So this week has been really good for growth. Our classes were about service and pride, which I felt like I was fairly strong in both of those areas seeing as I love to serve, and I have a lot of pride, and then they taught me that pride is not a good thing so now my life is flipped upside down. But honestly I felt like I was handling my pride pretty well until I talked to one of my disciplers, Gabby, on Tuesday night about an issue that I had had with another student. After talking it over he told me how I need to pray about no keeping things to myself and when I have issues with some one I need to find a constructive way to talk it over with them, but if I keep it inside I'll end up being extremely critical of the person. So I took his advice and that night as I was going to sleep I prayed for God to test me in this area of pride. His response was immediate.
So the next morning we all knew that we were going to the work site all day to help build the base and pour the foundation for the directors house. Originally we had planned on everyone waking up at 6:30 instead of 7:00 so that we'd be ready on time, but the leaders decided to just have everyone wake up at 7:00 instead, and they told everyone, or so we thought. But at 6:30 in the morning one of the leaders Dawelky woke us up at 6:30, so I told him what the other leaders had said, but he was sure that I was wrong because no one had told him, so after that he went to the kitchen to finish making breakfast. So my friend David asked if we were really supposed to get up or not and I responded "No, he's wrong, he always gets confused, just go back to sleep." Within a few minutes I started realizing that that might be a little prideful, so I decided to get up and go talk to him again in the kitchen. So after I re-explained myself he still thought I was wrong, so I said "fine" and I went back in the room and got everyone else up.
Now at 7:00 David and I went to the kitchen to get breakfast and when we did Dawelky apologized and explained to us that we had been right but when the leaders decided to change the time he had been in town and they forgot to inform him. So we accepted his apology and at the end of the ay we only really lost twenty minutes of sleep anyway.
So as I prayed about everything God had been doing in that half hour of the morning he started revealing to me that if I had decided to be prideful and not listen to my leader it would have just caused trouble for me and we wouldn't have figured out what the real problem was, but since I had decided to walk in obedience and talk to my leader we found the real source of the issue which was just a lack of communication. And when I thought bout all of this I realized I was ready to rebel against my leader just to get twenty minutes of sleep, so then I began to wonder what have been my other twenty minutes of sleep in life. God dug deep and didn't just show me my pride, but he began to show me the root of it, and I'm extremely thankful.
Aside from this lesson, this week was pretty tough because Lucas, volunteer from Michigan left to go home. So we spent half the we all spent half the week hanging out eating fracturas and joking around, and then on Thursday the base threw him a little going away party. But right before the party Lucas got me and the other two Americans to come outside where he had a box of sweets (including peanut butter), some gifts, and a letter for each of us. So again we sat around eating fracturas, and telling jokes, but then we reminisced about the three months here. At the end of the night Lucas gave me his Spanish/English bible to help me learn more Spanish, and I was blown away.
It was crazy how close we had all gotten in just three months, especially since Lucas wasn't even in the classes with us, but it became clear to me that it wasn't about how much time we'd all had together, but what was more important was the quality of time. We ate together, prayed together, talked about God, our families, our homes, and we even had a thirty minute conversation about how chic-fil-a is the greatest fast food restaurant in America. I'm realizing that I'm going to end up missing all of these guys a lot, especially in a week when we split up and go on outreach. It's kind of hard because we've all left our own families, but we've found that we have a much bigger family, and when I'm done here I'' be able to say I have family all over the world. It's kind of insane.
So this will probably be my last update from Puerta Madryn and I don't know what the internet situation will be like during my outreach. But I'll constantly be praying for everyone at home, I'll especially be praying for fellowship and unity in the body of Christ. God bless.
-Prov. 27:17
-Matt Hursh
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