First TOMORROW the 17th, my team and team Quo Vadis (our boy team!!) are headed to Lawrenceville to do our first off-campus ministry HECK YES. These last few weeks have been full of excitement and anticipation. We will be headed to set up with free food and games at the block party in the town after we get our covid tests. We will be partnering with Path 2 Hope to bring about joy, resources, games, free food, and prayer to the community. This ministry focuses on red-light districts (areas with a heavy concentration of human trafficking and similar business). Often focusing on local motels and door to door prayer in the area. Most people have already been invited personally to the block party from a knock on the door, conversation, or at least a flier. We get to CELEBRATE WITH PEOPLE, and do preventative human trafficking work. How cool. We had basic training to best equip us Saturday and are so excited. So far we haven’t left campus, due to covid safety, but AIM is doing their absolute best to provide us with local ministry opportunities before and after Louisiana.

… Speaking of Louisiana!!! One week from tomorrow we will be hopping in some rental vans to drive 10 hours to Lake Charles! WOWOWOW I have not been this excited for so long. (Maybe even more than I was to come here haha). We have spent a month and a half now, learning how to love people to the best of our ability. I am buzzing just to live that out in the community. I have learned to surrender most expectations, so I don’t know the details of LA, BUT I could tell you what other squads are doing there now. Our friends put on their orange Samaritan’s Purse t-shirts every day and go out and do ministry. Lake Charles got hit so hard by the two hurricanes, our groups help clear streets of trees, gut houses, put up tarps every day and talk with the local families. I encourage you to look up the disaster relief blog page to see all of their stories. Or look up Franklin Graham’s Instagram or Samaritan’s Purse to see the relief and hard work their volunteers provide as a whole. Let me tell you, I am probably looking forward to flushing a real toilet again almost as much as I am looking forward to ministry (I know I exaggerate haha). But I’m sure I will get over the excitement quickly as we get two weeks to do that!! You read that right, from October 24th to November 7th. WOAH that’s a lot of days to go out and do physical labor and tell people about Jesus!

As I am writing all of this I am reminded of how much the Lord has been teaching me here to be patient, WAIT, dwell, and sit at his feet. This excitement has been humbling as God likes to whisper his reminders to me. Yes, “go” ministry is exciting but I should be and am just as excited to be doing it today, not just tomorrow, not just next week. I may be missing out on overseas missions this first few months of the race but by no means am I missing out on ministry. I am doing just as much ministry to the people around me day to day as I would be anywhere else. Maybe even more. And I am getting poured into and ministered to every day as well. What a blessing. I am so freaking broken you guys, I need SO much ministry. I struggle with comparison, doubt, judgement, laziness, jealousy, and so much more, daily. God is teaching me how to love myself and my neighbor better.  I think that is why am so excited to share it, not because I am perfect but because I am so far from it. I am excited to share the hope that I have with others, that God loves me and you both, because he chose the poor in this world to be rich in faith (James 2:5). Yes that may mean “money poor” but it is also poor in spirit, those that have been broken, cheated, lied to, and torn to shreds. God is redemption, he chooses those of us who are so shattered to reach out to others who are also laying on the floor in pieces. We can then show them how God is rebuilding us all day every day and be the ones to help start to pick them up. 

I love learning how to live out ministry every day and I also love getting the opportunity to minister to my community here and out of state. THANKS GOD for so many amazing opportunities that I could never express enough gratitude for. 

How are you ministering in your everyday? Find opportunities, take advantage of them, and be SO GRATEFUL. And please pray that:

The people of Lawrenceville with find abandonment and joy in tomorrow, just celebrating life, and that they might find freedom in their heart or in their flesh if they are being trapped in anyway. 

For those working in LA right now and for our team to continue to prepare our hearts the best we can so that we may only bring God with us to show and give to others when we arrive!

Blessings, Alexandra