Being a missionary is hard

It's very early on a Sunday morning and I'm gonna take advantage of the 20 minutes it's gonna take to download a David Platt sermon to update you all a bit more :-)

As I said in my post yesterday, these past two weeks have been really really hard.  It really started a week ago today when my emotions and nerves just lost it.  For two days I couldn't do any work when I got home.  During classes throughout the day I was alright, at times on my last nerve, but I made it okay by God's strength.  But when I would get home, fear, anxiety, sorrow... they would overwhelm me.  After praying, talking, reading, and receiving counsel from some absolute God-sends, I've been able to sort through some of the things that have been gripping me.  I've come to believe that my struggle is part emotional, where I'm missing people so badly and didn't realize it enough to process it, part practical, where there is just so much to do for school that it is easy to be overwhelmed, and part spiritual, where the devil knows my weakened state and has taken the opportunity to feed lies and doubt into my heart.

So far I have learned many truths that I'll continue to cling to through my time here.  My prayer is that through this struggle I will learn to lean hard into my God, to trust his word in the midst of big storms even when I feel like I cannot see, and that ultimately, I will look more like my Savior, more prepared for more of his work (med school and beyond).  I cannot pretend to know the full reasons why God has me here this year.  If it is mostly for my refinement by fire I will rejoice with the strength God gives me because hardship is discipline and it means that my Father loves me enough to correct my human ways.  If it is also to make his name famous among my students and the people I am around, all the better.  If it is to encounter a single person that needs a single word of truth spoken into their life that can plant a seed of salvation, so be it.  Mine is not to question.  Mine is to be as obedient as I know how according to the strength God gives me everyday.  It is critical that I learn that everything beyond that is out of my control.

Some fun things have also happened in the past week... We've stayed the night at Emily's parents house a few times, once playing "tia" (literally "aunt" but the name is used for the workers that help at the hogar and its projects) for them while the real tia took some vacation time.  In the continuing sega of EA sports (Emily and Ashley) versus the Brewsters at Saturday night cards, we won for the second time last night! Lol.  Same night as the Hilltoppers winning their first football game in two-ish years! Go Tops!  Also, the other 4 teaching missionaries at the school live across the street and have invited us to come every night we're available to do a short praise and worship session after dinner.  So far we've made it 2 or 3 times and it's been an INCREDIBLE blessing.  So have the Brewsters for that matter, the way they have helped me through this past week.  Praise God that even though I feel alone at times, I am NOT and he has provided the best of people to surround and support me, including the multitudes praying for me back home, the Brewsters here, Emily, who's had to put up with a lot through my struggle this week, the other missionaries, and even a few of the directors at school.  And of course, the students can also be a joy and delight even when they don't do their homework and don't study for quizzes. Lol.

As my favorite hymn of the moment (and my theme song here so far) says: may this journey bring a blessing, may I rise on wings of faith, and at the end of my heart's testing, with your likeness let me wake.