Week Three

I am in awe that it has already been three weeks that I have been here. This week went by extremely fast. God has revealed a lot to me this week and even delivered me of some things I’ve been wrestling with. 

The beginning of the week was fairly normal to what the other weeks have looked like. It was full of powerful sessions, worship, and squad time. God has blessed me with an amazing community of believers to grow from and learn from. We also have been going through the book of Romans as teams, and it has been so amazing to glean and learn from my teammates. 

Thursday was so crazy. I was given the opportunity to lead worship with some of my other squad mates. It was my first time playing guitar in front of a large group, and so humbling to embrace the mistakes I made. But I had so much fun praising God in that way. Thursday was also the day my squad got to hike Yonah Mountain. That was a crazy experience!

One of our squad mates broke his heel about a week ago, but our team decided not to leave him behind. Some of the men took a tarp, wood beams, and rope to make a stretcher to carry him up the mountain in. The men were intending to carry him up the whole way, but this was a very physically strenuous hike so eventually the whole squad joined in helping carry each others bags, girls and guys a like switching off the help carry the stretcher. It was so amazing to experience such unity, bonding, and humility in our team. I believe we all grew a lot during that hike.

After making it up the mountain in just under three hours, we got to watch the beautiful sunset from the top of the mountain. It was so sobering for me to look out and just realize how powerful and beautiful, and gracious God is. The fact that God loves us so much to allow us the enjoy creation and nature as beautiful as that dumbfounded me in that moment. 

This was also my first hike ever!! With health issues I had experienced earlier in my life, I could have never made it up that mountain a few years ago. But by the grace of God and His healing hand I made it up. Was it hard? Most certainly. But it was also so fulfilling. 

Satan tried to attack me so much as I was climbing the mountain, by telling me that I was weak and not an asset to the group because I couldn’t carry the stretcher as much or that I wouldn’t have been able to keep up if we hadn’t had someone we were carrying up the mountain. But later the next day God gave me a vision of me climbing that mountain again and showing me that I was capable and that He was making me capable. That revelation brought so much peace and encouragement to my spirit. 

We spent the night on the mountain top and had s’mores and hotdogs by a fire. It was such a fun way to celebrate the grace and strength God had given us through that afternoon. The next morning we packed up and went back down. We made it down in about two hours. 

Experiencing God work in my squad as well as in myself was so beautiful to watch. I am in awe of His goodness and the strength He provides. 

We are now jumping into week four! In just one week my squad leaves to go to Kentucky for two weeks to volunteer with Samaritan’s Purse to help with disaster relief. It will be very physically challenging, and emotionally and spiritually hard as we witness so much poverty, but I am so excited to start serving!

Love you all and hope your week is full of blessings, 

Mandie <3