in all you do.

One thing that I pray for you all is that you will be able to experience what God has for you when you are walking by faith in the path that He has you on. It's not always easy, but it is worth it.

There's a lot of social differences in this culture that are hard to navigate through. One of the hardest parts is that they are so family oriented. It's hard to be away from my family when it seems like such an important thing here. Like, they live with their parents until they're married, and even after that they are sometimes in the same house! It just makes me want to go home and never leave! (Not sure how you feel about that mom and dad!) But mainly, our culture doesn't really accept that. We are seen as failures if we are adults and living at home and not providing for ourselves. Neither of them are wrong.. they're just different ways of seeing things.

One thing that I do appreciate though and I can learn a lot from, is that this culture doesn't need to be productive or have perfect plans to be successful... I think this could be a helpful take away as regards to how I relate with God.

I'm a pretty goal oriented person. I like to have something to be working towards and to accomplish. To the point that when I don't have a purpose, I feel like I'm failing. This can be dangerous in our relationship with God because we don't need to do anything for Him to make Him happy. He is perfectly satisfied. And if we feel like we have to work work, do do do, to please Him, then we miss the blessings that we receive by just being able to draw close to Him and be filled by Him in order to serve and be a blessing through Him.

It's interesting being a missionary. Because your job is to serve and share Christ's love with others. But you have to be receiving from Him before you can pour out. So sometimes, I get hard on myself for not being able to DO more, but even the little things, the daily things, bring Him glory when we are doing it for Him. "Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all in the name of the Lord."

Even when I KNOW that this is where God has me and have seen God's hand in bringing me here and how He has used me, the daily to day living can be rough. Life is harder here; things aren't as dependable, I can't always understand what people are trying to say to me, I can't just run to Wal-Mart and get what I need. But! In all this, I am being shaped into His likeness, and I count all I have as loss next to the surpasing worth of knowing Jesus Christ our Lord!

I hope this is an encouragement to you all! No matter where you are, if you are in God's will, He will bless you and keep you. Just keep seeking His face in all that you do!


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