The Gift of Receiving

I came into the World Race training camp immediately ready for my first country, Guatemala. In my spiritual pride, I believed that I didn’t even need the training camp to go out and serve people, that I had all I needed to go and help people around the world. 

 Oh, how I found out within the first few days of training camp how incredibly wrong I was. I found myself in a place of complete humility because I knew very little about being a daughter of the King before being a missionary. Anyone can go out and serve people. Very few have the ability to serve with a pure heart without knowing who and whose they are; without knowing why you are doing it. I wouldn’t be able to serve and share the gospel with people if I hadn’t also fully received the love, grace, and carrying aspect that my Father also has for me. As a Christian, I know these things. I have experienced the love of God in profound and beautiful ways throughout my testimony, and I know my God. And yet, in my heart I still find myself having trouble with receiving His gift of love and support as a missionary. I can go out to all the nations to give for God, but I realized that I’m having trouble letting my Lord and Savior give to me. 

I’ve been raised in a Christian household my whole life, there isn’t a part of my story where Jesus isn’t written on every page. Ever since I can remember I have always played a role in serving the Kingdom of God through serving in the church in every possible way I could. All I’ve ever wanted to do is help people, to realistically save lives. In college, the Lord quickly helped me realize that the only way to truly save lives is to share the Gospel. So He called me to go on missions and I gave Him my absolute yes (it took a lot of time to get there, however) and said yes to this 11-month World Race mission trip. I have spent the past few weeks in a season of learning to receive God’s own genuine desire to take care of me. I have become a novice every day in the search to find a deeper intimacy with my Father.

Throughout missionary boot camp (what I called World Race training camp) I was challenged on a daily basis physically, mentally, spiritually, and emotionally, all with the notion that the Race is not easy. They were preparing us for all the things that could happen. On the second day of camp, I was questioning why I was there. I was being challenged in the most uncomfortable, but real ways. I remember the first day my squad’s coach said, “Don’t lose what you found in the light in the darkness of uncomfortable situations and circumstances.” She really meant that as something to encourage us throughout the year, but in that moment God meant it to hit my heart there and then. It led me to read John 1:1-5, the Lord is the light – Jesus is the light (Matt. 5:14, John 1:1-5) and the darkness cannot overcome, understand, appropriate, absorb, and revoke the light, so what the Lord reveals to you in the Light cannot be extinguished because it’s inside you. You must look inside you, to the Spirit, who is stronger and more able to do what God has called you to do. In Him is life and the Light of humanity and now that is within you and the darkness doesn’t have the power or authority to overcome what was found in the light. I also learned that if you’re not afraid, nervous, and doubting, then you really aren’t going to do a God kind of thing. He comes in when we surrender the doubt and our fears, walking in great faith that He is and will always be with us and for us. I experienced YAWEH ELYON (God Most High), learning to just stand present in complete awe and reverence for God and all He has done. I experienced the full force of His kingdom freedom wrapping around my life as He claimed and healed all my brokenness. I experience JEHOVAH JIREH (God that Provides) through all the amazing people who have generously supported my missions and are still giving through their prayers and finances. God has shown up in so many ways, and He is still teaching me how to truly receive all that He has given. 

He is teaching me to receive through the love and support of my mission team. We are called Zera, which in Hebrew means new beginnings and planting seeds. We all sacrificed some things to be here and to be willing to be sent by God, so therefore, it is a new beginning for us. We also have the desire to plant seeds of the gospel in every nation that we visit, 1 Peter 1:23 says that the Word of God is a seed that is planted and it can not be destroyed. Even if we don’t see plants grow within these countries, we will secure our hope in the fact that the Word of God never returns void; it’s our job to plant and His job to grow throughout the generations. Through this vision, we will be supporting and loving each other and growing with one another. We have already become such a family it’s incredible how much the love of Jesus unites. 

The Lord is teaching me to receive through the ministry that He has assigned my team to in Guatemala. Dar para dar is a ministry that builds houses, works with orphanages, local village schools, and so much more. Right now God has placed a vision on the heart of our hosts to have a place called Prayer Mountain which will someday be an oasis for missionaries to come and just be with God. My team and I are tasked to be the hands helping build this place. We are doing a lot of manual labor, clearing land, and most importantly spending time with God. Our gracious and kind host told us that the most important thing that we can do on this mountain is not the work that He gives us, but the time that we spend intimately growing closer to our Heavenly Father. He said that even during work if we need to drop everything and just go find a place to be with the Lord to do it. For the first week of being in Guatemala, I have had to come to terms with the reality of where God is calling me to be and it is receiving Him, as a free and unconscious gift. I’ve had to learn that knowing that and believing it within my heart are two different things. During this time of receiving, my team and I will be doing coffee ministry, house visits, and school sports ministries in the villages. 

God has been revealing to me how important it is to minister to His heart before taking up the task of ministering and sharing the gospel with others. I’m so excited for all that God is teaching me, all that He is doing through my team, and all that remains to be seen. I will keep everyone updated as I invite you to take this journey with me venturing into all these beautiful countries, serving and saving people, yet also, and most importantly standing in complete awe at the gift of fully receiving all that God is and has given us.