February was spent in eSwatini, formerly Swaziland, at the Adventures In Missions (AIM) base; the parent organization for World Race. It was one of my favorite months of the Race. While serving along side AIM, Caroline, Claudia, and I helped in the office developing curriculum for the shepherds. One of the ministries at AIM eSwatini is a feeding and after school program, Carepoints. The leaders of the Carepoints are called shepherds. The lessons we wrote were to help provide a solid biblical foundation so they’d be able to go and serve their community and pour into the children at their Carepoints. 

The office staff allowed us to bring in our own perspectives and creativity to the lessons. The conversations Caroline, Claudia, and I had were incredible. We wrestled through hard questions, added fun to lessons that were dry, and gave a time of discussion for the shepherds. It was amazing to watch how the lessons we were asked to write were some of the things we were wrestling through with the Lord. 

I wrestled with my identity a lot the first third of the Race. I knew scripture, but was still trying to put it in people, my appearance, my job, the world. It took a lot of prayer, wrestling with my feelings and perception of myself, and surrendering to the Lord. I would repeat scripture about who God is and who God says I am and prayed for the Lord to make it true in my mind. I don’t know when it happened, but one day I realized I believed what I was saying. When “Characteristics of God” and “How God Views You” came up in lesson writing, I volunteered to write the lessons because I had seen God’s healing in my life through it and it was amazing at how quickly the lesson fell into place. 

While this month for me may not have had a lot of interaction with the locals as previous months, it helped deepen my walk with the Lord, be vulnerable with others, and ask God the hard questions. We were still able to build relationships with the office staff and hear their heart behind why they serve. We had devos and morning prayer where we lifted up the ministry and nation. It was a sweet, refreshing month.