In two days I leave for Mexico and I hope I'm not disappointed when I fully understand everything, since the teaching and maybe even the ministry will just so happen to be in or interpreted into my native language. Each time I tell people where I'll be spending the next eight months, it's assumed that my Spanish will improve by leaps and bounds by the time I return and I've caught myself slipping into that same expectation, but I don't want to feel the time was a waste when I work and speak mostly with my American friends and return at the same or similar level as I left. Although to finally become fluent has been a constant and consistent goal, that's not why I'm going.

   In two months I leave for Nicaragua and I hope I'm not discouraged when there are days where it's hard to tell that there's a point to being there; days where our work isn't being met with the gratitude it's easy to expect and the presence of God isn't felt to provide the constant reassurance that we might think we need.

   I don't want to be ashamed when I find myself on my knees from physical and emotional exhaustion for that place of humility has been called the proper position in which to worship and I'm not sure it should be given up so readily, yet I ask you to pray that I stand strong when supernatural strength is necessary for the benefit of the team and the sake of the ministry.

   This upcoming experience can't redeem past ones but I hope that my attitude may stand diametrically opposed to how I have viewed and reacted to trials in the past and serve as a testimony as to how God can work through someone if she fully buys into the process of letting Him. I believe that the promise that we'll never be tempted beyond what we are strong enough to resist includes resisting the temptation to complain or to ignore the final outcome; the urge to ignore the needs of everyone else for just one moment because mine seem a little more pressing.

   I don't want to use the people there to fulfill my daily Spanish fix or to reaffirm a insecure heart that it is loved, needed and useful. The worship is not for the purpose of fulfilling a temporary spiritual fix and my team has a greater purpose than to make me feel included in something amazing.

   I can't waste the next eight months hoping that I fulfill my own unspoken agendas and then feel as if I failed miserably when they don't come to pass, for that would be to ignore the lessons hidden in the idiosyncrasies. That would be to miss out on hearing God speak in a language that I really wasn't expecting.