When you first sign up for the World Race, you know that over the course of this 11 month adventure, you will be sick at some point. It's inevitable. With the community living, the new and oddly prepared foods, climate changes, and overwhelming amounts of bacteria something is bound to happen.
For the first three months, I'm pretty sure that I had an iron immune system and an iron stomach. I would eat any street food and drink from questionable water sources and nothing could touch me. When getting tested for parasites in El Salvador, I'm the only one from the people who got tested who came out totally clean. I was feeling good. And then I got to Romania....
I'm not the biggest fan of farms to begin with. We have been living this month in basically an amazing hotel smack dab in the middle of a cow farm. There are a lot of animals, and if you know me, you know that I'm not exactly what you would call an "animal lover." But even though I'm not in my element, the farm here is beautiful and the weather has been fabulous. Our ministry this month in Oradea, Romania has been working on constructing a type of Habitat like house. I've sanded, spackled, and laid some pretty intense amounts of insulation despite being sick for a week and a half.
Me and Kelly King in our Insulation Space Suits
Me and some of the girls after a long day of laying insulation
Cows on the cow farm.....(photo courtesy of Hosanna Sheeley)
When I got to Romania, the flu got me. It tore down my immune system and kicked it around a few times. For a week, I was sick with body aches and fever and headaches. Also, I had decided to do a screen fast that week away from Internet, movies, etc. in order to be centered and fully pressed into the Lord. Being sick is maybe the most miserable time to do a screen fast if I'm completely honest. The only option I had for entertainment was reading, and I was in no shape to do much of that. Most of my time during the day was spent in thought and prayer and goodness did the Lord speak to me!
I was able to seriously work through some junk that I've been carrying around for years and come to some pretty big emotional revelations about myself and my relationships in general. And then I got a stomach infection on top of having the flu. Zero fun continues. I would be totally fine if I never threw up again. But I was no longer doing a screen fast.
The Lord revealed to me over my time of being sick and really over my time here in Romania, that it's always a choice. We have as much of the Lord as we want, which is a scary concept. Think about it, right now, in this very moment you have as much of God in your life as you want. And I'm done settling. I want more, so much more. And I'm tired of just simply asking for more in prayer, it's time to make the choice and choose more than what I'm doing right now. It is so easy to get distracted by the internet, our computer screens, our cell phones-and when we have those things, it's a much easier choice to than sitting in intensive quiet listening prayer, or reading scripture, or even journaling what God is saying and teaching. It's time to choose more than the easy and make the choice that brings so much more. The harder choice almost always comes with the greatest reward. And the reward of getting filled with more and more of the Lord and fully enjoying Him and His glory is greater than everything else that we distract ourselves with.
I would never trade being sick for that week and a half. It changed my whole life.
This month we are in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. We have been with our entire squad this month (around 40 people) working with a ministry called Zion's Gate started by a man named Tony Deine. Tony was called by the Lord to Honduras around 5 years ago to live out his faith and at has turned into a lot more an he ever could have expected. Zion's Gates main ministry involves working with boys ages 13 and up who have grown up in gang life on the streets. Most of the boys are from a small and very poor community called Los Pinos and around 11 boys now live on the Zion's Gate property with Tony and his wife.
A normal day here in Honduras varies for everyone, but here are some of the things we are doing this month:
Property work-clearing out the property to make it more livable for the boys and for future groups coming in to help with ministry.
Teaching English at a local school
Soccer Ministry (discovering that I am really bad a soccer)
Visiting the local dump where thousands of families call their home
Painting (because we just didn't get enough of it in El Salvador)
Visiting Los Pinos- this is my favorite thing to do here in Tegucigalpa. This part of ministry includes just hanging out in the community, painting a house for one of the locals, building a bathroom for a community member, carrying 5 gallon buckets of water up a mountain to mix concrete, and playing with some of the cutest and dirtiest kids I've ever met.
After a long day of ministry, we head back to our tents for a restful night under the stars.
This month has been a whirlwind. Days have flown by and we are about to head to Romania very soon! More stories from Zion's Gate coming soon! Our internet this month has been very scarce, but expect blogs very soon with some very exciting news!!!
The first night I met Gaby, she brought me to her room and showed me her pandas, her Justin Beiber poster, and gave me a picture of herself to keep. We bonded instantly. She is passionate about school and studying in the United States one day. Every day she would greet me with a hug and a kiss. For some reason the Holy Spirit brought down the attitude of sisterhood between us, even though she is 15. Gaby has 2 brothers: Nester and Javier. Those boys had a special place in my heart as well. Each day the boys would come in and give affection in hugs and high fives and just sitting together on the couch. The story behind this family involves death, hurt and abuse, and time in poor orphanages in separation. This is just one of the families of kids that live at Mi Casa Kids International in Santa Tecla, El Salvador. There are many more kids who have stories that bring the power of Jesus to life. Our time at Mi Casa kids was a powerful and exciting time and as we are transitioning into a new ministry in Honduras, I know that the kids at Mi Casa will forever remain in my heart.
This month, I have had the absolute privilege of working in an amazing orphanage in Santa Tecla, El Salvador. Instead of calling it an "orphanage," the staff and kids call it a "hogar," which loosely translated means a home, and that is exactly what Mi Casa is.
The orphanage is was founded and is run by a man named Bob McDonnell, an American with a heart that is passionate for the orphaned children in El Salvador. He used to be a very successful business man in Oregon, but knew that God was calling him to bigger things. He says, "the Lord just gave me an internal download of what I needed to do." Bob is a father figure to the kids at the hogar. Whenever he comes in the room, kids will stop what they are doing and run to him yelling "Poppy!" and "Daddy!" He always accepts them with such loving arms, mirroring the image of our heavenly Father.
There are two physical houses that encompass the hogar, a girls house and a boys house. The ladies on the World Race team live in a small little room at the girls house, and the WR guys find spare couches at the boys house.
At the girls house we get to live with the absolute coolest girls: Gaby, Agatha, Julia, Lili, Brisa, Angelica, Rosita, Ceci, and two babies: Fatima and Mary. At the boys house there are four older university students: Saul, Miguel, Xander, and Elder who grew up in the home and have stayed there as they have started University. There are also younger boys: Kevin, Juan Carlos, Nester, Javier, and Juancito.
These kids are amazing. There is so much love in their hearts to be shared. I can't walk into either house at the hogar without getting huge hugs and kisses. But in the end, these kids are still orphans. Many have been abandoned by all family, some have seen their families pass away due to alcoholism or AIDS, some have experienced severe physical and sexual abuse from family members or people from their past. In their lives, these kids have seen and experienced so many things that many of us cannot even imagine. But because the hogar is a safe place, totally emcompassed by the Spirit of the Lord, the kids have experienced so much healing and can now love so deeply.
I've been reading a book this month called: "Spiritual Slavery to Spiritual Sonship," by Jack Frost. It has been the absolute best book for me to read while living at the hogar. The book talks about how a lot of us, as Christians, are still living with an orphan heart, not fully embracing the intensity and fullness of the love of God. Even those of us that have grown up in caring and loving families can still have an orphan heart. Reading that book this month while living in an orphanage has not only taught me more about God's love, but it has sparked in me the ability to love more fiercely than ever before, to share His love.
This month has been so good for me. I love being surrounded by kids all the time. And it has been a spiritually filling for me as well. God is speaking so much truth over me while living here about the kind of woman I am in Him and how I am a daughter of the Most High. I have been able to fill up here in order to pour out more and more in the months to come.
As our time in Guatemala came to a close,I was expecting a lot of emotions, mostly from myself, but also in general. It is so hard to pour all of your love into a city and then leave and go to a new one after a month. My prayer for Antigua as we were leaving, was that the love of God would spill over the city and bring freshness and life to a dark place.
Most of our ministry in Antigua was purely relational. We did a lot of visiting with the elderly, a lot of playing with kids at the hospital, and a lot of working in schools. In the schools, we did teaching about Christian values and character and we got to share the gospel a little, but not on an intensive level.
Our last day of ministry, both teams drove about an hour and a half away from Antigua to teach at a school all day. Each team taut about six, 45 minute classes. By the end of the day, we were so tired of saying the same things over and over again, and tired because we had started at 5 that morning. But as it was time for our team to teach our last class, I began praying to be refreshed and that the Lord would bring something new to put before us.
A girl named Stephanie walked in the door to the classroom. She had a hardened exterior and she looked tough, like others would be afraid of her. Throughout the class, as we asked questions, she would always be one of the first to answer. Her brilliance was shining through, even though she wanted to appear to remain tough.
During the lesson, as we were talking about values and where your values come from, Stephanie asked a question that no one was expecting. She asked a question about being sexually abused. Nothing about her question had to do with what we were teaching about and looking back, I believe that the Lord prompted her to ask while we were there.
At the end of the class, many of the women in the room were prompted to pray for Stephanie, but I knew that it was going to be me, I began talking to Stephanie about how God restores purity and about the bug plans He has for her. Her response was: "I don't think that God could still love me." my reply was, "You have no idea how deeply He is in love with you, but you just have to accept His love." then I led her in a prayer to receive the Lord as her Savior. She is now a part of e Kingdom.
What a beautiful way to end our time in a beautiful city.
Now we are in El Salvador, and I am so sorry I haven't been blogging enough. I am resolving to blog more, so expect one in the next day or two explaining our ministry and some of the fun we've been having serving in Santa Tecla, El Salvador.
We've been living in Antigua, Guatemala for a while now. Some days, especially the days where it's my turn to go to the market, I feel more like a local, which is one of the best feelings. Antigua is a city full of busyness, beautiful scenery, and a lot of brokenness. God lives here though. His presence is so evident in so many ways, whether it is in the way the sun sets over the roof of our hostel, or the way an elderly woman smiles at you, God is here and He's doing big things. We have had opportunities to share the Gospel, to spend time and give attention to people that don't get a lot of it, and have really taken time to be relational as a team.
Both teams here in Antigua this month have said that it feels like we have been here a lot longer than we actually have. It's true, but not in a bad way.
Community and life here and on the World Race is so different, and very much the way we were designed to live as children of the Lord. We are committed to praying together and for each other, we work towards calling our brothers and sisters up into the things the Lord has for them and out of the things that are holding them back. We are literally sharpening each other, like iron sharpens iron. It's hard, because we are so used to our selfish alone time and our selfish routines, but day by day more and more of our self dies to the world and more comes alive in the Spirit. We are beginning to choose to prefer others instead of ourselves and to take "loving" the people we live with to a whole new level. It hurts and it's stretching, but the reward is great, because living in community seeking the Lord is how we were designed to do this life thing.
I've had the song "Sometimes" by David Crowder Band stuck in my head the past few days.
"It's your love that we adore,
It's like a sea without a shore,
We're lost in you, we're lost in you,
Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid.
Just set your sails
And risk the ocean,
There's only grace."
Just in the past few weeks, I've seen that the further you press in to the love of God and all of His characteristics, the more love, the more grace, and the more of Him that you get to experience. His love is so big and so vast and all He wants is for us to take the risk to just jump in it and get drenched. He wants us to soak up all the grace and love that He is giving. And in the end, it's not really a risk, because the reward is nothing but grace and love and greater intimacy.
It kinda works the same way with people. Living in community here begins with you deciding whether or not you're willing to take the risk to dive in all the way. Here's my analogy: sometimes with people, it can be easier to tip toe into the water and really get used to the temperature before you put your head in all the way. But everybody knows that if you just go ahead and do a cannonball into the cold water, the reward comes so much quicker and you can continue to dive further and faster.
This is my challenge: whether it be with the Lord or in community, risk the ocean. Go ahead and get drenched with the things that God has for you. With Him, there's only grace and love. And with a community of believers, there's grace and love there too.
The reward of the never-ending ocean outweighs the risk of jumping in. So claim your reward, risk the ocean, and get drenched.
We are living in an oasis. Seriously, to be in the biggest tourist city in Guatemala is nothing short of breath taking. As I wake up in the morning, I can look up and see mountains and volcanoes. It is absolutely unreal.
This month our team has been incredibly blessed with staying in a local hostel in Antigua. We have showers as well as BEDS to sleep in. Feeling a little spoiled here.
Our food budget for the 7 of us is around $20 a day, which is usually much more than we can use and eat. Fresh vegetables are the cheapest I've ever seen them. Too many veggies for me to carry alone rang in at around $3.50 USD.
We are working with three different ministries this month.
1. The Grandpa House (nursing home)
2. A local hospital with kids with cerebral palsy
3. Teaching and evangelizing in local Guatemalan schools
So far, we have only been able to work at the first two locations, we will start at the schools next week.
I have fallen head over heels in love with some of the people at the grandpa house and some of the kids in the hospital.
Our team is bonding so much already and we have only been together for a little over a week. I cannot wait to see what God is going to do in and through us this month.
Another blog coming soon with some stories from the ministries, but until then:
Much Love from Guatemala
sisk
I love hospice. I know it's hard to muster up the words to say that on most days, but at the end of the day, I really do love it. I have an incredibly unique opportunity to get to hear stories from people who have lived a whole lot longer than me and have the stories to prove it.
Today I traveled to a patients house today to give them an anniversary gift, for what is most likely going to be their last anniversary while the patient was still alive. (An aside--How do you pick out a proper anniversary card for someone when you know that this will be their last? Most cards wish people many more years of happiness, which is just not appropriate in this situation. I was in tears before leaving Kroger and we finally settled on one with a Bible verse as the focus.) I was riding with my friend Christine, who is awesome, and we were talking about marriage and what it looks like and how special that bond is. We talked about the true idea of marriage being that you can serve the Lord better with your spouse than you can by yourself. But we were only talking. A true picture of marriage was, at this point of our day, only verbal for us.
Today was Mr. and Mrs. J's wedding annivsersary. They have been married for 59 years. And although Mrs. J is unresponsive to any contact, Mr. J is still as in love with her as ever. We sat for an hour listening to Mr. J tell us about how he and his wife loved people, about the vacations they took with friends, about their intense generosity, and about the incredible love they shared with their family. He talked about his favorite book in the Bible being Daniel, and how he used to read the Bible once a year, but that didn't end up being enough, so he started to see how many times he could read through it each year. Mr. J is a man of faith, a man of God, and a man who's pores are oozing out the love of Jesus.
I asked him, "Mr. J, what does it take to have a happy marriage for 59 years?"
He replied: "Faith in the Lord. That's the only thing that we ever clung to."
*Marriage Boom*
The conversation that Christine and I had in the car on the way to this house was a precursor to the actual picture of marriage that we got to glimpse into today. A picture of how Christ loves the church. A fierce loyalty from a husband who loves his wife to the core, even though she is slowly dying. A pure and gentle view of vulnerability combined with strength and boldness that comes from Christ alone.
As we were leaving the J's house, Mr. J stopped us outside and prayed a blessing over us.
Each day in hospice, some hard and dark, and some filled with beauty, is a chance to learn.
There can be so much life and hope in the name of Jesus, even when bodies are being consumed by physical death.
May the gigantic love of Christ and His desire to pursue you simply overwhelm you.
I feel as if coming home from training camp was the beginning of a training experience on how difficult it is to share your experiences after encountering God in huge ways.
Everyone's question was: How was your week? To most, my polite and concise answer was: intense.
Intense is an accurate word to portray the things that we did, both spiritually and physically. Intense bonds were formed, intense moments of meeting with the Lord were had, and the weight of intense chains bearing down on many people's backs were broken. It was intense.
But how do you accurately tell someone about the emotions you have when you meet the people you are going to be living your life alongside for the next year? And how do you depict the love that you have for a group of people after only a week of getting to know them?
I can't put it into words. But I think that's okay. I will be happy to sit around and tell you about the weird places we slept, the interesting food we ate, and some of the crazy things that we did over 8 days of training. It was funnyand hard, and freeing, and full of furious love. But the emotions that I carry from the week, will be a little harder to express.
Part of my week was the incredible experience of being able to meet my team (family), a group of people that I have been praying for since I got accepted. I may not know these people well enough to spit off their favorite colors or hobbies, but I can say a few things about them. These teammates of mine are a group of kingdom seekers. This is a group of people who run after Jesus with their whole heart, whose heart breaks for injustice and whose feet long to run to the nations. My brothers and sisters here do not take the Great Commission lightly, and I am so excited to be walking alongside them through this next season of adventure set before us.
Team Shadowfeet
(Top Left: Nathan Hatton, Ryan Miller, Aisha Davis.
Bottom Left: Ashley Sisk, Lynnsey Andrews, Dan Loghry, Lindsay Quebedeaux)
Our next step: As we all continue to raise support, and spend time with our friends and family, and try to love each other over many, many miles, please pray for us. Pray for the people who our shadows will fall upon. Pray for our families as they send us off. Pray for our relationship as a team and family. Pray for the feet we will get to wash and for the people whose ears are burning to hear about the hope found in Jesus.
I have so many thoughts and so many words about what has been happening at training camp over the past few days. More about that, more about my team, and more about the crazy things that the Lord has been teaching me this week later.
What I do want to share is about an experience that I had over my time here.
For the longest time I have been broken for a lot of causes. Water, women, children, the hurting. But last night, I got put in the shoes in a simulation of a woman who was trafficked. As a team we were put in a stressful situation where we had to get out of an area, because of the stress, we were quick to believe all that we heard. I heard that there was safety somewhere, and I ran.
Because I chose that route in stress. I was trafficked. I felt lost, I felt broken.
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