At the beginning of my trip when we were still at training camp, our leaders had us spend some time alone in prayer to ask God what He wanted us to learn or get out of trips. The answer I got was joy. I was promised joy wherever I was at and in whatever situation.
At the beginning of the trip I was struggling with homesickness but I was able to quickly push through that and begin to enjoy our ministry. At first I thought that was the joy the Lord had promised me but soon after our team started to experience some spiritual warfare. We have some members of our team in the hospital with various illnesses, our ministry’s hosts wife went into labor early so we aren’t getting as many outreach opportunities as we would like, and some members of the team, myself included, having been dealing with bad dreams and anxiety. The joy I had found was quickly starting to disappear with all of the negative things happening to us.
It wasn’t until I was flipping through my journal this morning and I landed on the page where I wrote the Lords promise down that I realized what the Lord had really promised me. He promised me joy wherever I was, not just in the comfortable places and in whatever situation, not just the good times. There has been so many simple but special moments on this trip that have brought me so much joy and laughter that I have just brushed off. Moments like doing my laundry on the roof with the other girls and listening to worship music, getting to grocery shop and help cook dinner for my teammates, making friends with the locals at the Market, learning to navigate around this crazy big city and I could go on and on!
I am learning that as long as the Lord is in the middle of your situation you can find joy in even the hardest of situations and I am so thankful He is by my side on this journey!
“Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 | NIV
