It is amazing how my expectations and preconceived ideas have shaped these first couple weeks. My team and I are in Chicago partnering with local churches and non-profit ministries. It is so fun seeing God in this city. We have loved exploring Chicago, growing in this new community and finding our favorite local restaurants (hello Guatemalan pupusas).

My life feels so normal here, but my expectations have told me ministry should be busy and hard and heartbreaking. I expected to be so busy here, I expected to need to stay on this heightened level of excitement while stepping into challenging things I don’t want to do. But as He does, God is giving me sweet blessings of laughter and joy as I navigate this month of community and rest.

I have loved our time here.  I love getting to know these amazing women on my team, we are cooking together, studying together and dancing together as we grow in care for one another and dependency on God.

We are getting some awesome discipleship training, we are learning from missionary friends about ministry over seas and we meeting some amazing people in the community.

Our discipleship training has been such a joy for me, I feel so comfortable as we are challenged in scripture memory and evangelism. I am reminded of my college ministry with the Navigators, I continue to grow in love and appreciation for the training and care I received there.We have some new missionary friends who run and organization called the South Asian Friendship Center where they share with Muslim friends about King Jesus. We took Indonesian language class this past week and have been meeting our new neighbors in our building.

I easily believe the lie that I am not doing enough here. But what if this community is ministry too? Building up the body of Christ, enjoying the goodness of God-  all beautiful things we are commanded to do, yet for some reason I have believed are not extraordinary.

The Lord is extraordinary, He is moving in really beautiful ways in me and in this neighborhood. He wants to know me, He desires for me to sit with Him and listen to His voice. My prayer is that I would learn to sit in thankfulness of His sweet gifts during our last week in Chicago.

Life happens in the normal, ministry happens in the normal.

My team gets to officially go overseas in January! Of course the status of the virus continues to change, but as of now we are making plans and booking flights to Guatemala!