What title would you give this chapter of your life?

What title would you give this chapter of your life?

This week has been full of so many special and fun moments. Starting with week two in Jefferys Bay we had a great church service and day of rest on Sunday. Our Sabbaths are filled with rest, sleeping, spending time together as a squad, or doing anything that is restful to you. During the evening some of us on our squad played a game that was based around asking questions. It had some great questions in it and was interesting to get to hear the responses. One of the questions was the one listed above and I wrote it down to go back and think about it because it stuck out to me for some reason. My life looks different since I am living in another country for a few months but it was still something that I took some time to consider. My life this year so far has been learning how to let go of control. The control of several different areas in my life. So I decided that if I had to choose a title I would choose “Losing Control over Everything” 

In preparing for this trip I often felt like I was losing control of the circumstances and daily routine in my life because I was getting ready to not be home for a while. So here I was replacing myself in different areas when I was still home. I was feeling a lot of mixed emotions like being excited but also nervous to leave everything I know so well. Then fast forward to being here and walking in the time that I took so long getting ready for. Having no control over my daily routine is great but also something I wasn’t used to. Then as time goes on it is a common thing to think about what life will look like when you get back home. I realized that I also have no control over my future because I don’t know what the future will hold. I like to plan and usually have an idea of how I think something will go but as I am growing in my relationship with God I want to more and more about what he wants me to do. Except I don’t know exactly what that is. In several areas of my life, I feel more confident about things when I am in control. Over the last few weeks, I have felt God pressing into me to let go of the hold on them and just rely on Him day by day. I am reminded that the MOST important thing in my life that I could hold on to is my relationship and friendship with the God that created me and everything else will fall after that. It is a beautiful thing to be invited into a relationship with someone who gave so much just to know my heart and soul. So releasing that grip on the details in my life is something that I’m learning and feel excited to grow in God and see what else he wants to show me. The biggest lesson I am learning is that I can try to hold the reins on my life but God is ultimately the one who is always in control and He knows more than I do anyway so He should have the control! I am learning to regularly release the control of my relationships, job, daily circumstances, and my idea of what I think the future should look like. So in this season or chapter of my life I am excited to see where God leads. So let me ask you…

What title would you give this chapter of your life?

This week besides doing ministry I was also one of the ‘house moms” with my sister, Ana. Two people out of our squad are the house moms for two days when we are here. This past week on Tuesday and Wednesday me and Ana got to do that together. What we do is help prepare meals for our team, go shopping for groceries, clean the mission house, and do dishes and whatever our ministry host asks us to do. So we stay home from our ministries to help out and we got to do that this week. It was an awesome time of getting to help serve and cook meals as well as getting some good quality sister time in. Since we are on different smaller teams we are doing separate ministries as well as in different rooms so we don’t get to be together as much as I had originally thought. I loved getting to experience this with her and was glad for the two days that we could spend together!

We then got to finish out the rest of the week doing more ministry back at our usual spots. We had the opportunity to take the kids at the orphanage to the beach and it was so fun to get to spend some time out on the beach with them. Our afternoons were filled with team time and my team has been taking turns sharing our testimony so that has been a great thing to experience with them. To end our week of ministry days we had our squad worship night on Friday and had an amazing experience worshipping and seeing the Spirit move together. We make do with what we can find (like a plastic jug full of paint for a drum) and enjoy spending that time together as a squad.

janellesmoker.theworldrace.org/…/20240928_080136_2BFA53.mp4

Our week ended with our usual adventure day. There were a few options to choose from but a group of us decided to try out surfing since we are in one of the five most famous surfing destinations in the world. Turns out it is a lot harder than I thought but I am hoping I can try it again before we leave. We always enjoy our quality time together as a team and I love getting to spend time with the people that I am here with! Only two more weeks in Jefferys Bay!