Yesterday, was a day of serving the community. The team, as well as the mentor and some of his family, went into a neighborhood here, and cleared a portion of unkept and forgotten land that was filled with brambles, bushes, weeds and trash. While we were doing this, people would walk by with a fairly stunned look on their face and or would stop and chat with one of us about what we were doing. We were seen, our presence is known.
Already, we are serving in a small and practical manner, and people are being noticing. As we were working my heart was humbled more and more. Many of you know, I am not someone who enjoys work in the outdoors. There are certain things I'll enjoy outside, but for the most part, I'm not a fan; and that's okay. But I did our work anyway. I sung out to God in the midst of it, and then would pray, and then cry out in song again. It was like a time of worship. It's was beautiful to commune with my Savior in the midst of our work. No one complained, until the "Miggies" came along (I'll tell you all about them some other time), and even then it was short. Honestly, I was really surprised. I expected to hear grumbling and complaining, but instead heard whispers of humility and signs of the servants amongst us. God was present. He's made an incredible mark on the hearts of these people, and I'm glimpsing that already.
I'm humbled. I'm seeing God's love and hope manifested in the people I'm serving with already. I'm so excited to see everything that transpires as the time flies by.
In the same way, I'm humbled by the congregation we are serving. The people of the church are incredibly hospitable and generous people. I'm overwhelmed by their love for us. On Saturday evening, my team (the 5 interns: Jim, Kathryn, Danielle, Rebekah, and myself) arrived by bus, being picked up and walked to our living spaces by our mentor family and the Pastor's wife. First of all, the flat the four of us girls are in, is beyond nice. It's beautiful, comfortable, and close to pretty much everything. We are so richly blessed. On top of that, the Pastor's wife made us a meal for when we arrived (believe me, we were all exhausted and so hungry for actual food), it was marvelous. Members in the church also had gotten together and have brought food over to us so that we would have meals for the next few days so we could rest and get comfortable. These people are generous, and I am thankful for them already.
As the last few days have gone by, other people have brought over more food for us. Not because they have to, but because they want too. I am humbled. Here we are, ready to serve in whatever way needed, and these beautiful, wonderful people are serving us. God really does things like this to break us down a little bit, and to make us new people with different perspectives. Not only am I being challenged to be a servant and to be humble, it goes the other way. The people of this community are also being challenged to be humble and accept what we are doing, as well as to serve us (which honestly, they're do extraordinarily well at).
All of this being said, I'm being brought to questioning whether or not back home we're humble. How much do we actually struggle with being humble? From what I've seen here so far, we struggle with living humbly all the time. We as a people are not humble, and it is breaking my heart to realize that. I'm realizing I am not humble.
My prayer for myself has been asking God to make me humble. To bring me low. I know others on my team are crying to God asking that as well.
Are you humble? Are you really living a life of humility? Is your natural tendency to be humble? Let me boldly venture a guess and say no. Considering the pride of humanity and the sin nature we all grapple with, we are not normally humble. Make your prayer be for that of humility.
Prayer Requests:
- Prayer for our unity to grow
- Pray that we grow in humility constantly
- Pray that we might reflect Jesus in all that we do and say
- Pray for us as we go to a primary school on Thursday to share a Biblical story with the children there.
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