Goodbye Guatemala! Hello Honduras!
(Note: I wrote this blog over a week ago, and I’m posting it now that I have wifi!)
As I write this, sitting on a small bus with my teammates, bags piled high around us, I feel so many mixed emotions.
We are bussing to Honduras right now overnight—leaving Antigua around midnight and arriving in Comayagua, Honduras around noon. [Scratch that—editing in-post—we arrived around 6pm]
As we arrive in our new country, we will be stepping into new teams, under new team leaders, and into a new squad dynamic— “all squad month”—meaning our entire squad of 42 will be all together in our next ministry.
It’s a lot of new.
We will be camping in our tents for the next two months at our ministry site in the mountains.
Where is God calling me in all this?
He is calling me into further intentionality, further respect of others, and into deeper service for my new team.
The verse the Lord has recently laid upon my heart again and again is Philippians 2:3-4:
“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.“
As I said to you before, I’m naturally selfish.
Do you know someone who always seems to think of others before him/herself?
Maybe that person is you.
If it is, I respect you immensely. I’m not naturally like that.
I have to work at it to serve others before myself.
It takes discipline and intentionality on my part to swallow my pride to please others, to even let someone else get food before me, and to respect someone enough to care about their desires (and honor them) above my own.
Right now, it feels like a real sacrifice to stop and do something someone else wants to do over what I want to do in my spare time.
It goes against the grain of my nature to be the first to jump up and do the dishes when I really want to dive into deep conversation with someone instead.
In fact, I have often thought to myself, I’m just not a Martha; I’m a Mary.
But I want to honor others by loving them the ways they want to be loved, even and especially at the cost of stepping into loving them in ways that aren’t primarily instinctual for me, such as acts of service.
I want to do this because I want to love and serve those around me well, because I want to be obedient to the Lord, and because His power will be made great in my weaknesses in these areas.
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” -2 Corinthians 12:9
This is an opportunity for me to serve my new teammates and hosts in Honduras and in the countries to come—for me to intentionally love them well.
Hello, Honduras! Thank you, Jesus for this opportunity to better serve your Kingdom as we step into change.
