Working in the Wrestling

Sorry it’s been a little while. It’s taken me some time to process and find the words to say about our 7 weeks in Eswatini. 7 weeks on the race feels like an eternity and lot of life can happen in that time.

Eswatini for me felt like a season of wrestling. Wrestling with God. Wrestling with myself. Wrestling with our circumstances. Wrestling with those around me. Wrestling with change. Wrestling with the concept of both\and.

How can things be both good and hard?

How can things be both exhausting and life giving?

How can time both drag on and fly by?

For me the transition to Africa was difficult. After spending 3 months in Europe the change back from a cold culture to a warm culture was welcome, but still shocking. In Europe we had a lot of freedom, in terms of safety precautions as well as coming off of ATL where we got to have a lot of say in our schedule and what we chose to do with our time. Going to Africa came at the cost of a lot of those freedoms that I had grown accustomed to. There was also the fact that we now saw poverty in a much more extreme and obvious way than we had experienced the past months which is always a heartbreaking reality to come to terms with. But despite struggling to adjust to some of these changes I felt an underlying excitement in getting to experience this new place, people, and culture. Immediately I recognized a sense of joy that was unlike that of any other culture I had experienced thus far. 

Eswatini marked the first time in a while that we all lived together and did ministry together as one team. We lived on a homestead property and all seven of us girls lived in this tiny, tiny, tinyyyy little house. I was so excited to be all back together after being separated in Albania, but it also came with a new set of challenges. I experienced the both/and of living all together being both super fun and at times frustrating. We got to do so many special things as a whole squad during our 7 weeks, including a safari, going to the beach, having our parents come visit, and celebrating 3 birthdays! But at the same time there were also moments when we disagreed, needed space, or just got on each other’s nerves. I really wrestled with being so thankful to be reunited, while also at times letting our not so ideal circumstances cause me to get frustrated or overwhelmed. 

For ministry in Eswatini we served at a local care point (community center/preschool) with about 80 kids. Now, for me, kids ministry is not where I thrive and going to the care point was often exhausting and draining. It took a lot of energy to be able to play with kids for 6 hours straight every day. But at the same time the children were so full of joy and being surrounded by their smiles and laughter each day filled me up in a way I didn’t know I needed. They reminded me what it looks like to have child-like faith and to love with reckless abandon. Though I finished each day dirty and weary, I also felt joyful. The sweetest part of our time, by far, was the time we had building relationships with each one of those kids and loving them and being loved in return. Though there were many days where I thought I couldn’t make it through 6 hours of being surrounded by children, as we drove away on our last day my eyes were filled with tears, and my heart with gratitude. 

As I mentioned in one of my previous blogs, Albania was a season of deep healing and heart work. So it was no surprise that the Lord was continuing to work in me in Eswatini. But now He was asking me to live out a lot of the things He had taught me back in Albania. But sometimes even though our hearts have been changed it takes a little while for our actions and habits to follow suit. I wrestled with the struggle between surrender and stubbornness, between obedience and obstinance. But through it all God consistently met me with grace and patience.

Finally, it was in Eswatini that the realization really set in that the Race is ending. It was then that we really started thinking and talking about what would life after the Race look like. What would our relationships with each other look like? It was the first time we started experiencing our “lasts” of things. Our last continent or our last birthday celebrated. And I really began to, and still continue to, wrestle with the idea of the end of this whole thing. There is a part of me that is excited to go home. To be reunited with my friends and family. To get to have and experience all the things from home that I’ve missed these past 10 months. But there is also a large part of me that is devastated at the thought of it all being over. And so I continue to wrestle with this reality and the conflicting emotions that come with it.

But even though there is tension in the wrestling there is also so much purpose. For in the process of wrestling with something we are often forced to seek the Lord in it. We are invited to bring our complicated and confusing feelings, our regrets, our disappointments, our mistakes, the things we don’t understand or wish were different to the feet of Jesus. And it is in this offering that the Lord meets us in return with His peace, strength, forgiveness, mercy, and love. Therefore I am thankful that God is always at work in the wrestling.

B🤍