Hey Friends,
Alright Ya’ll.
I have started so many posts to send you, but I am truthfully struggling
with coming up with the words to say to share all that is going on. Life has been moving in the fast lane
the past month and a half. For
those of you who do not know, I am back in Cambridge, working with YWAM (Youth
With A Mission) as a staff member at the base here. And you know what, to be completely honest, this past month
and a half has been really difficult.
I have had quite an emotional journey trying to figure out exactly what
it is that God has for me here in Cambridge, and what He has for me in life in
general. In addition to trying to
figure out why the heck He brought me back to this beautiful city I now call
home. With that being said, I have
had so many amazing things that I have wanted to share with all of you, but I
have not known how to put it down into words. I still feel like I have been called to the Cambridge area
for this time, and I believe with all of my heart that I made the right call in
coming back here for this time.
However, I still do not know what that reason is.
I will get back to that topic in a bit and just spend some
time filling you in on what it is I am doing here in Cambridge. So, the spark notes version, I am here
to assist my base leader and my DTS leader in organizing a DTS (Discipleship
Training School) Gathering that will be held here in just a few short
weeks. Every year, YWAM England
gathers different YWAM bases from around the UK to have a week of teaching and
training with the focus of Evangelism.
This year, the gathering is being held right here in Cambridge. Instead of going into the nitty gritty
of what all I am doing, I will just give a general overview. Basically I spend my time communicating
with other YWAM bases, as well as with different churches and ministries in the
local area to try to pull together to find lodging, food, transport, events,
etc for the week.
In addition to working on the Gathering details, I am
joining in with the DTS (Discipleship Training School) that started up three
weeks ago on our base. So,
basically, I do a lot of Admin work throughout the day in addition to joining
in, where I can with the daily life of a Discipleship Training School. (Including things like prayer and
worship, small groups, joining in on the lectures, and anything else that I can
pop in for) The team of trainees
that we have this year are amazing!
They have an amazing spirit about them! I love being able to spend time with and getting to know the
team. The team has a busy week of
lectures in the mornings, followed by triplet times (similar to a small group
discussion time going over the day’s lecture, or how people are doing
spiritually, and or emotionally, etc.), lunch, work duties, prayer/
intercession, and worship. They
have times of going out into the city meeting with the amazing people of
Cambridge and “Evangelizing”. As
well as times partnering with different ministries already set up in the
town. I am able to join in a lot
of the times, but not all because I have to work on some planning for the
Gathering, which includes planning meetings with both my leaders, and with
other people who will be involved with the week.
So what have I been learning over this past month and a
half? A LOT! Life is definitely not always
easy. And finding where you belong
in life takes a lot out of you.
Honesty hour here. So, I
really LOVE what I do! I enjoy
planning events, and organizing people and ideas. I really do! I
love being able to do a lot of the behind the scenes work in order to help make
the, either day to day life of the others on my team, or the bigger training
events possible and easier for everyone to enjoy. However, sometimes I feel like people think I am just
traipsing around, wasting time and money.
I know what others think should not really affect who I am, but I am
human, and people’s thoughts do affect me. I am a people pleaser, so I want to make sure that I am
doing something with my life that people will support and be happy with. Trying to convey what my job is, and
what it is I am doing to others is quite difficult. Telling people that I am a missionary serving in Cambridge
England, is something that sometimes I, myself, feel silly saying.
When people typically think of missionaries, the first thing
that pops in their minds is people going to places in the middle of no where
reaching out to those in third world countries. So, telling people that I am going to a very wealthy city,
in a first world, western country, sometimes makes me feel a bit strange. But then I think about it. What exactly is a missionary? Just using my own definition of a
missionary, I believe it is someone who is sent by God to follow His call to
spread the amazing testimony of who God is, of how and why Jesus died for our
sins, and that by through the acceptance of Jesus Christ as our Savior, the
Holy Spirit can come live inside of us so that we can, once again, have an open
and constant relationship with God, our Father. If I follow that definition, what I am doing here, and what
I will hopefully be able to do, full time in the future, fits that
definition.
Now, I do not want you to be thinking that I do what I do
just to attain the title “missionary” because in my mind, if I did that, I
would not be fulfilling the definition of missionary as I defined above. I would, instead be doing something
quite different. To continue, I do
not do what I do in order to do anything other than to follow what I feel God
leading me to do. Sometimes, being
completely vulnerable right now, I feel that I need to have a “title” to my job
so that it validates, by society’s standards, what I am doing when, in reality,
I do not need to be validated by society at all! I do what I do because I love the Lord, and I want to have
Him as my full time boss. I want
to serve Him, and He is who I should be “worried” about being validated
by. And well, God is an Awesome
Boss! When we are walking in His
Will for our life, or when we are doing things that we believe are lining up
with His Will for our life, He is SO happy! He loves that we want to serve Him and work for/with Him.
So, in summary, I am learning that when it comes to people
pleasing, the thing that I need to worry about most is following what God has
for my life, and out of that I will automatically please Him. He is the One who I should be most
worried about pleasing. When I submit
my life to walk with Him, true life and His blessings will bubble out of
that. Yes, some people may get
offended, and some people may look at what I am doing as crazy or
irresponsible, but His blessings outweigh the negative feedback. And hey, not everyone is ever going to
agree with every decision you make in life no matter what the decision is, so I
might as well make a decision to do something I am passionate about and
something that I have felt called to time and time again in my life.
There is a lot more that I have been learning over the past
month and a half that I would love to share with you all, but I will have to
add that in another post because this one is getting quite long. Alright, well, you all are awesome and
I appreciate all of your support!
