Sunday, March 2, 2014

Stepping Out (Guatemala part two)

Just over a week ago I returned from my third mission trip to Guatemala and I’m still not quite back yet. As I have said on second trip I felt like it would not be my last, that I would be going back, at the time I took this thought for granted and assumed I would be going again the next year with my normal group of people (my sister and others from my church) but of course that’s not how life works and it took me a little longer and a slightly different course to get there. About four months ago I received an e-mail from the ministry that I served with on my two previous trips telling me that there was a team going down in February looking for four more people to join them. So let me just say this is not something I normally would have jumped at, I don’t generally enjoy doing things on my own, and as I said my last two trips were with my sister and people from my church I had gotten to know really well, so that fact that I even considered this was kind of crazy.
Long story short I prayed about it and decided that I was supposed to go.
So somehow I made this decision to step out in faith and go to Guatemala on my own with a group of complete strangers, in all honesty it scared me like you would not believe, to the point that even after I made the decision to go there was still a battle in my mind for weeks between being really really excited and completely and totally overwhelmed at the mere thought of what I had decided to do. This trip would be different than any that I had gone on before, I had no idea what to expect, and even though I knew in my heart I was supposed to go I had no idea why, so my only clear thought on the matter was that my last trip was not the last time I would be going and that this was my opportunity to return and live out the promise of going back, and that this would either be my final goodbye or my new start in finding my way back.
Thankfully the latter won out. I don’t even know where to start with how wonderful this whole experience was for me and how much God has spoken to and is still speaking to me about what He is doing in my life. The trip itself was completely amazing, I connected flawlessly with the team and had more fun than I could have even hoped for and I truly believe all of it played out exactly how it was meant to. As I said before the second time I went to Guatemala I wanted more than anything to feel the connection that so many of my friends had to it and I simply missed the mark, so this time with my fight against expectations I was almost preparing myself to say goodbye but instead finally caught hold of the connection and for the first time was really able to say hello…  

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