Would you call me adventurous??!
This last weekend, CCC-the organization I work for in Spain- had a conference with all the American missionaries in Western and Eastern Europe. (Yes, I got to see Baird and Monica- Moscow team- They are doing well.) It was amazing to be surrounded by missionaries who were all going through the same things as I had and have over the last year and a half. While it was amazing, it was also eye opening.
In a discussion between me and my Red River Coach, Shannon Compere-She's amazing.- She directly looked at me in a conversation and said, "it appears there is a little adventure in you." This is something that had never been said to me before. In describing myself, my walk with Christ, my life, I NEVER would have used the word Adventurous. Terrified, incoherent, and awkward are words I would use to describe myself as I live out a life in another Country.
Eye opening is the best way to describe this conversation because instances played over in my mind of the past year and a half. Instances where I took chances, and dove right in head first replayed in my mind. "Was this true of me? Am I an adventurous person, and if so why had I always felt so inadequate and cowardess?" As I questioned, I began to see moments in my life where I had been given a challenge. Moments when people I highly respected as "studs" of faith would look at me and say, "Jess, you can do this. You would be amazing at this. You should go for it."
Just in those words of affirmation, those words of faith in me, I began to see how I had lived out my walk with Christ. He spoke to me through people who believed in me. He has been showing me what I am made of as a follower through people He strategically placed along the way. In that, I was able to see how divine and true His omnpresent power really stretches!
An example of this was last year. The entire year I felt so irrelevant and unnecessary. I couldn't speak or understand the language well. I wasn't building lasting relationships in my definition. I just felt like I was a waste of amazing financial support by people who, if they knew how afraid I was, would probably fire me. Then, came the Summer Project of 25 Venezuelans. Only 5 of them could speak english. The rest all in Spanish! My team leaders looked at me and said, "Jess, lead this team of 5. Show them how to do evangelism here." In my mind, I was thinking, "I can barely communicate. How can I lead a team, and be responsible for people?! I am not ready!" However, when given a challenge, I have to forge ahead. Its just the way I am made. Now, if I am not asked or overlooked, my cowardness will never allow me to volunteer. My forging ahead comes with a mere question. "Will you do this?" In the end, I realized, I can do this. God had gifted me with the ability of language and teaching. I was able to lead people. I didn't know that was in me! As a result my whole perspective changed. By the end of the first week, I had reapplied and changed my plan ticket, so that I could come back and see what else God had in store for me in Spain for one more year.
Back to the Conference, Later that week, we all met as a team. We had to decide what our 5 most important values are. I love exercises like this because I can see what Kathy Frey had been telling me all along. As I mature in my faith, I begin to understand who I really am and who I am really being shaped to be, moving from a baby Christian to a mature follower. My values had changed over the last year.
My top 5 values are: 1. Affiliation- a need to feel accepted and valued within a team 2. Exercise Competence- Opportunity to work where I feel I have talents and can excel. 3. Challenging Opportunities- Stretched with new, unique, or difficult situations. (This one not only surprised me, but my team leaders as well. They didn't know I needed this) 4 Peace and Harmony - Freedom from conflict and 5. Stability- Routines that are predictable and unchanging.
I think this list is amazingly inciteful! I can look at it, and see how these values have had positive and negative effects on my life. For instance, a need for Affiliation, Peace and harmony have been an excuse to be very passive. When in reality, conflict sometimes leads to more of a feel of Affiliation, Peace, and Harmony as you work through things with others and express the importance of each persons values. Also, a need for stability and Competence has allowed me to hide when I am unsure of my own ability, which is all the time. I have such a fear of disappointing others and a fear of failure in my work, spiritual and personal life. Furthermore, the need for challenges, to me, seems like a contradiction to the need for stability and competence because in my mind I think "what if there is a challenge I can't carry out. Then, I have failed."
How complex! This is why I had been hiding the last two years.Four of my values, I was using as a crutch, and I never expressed my need to be challenged, allowing me to be overlooked and underestimated. As I work these things out, and rolled them over in my mind, I realized. I am more competent and adequate than I had been giving myself credit. During this meeting, Garrick and Dziu expressed a belief in my abilities. While Migue expressed frustration with my lack of faith in myself. How incredible! I have had people believing in me while I sat back and denied the gift God had given me, which was the ability to communicate- not perfectly, but adecuately!
As I come back to work here in Granada, while there is a sense of tiredness in self analyzation, I realize. I have been restored. God has given me a second opportunity to look at my life through different lenses. He has given me a perspective of a person, while I have felt completely hidden and safe, I am completely adventurous. I am a person who would pack my bags, and go whereever the Lord leads me. I am a person who will enter into a conversation blazing to learn the language it is spoken in. I am a person who would lay down my life for a God who cherishes me. (Not saying there will be an absence of fear, but He will prepare me faithfully along the way.) He will gift me the abilities I need to forge ahead.
As I contemplated all these things, I realized, my future has become something I never thought it would be, completely unplanned faith steps divinely mapped out without knowledge of where they lead. While there is fear there is also this burst of adrenaline that keeps me going just waiting to see what's next.
In a discussion between me and my Red River Coach, Shannon Compere-She's amazing.- She directly looked at me in a conversation and said, "it appears there is a little adventure in you." This is something that had never been said to me before. In describing myself, my walk with Christ, my life, I NEVER would have used the word Adventurous. Terrified, incoherent, and awkward are words I would use to describe myself as I live out a life in another Country.
Eye opening is the best way to describe this conversation because instances played over in my mind of the past year and a half. Instances where I took chances, and dove right in head first replayed in my mind. "Was this true of me? Am I an adventurous person, and if so why had I always felt so inadequate and cowardess?" As I questioned, I began to see moments in my life where I had been given a challenge. Moments when people I highly respected as "studs" of faith would look at me and say, "Jess, you can do this. You would be amazing at this. You should go for it."
Just in those words of affirmation, those words of faith in me, I began to see how I had lived out my walk with Christ. He spoke to me through people who believed in me. He has been showing me what I am made of as a follower through people He strategically placed along the way. In that, I was able to see how divine and true His omnpresent power really stretches!
An example of this was last year. The entire year I felt so irrelevant and unnecessary. I couldn't speak or understand the language well. I wasn't building lasting relationships in my definition. I just felt like I was a waste of amazing financial support by people who, if they knew how afraid I was, would probably fire me. Then, came the Summer Project of 25 Venezuelans. Only 5 of them could speak english. The rest all in Spanish! My team leaders looked at me and said, "Jess, lead this team of 5. Show them how to do evangelism here." In my mind, I was thinking, "I can barely communicate. How can I lead a team, and be responsible for people?! I am not ready!" However, when given a challenge, I have to forge ahead. Its just the way I am made. Now, if I am not asked or overlooked, my cowardness will never allow me to volunteer. My forging ahead comes with a mere question. "Will you do this?" In the end, I realized, I can do this. God had gifted me with the ability of language and teaching. I was able to lead people. I didn't know that was in me! As a result my whole perspective changed. By the end of the first week, I had reapplied and changed my plan ticket, so that I could come back and see what else God had in store for me in Spain for one more year.
Back to the Conference, Later that week, we all met as a team. We had to decide what our 5 most important values are. I love exercises like this because I can see what Kathy Frey had been telling me all along. As I mature in my faith, I begin to understand who I really am and who I am really being shaped to be, moving from a baby Christian to a mature follower. My values had changed over the last year.
My top 5 values are: 1. Affiliation- a need to feel accepted and valued within a team 2. Exercise Competence- Opportunity to work where I feel I have talents and can excel. 3. Challenging Opportunities- Stretched with new, unique, or difficult situations. (This one not only surprised me, but my team leaders as well. They didn't know I needed this) 4 Peace and Harmony - Freedom from conflict and 5. Stability- Routines that are predictable and unchanging.
I think this list is amazingly inciteful! I can look at it, and see how these values have had positive and negative effects on my life. For instance, a need for Affiliation, Peace and harmony have been an excuse to be very passive. When in reality, conflict sometimes leads to more of a feel of Affiliation, Peace, and Harmony as you work through things with others and express the importance of each persons values. Also, a need for stability and Competence has allowed me to hide when I am unsure of my own ability, which is all the time. I have such a fear of disappointing others and a fear of failure in my work, spiritual and personal life. Furthermore, the need for challenges, to me, seems like a contradiction to the need for stability and competence because in my mind I think "what if there is a challenge I can't carry out. Then, I have failed."
How complex! This is why I had been hiding the last two years.Four of my values, I was using as a crutch, and I never expressed my need to be challenged, allowing me to be overlooked and underestimated. As I work these things out, and rolled them over in my mind, I realized. I am more competent and adequate than I had been giving myself credit. During this meeting, Garrick and Dziu expressed a belief in my abilities. While Migue expressed frustration with my lack of faith in myself. How incredible! I have had people believing in me while I sat back and denied the gift God had given me, which was the ability to communicate- not perfectly, but adecuately!
As I come back to work here in Granada, while there is a sense of tiredness in self analyzation, I realize. I have been restored. God has given me a second opportunity to look at my life through different lenses. He has given me a perspective of a person, while I have felt completely hidden and safe, I am completely adventurous. I am a person who would pack my bags, and go whereever the Lord leads me. I am a person who will enter into a conversation blazing to learn the language it is spoken in. I am a person who would lay down my life for a God who cherishes me. (Not saying there will be an absence of fear, but He will prepare me faithfully along the way.) He will gift me the abilities I need to forge ahead.
As I contemplated all these things, I realized, my future has become something I never thought it would be, completely unplanned faith steps divinely mapped out without knowledge of where they lead. While there is fear there is also this burst of adrenaline that keeps me going just waiting to see what's next.
posted by Jess at
2:11 PM
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