I really missed October, I love the crisp air and the weather drop that this season brings to remind me of what's to come and the presence of the Lord in changing seasons. I took my first week off of language to renew my mind and process my first half a year in this beautiful country. Many things lately have been stretching my heart and attention in different directions and my prayer in the midst of what can feel like chaos if to be grounded in Christ. My team is all here and healthy for the first time in a few months so we are getting to know one another and learning what it looks like to function as a team. We have started some weekly practices such as prayer walking partners and spiritual friendship groups that will change regularly. We went on a team retreat in the mountains and focused on personality types and spiritual gifts. It was so interesting to learn about the people here I consider family, so many gifts I recognized in them but never put words to. I am learning so much about the value of short-term teams coming to visit, not only do outside perspectives help spark vision but it is also refreshing to see God’s people come learn and experience the differences in culture across the world. My personality test said that I am a sociable, outgoing, and people-oriented person with strong leadership qualities. It also focused on some of my underlying characteristics such as stable, steady, task-oriented, decisive, doing, and influencing. I’ve always recognized that I like to initiate and see things to completion. I need Godly leadership that I respect and am thankful to say I have that here. My top spiritual gifts were administration/ ruling, hospitality, and evangelism. I think it was insightful to see how all 3 of these flow into the other.
This last month the Lord has put the words expectant and becoming on my heart and mind, as I am reading through Matthew and all of the miracles He performed but did not want His name to be known. I can expect the Lord to work in and through me, and can trust that He has really good plans for my future. Becoming, sanctification, two very commonly used phrases here are “it will be” and “if God wills.” I will constantly be in a state of becoming more like Jesus. Lately I have been journaling and processing through idols in my life, anything that I let have an effect over the way I feel or my emotions. He is teaching me to look up more and to look out and ahead, the past can not be changed and He has new mercies to show me. A friend once taught me the practice of reprocessing or retraining my mind to place Jesus in some of my darkest memories. To remember how I felt and place His presence that I now recognize was always there but may not have felt in the moment.
Someone recently asked me how I have changed since being here. I used to hate tea, now I look forward to drinking tea with people and hope my favorite kind is at the meal. I used to not enjoy hiking and now I love it and feel the presence of the Lord so closely lost deep within the canyons. In a weird way this is the first time I have settled into a true version of myself, I am not the same as when I left America and I think that is a great thing. In my 6 month thoughts I confessed I truly did not believe the Lord had my best interest in mind when coming here. How can you know the Lord is calling you somewhere but have no idea why, that is my faith journey with Jesus. Giving Him my yes has been the best adventure I could ever imagine. The most encouraging thing I have come to peace with is that I cannot forfeit His plan for my life or anyone else’s.
I am moving again, as much as I would like to settle down in one place, there is a cost in figuring out where the Lord wants me here. He has made it clear that I should move again, this time to a much busier area with a roommate. I am excited but the emotional process of packing up and moving again overseas is hard, especially knowing in a few months I will be gone from my new “home away from home.” I have recently been reminded of the life of Jesus and Paul always moving to a new place, for the word says “the son of man will have no place to lay His head.” In the process of apartment hunting I got in two men’s car’s with blacked out windows, probably the number one rule you should not break here. Don’t worry, I was safe and with a friend. It is common for the realtor to come pick you up and take you to see their flat, yet each time I got in their cars I laughed out loud at the thought of how mad my mother would be with me. We recently went to the biggest bazaar in Central Asia, it is massive and takes up both sides of a long street. We only went for 2 hours but left completely exhausted, it reminded me of my first few months here where doing anything took so much mental energy and I napped almost every afternoon. No matter how long I’m here and how much I learn, new cultural things will take up a lot of my capacity. I recently went to the national library here just to realize like many things here, it is not what you would expect, it did not have very many books. On our tour we learned about a mural inside that faced one of the main statues of a famous poet in the city. Poetry is a huge part of the rich culture and history here. While there my teacher admitted that when she first met me she thought I would never learn the language due to the approach I was taking but was impressed at how far I have come in the last 7 months.
Lately, I have been spending more time getting to know people, I feel like I am just starting to come out of survival mode here and have the capacity to engage in more relationships. I went on a walk recently with a young woman who is very sad about being single again after her divorce and is infatuated with what the world has to offer her. After her recent trip to Turkey where she was able to explore Islam by attending a mosque for the first time, as it is not allowed here for women to go to the mosque. When she returned she was covered head to toe wearing a hijab and dating a family friend much older than her who she plans to marry soon. A lot of women her age do not wear head coverings until they are married, this was a complete opposite step in the direction that I have been praying over her life. I can trust that the Lord will show her empty prayers and no true satisfaction in the path she is heading down, I want to be there to answer the hard questions when the time comes.
Recently, me and an American friend were eating Afghan osh at a restaurant and the owner favored her, he told the waitress to give her his number, obviously she did not accept it. As we left we got a good distance away from the restaurant and heard yelling behind us, the waitress chased us down in a panic demanding my friend’s number but would not give us a reason. We declined sharply but our hearts broke for this woman, she was most likely going to return to work and get in trouble for not completing the boss’s task. That is the sad reality of living here, most women live in slavery to their job’s, husband’s, or mother-in-law’s. On the other hand, I was able to attend a soccer game where the home team won, I watched as all of the men cheered and took pride in their country.
One thing I know for sure is that the Lord puts you in the absolute best situations, I accidentally heard the testimony of an older local man just by being in the right place at the right time. He had come to know Jesus by his brother-in-law telling him to repent, he heard that he needed to get on his knees and admit he was a sinner, after years of struggling with this decision he asked a lot of questions and gave in. As soon as he did and started to evangelize he faced much persecution, his father told him a group wanted to kill him and that they gave his father the option of doing it first. His father said no that they could come and told his son he had completely defiled the honor of his family. In God’s grace on his life the men that wanted to kill him were killed before they arrived at his home that night. His relatives started to believe in this God of protection over their son but did not change their ways, the landlord told his family they had to move out due to their son so they kicked him out with nothing. He and his wife moved into their church and prayed, he started preaching to soldiers standing on the street with machine guns during the country’s civil war. One night at church he was preaching to a group and soldiers came in and said they must leave the church building. Fifteen of them held hands and prayed over the soldiers and war very loudly, one put a gun to his head and said he must repent of his words or be killed. He told the man he forgave him and so did the Lord, and that the Lord would be waiting on him. Again, in God’s mercy, the soldier pulled the trigger 3 times but the gun did not fire and they ran away scared. That night the presence of God came to him and heavily strengthened him. He said that praying in the name of Jesus is so strong and his time on earth is protected until the Lord calls him home. He has continued to do open ministry, eventually moving to Af for 7 years, and is now the pastor of a local church.
My team has been on many beautiful hikes lately including one where you walk high up into the hills above the city. We sat and prayed over things in our hearts and the Lord brought to my mind Psalm 121 as I watched the sun set behind the mountains. “I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made Heaven and earth.” There is not one corner of this earth He does not see, and He always fulfills His promises. Sometimes I read miraculous stories or hear stories of great things the Lord is doing and it is hard to believe I will see the same kinds of things during my time overseas. Like the fruit in season here we do not get to taste the same things all year round but instead look forward to its prime ripeness. Life has been slow and there are not these huge moments of seeing fruit regularly, but a lot of little moments of seeing His faithfulness in due season. It can be much easier to believe for others than for ourselves. I am not here to be able to tell stories of big, wild things I saw God do. I will be able to tell of so much more consistent goodness I see while living into the obedience He has called me to. I know the Lord is doing a big, great thing in calling all nations to Himself and I’m thankful to have a small part in it. Let it be so.
Ruth