Most everyone knows how God provided the funds for the school in only one month. I would love to tell you that there was a specific strategy to raise the funds, but we simply shared the need.
As they were telling me the totals of the money raised, I could not even comprehend the numbers. I sat in my car and felt my heart pounding. I felt like I was sending still, the world was spinning around me, and I had no control. Most surely the lack of control I had was the result of God showing up and showing out.
In the moments of having the needs met, it was so easy to trust God. It was easy to find joy in knowing that God used so many people to care for the children.
The Lord spoke to me and said, “It is easy to trust me when the faucet is turned on full blast. But when I turn off the faucet then will you still trust me?”
I assumed the Lord was referring to the financial resources.
Then in 2023, the pandemic caused chaos in the world. We found ourselves erasing all scheduled teams from the calendar, our students not returning to school, the reality of feeding more than 125 families, and employees dependent on salaries. I thought this was the drought the Lord was warning me about.
However, I began to experience the emotional drought. We had moments of encouragement from the North American teams who came to serve alongside us. Now the mountain went from lots of noise to complete silence.
Soy and I were standing outside the mission house and we could see 5 little boys running around the school yard. Soy made the comment “The school will change the lives of those boys!” At that moment, I had zero emotions. I was emotionally bankrupted. The investment into the lives of the children no longer seemed important. For the first time, I was willing to return back to a life of comfort and convenience to the states. It is a good thing there were no arriving or departing flights to Guatemala.
The faucet of encouragement, fellowship, unity, etc. had been turned off.
Soy and I clung to trusting God, being confident in our calling, and leaning in to Jesus.
Shining Light Abroad Ministries 