As part of my personal night prayer prior to going to bed, I journal about my day. Every single night no matter how late I am up, I discuss with God in the form of journaling what went well throughout my day, what I am grateful for, what I enjoyed and did not enjoy from the activities throughout my day, and how I can continue to improve to become the best-version-of-myself and the person God created me to be. Occasionally, I will glance back at previous days in my journal from my time in Antigua and at the Finca during the past year. Especially as I was discerning serving at the Finca another year during this past month, this became a powerful tool for me to accurately reflect on how my 14 months have been since I left KCMO, my friends, my family, and my life that I loved so much on August 1st.
As I read the journal entries from my time at this LITERALLY INCREDIBLE children’s home in rural Honduras and when I sit with God in silent prayer, two things have become inexplicably clear to me throughout my discernment in the past month. For one, being at the Finca makes me full of SO MUCH PEACE AND JOY! It truly is challenging to describe how meaningful this place is to me and how much I love being here in a blog, and the only way to truly experience this place that I call home is to visit and to see it for yourself.
The second thing that I have realized in my discernment is just how much I have missed being at home. I miss spending time with my family SO, SO, SO MUCH, especially with Michelle having her first child in the past year and Kyle and Sammie expecting their first child in the coming months. I miss sitting around the kitchen table at family dinners, drinking a Moscow Mule or a crown & diet pepsi, and simply laughing and spending time with the people that I love most in this world. I miss spending time with my friends, and I look forward to the day that we can once again go to dinner at Texas Roadhouse or grab a beer at a local brewery.
While being at the Finca makes me incredibly joyful and peaceful, I believe that I can be equally joyful and peaceful while being at home in Kansas City or wherever it is that God is calling me. I felt it was EXTREMELY important during my discernment to actively hear God’s call to stay another year at the Finca, and that simply the fact that I am fully at peace at the Finca is not a good enough reason to stay.
That being said, I have decided to serve another year at the Finca!! While I will certainly miss being at the Janssen house for Christmas, the birth of Kyle and Sammie’s son, and all the great memories of watching my nephews grow up and have important life milestones, I AM SO, SO, SO EXCITED TO SERVE AT THE FINCA ANOTHER YEAR!! AHHHHHHH!!
I am so dang excited to play an endless game of tag with Casa 4, to go with Casa 2 to the beach or to play fútbol in the campo, to chase around the girls from Casa 6 as they yell “No me come”, to spend quality time with our oldest boy at the Finca during our weekly Sunday movie, to laugh and to cry with my Goddaughter from Casa 5 as she prepares to leave the Finca in the coming year, and to legitimately be rolling on the ground in laughter while at Casa 3. I am so excited to be vulnerable in the coming year and to share my strengths, abilities, and weaknesses in this magical children’s home in Honduras.
Throughout my discernment, especially during adoration, while praying in our chapel room in the missionary house, and while watching gorgeous sunset after gorgeous sunset on the beach just outside the Finca gate, I felt a call and an invitation to serve at the Finca another year. I firmly, firmly believe in serving via the ministry of presence, and I ask God for the strength every single day to simply love the person in front of me to the very best of my ability regardless of how many things that need to be done. During my discernment, God reminded me of the amazing and fruitful relationships that I have built at the Finca with our kids, tías, missionaries, watchies, maintenance workers, Honduran teachers, and kids from our school. I believe that God is calling me to share his peace, love, joy, mercy, and hope with every single person that I cross paths with throughout my day simply by how I live and how I interact with others.
I am beyond excited to continue to improve to be the best version of myself and to try to spread Jesus to every person that I meet throughout our busy lives at the Finca. God constantly challenges me to ignore the busyness of society and the demands of a to-do list in order to spend intentional, loving time with each person that He puts in front of me. I fail at this challenge literally every single day, but God’s relentless mercy is enough for me to wake up the next day and to try again. Luke, a fellow missionary in CST with me, has a saying that I love: SIMPLY.BOLDLY.LOVE. I believe this is my call in the next year at the Finca.
There will certainly be plenty of challenges in the next year, especially with at least part of my missionary class going home in December and only 2 new missionaries arriving on October 5th. Whenever I am feeling discouraged or disheartened by circumstances at the Finca outside of my control, I just have to remind myself: SIMPLY.BOLDLY.LOVE.
Please pray for our missionary community as we go to Bonito Oriental for our discernment retreat next week. Please pray that we can be refreshed and rejuvenated in God’s call to serve at the Finca and that we can spend quality, intentional time together as a community.
Please let me know how I can pray for you!
God Bless!