cool opportunity by having time to spend one on ones with these kids we’ll be teaching and really get to build relationships and share Jesus with them. I’ve never taught English before, so that will be interesting.
Anyways, that’s it for this blog. I have some pictures from debrief, travel day, and malaysia so far that I included at the bottom. I still need about $2,300 to be fully funded, so I would be eternally grateful if you would consider becoming a monthly or one time donor, even if it’s $20. I ask that you pray about it and see if the Lord is leading you to that. If you think He is, here is my link. Thank you so much to everyone for your prayers and support!
~Gabi
