So... As a lot of you already know I'm off on a 5 week block placement on Saturday and I figured it would be a good idea to say a little bit about what I'm doing and how God lead me there!
I'm going to be working with an organization called Betel of Britain, a missional community / drug rehabilitation center. There I will be living 24/7 with the recovering drug addicts and alcoholics in the women's resident recovery center. This means sharing rooms, sharing meals, sharing household duties and working alongside them in the various businesses that Betel have set up to help rehabilitate their residents. My job will be to be a friend to these women, showing them genuine friendship and Christlike love.
I understand that I've not given a full description of what Betel do, so if you're interested their website is:
http://www.betel.org.uk/
Anyway. How on earth did God lead me to doing something like this?
Well to be honest I'm not really sure of the whole picture but here are some of the details that I've been let in on
So
Let's start with summer 2013...
Last summer I went to Israel for five weeks, this was an amazing time, yet also an incredibly hard experience. Yet even though it was so, so tough, I knew that this was the kind of thing, working in the Middle East with victims of war, violence, persecution and oppression was the kind of thing that I had been wired for.
I was aware that I had to sort out a 5 week, UK based block placement for my degree course so I looked around at organizations that would have something to do with that. I had been working with Muslim tribes people and refugees and figured that this was also kind of 'my thing' so when I got home I started looking up organizations in the UK which reflected that.
For a few months I applied for all kinds of things, but I felt so uneasy about every single thing that came up. Even the organizations and churches that were interested in having me I felt an apathy towards, a heaviness in my heart that I can't really explain. I had a sense that God wanted me to do something different, something I hadn't done before. The first deadline for getting block sorted passed and I still had nothing, I had to meet with the placements team and tell them that I didn't know what I was doing but a simple sense that God was leading me in a different direction. They were supportive but it was clear that this was not exactly what they wanted to hear.
The following few paragraphs are things I really don't want to admit to. But I owe it to my awesome Lord and Savior to swallow my pride and testify to His faithfulness despite my faithlessness.
Through all this time I was actually going through one of the most difficult periods of my walk with Jesus, I was feeling so distant from Him, for the first time since I was sixteen I felt far from God, even reading His word, the thing that had always, always pointed me to Him and spoken into my life wasn't speaking to me as it always had, I read it out of routine, not out of genuine love. The Bible felt so mundanely familiar yet also so foreign to me. It felt as if I was in a true wilderness; separated from my heavenly Father.
It was hideous, I felt so broken. I came back home after my first term of second year absolutely drained, because my relationship with God was at its weakest, every other aspect of my life was a struggle, to all those who were around me during this time, I can only apologize for how I acted and ask for your forgiveness. The joy of salvation I once knew so, so intimately now felt almost like a distant memory. Don't get me wrong, I still believed with all my heart, I still loved Jesus and knew that nothing else compared to the all surpassing greatness of knowing Him but the fire, the passion, the zeal that had once consumed me seemed faint now. I no longer cared about any of the things or any of the people I used to care about. I just wanted to be left alone.
Don't worry, it gets better...
Over the Christmas break, God was doing a lot in me. It felt like He had taken everything I had known and broken it all apart, this was horrible to experience, it felt like I knew almost nothing about God anymore, like I couldn't be sure of anything. Little did I know that God was allowing me to rediscover some of His deep truths all over again. Teaching me to read His word, spend time with Him and hear Him in new ways. It was beautiful. I learned and am learning so much! Like so, so much! One of the things in particular was how to recognize and trust His still small voice like never before.
So back to how God lead me to me Betel
Though I had been praying a lot about block it was mostly whiny prayers, whingeing about the fact that I didn't know what was going on, I remember when I stopped complaining to Him about the fact that I had missed deadlines and instead said something like this to God:
'Lord. I will only go where you send me. Where do you want to send me for block? I refuse do something because it is in front of me, seems like the easiest thing, sounds like the most exciting thing or sounds like something that will make me look brave. I will not do something just because it is the first thing that comes up and I have a deadline to meet, I will only do what you tell me to do and go where you tell me to go. Wherever it is, here I am Lord. Send me.'
God answered me straight away. Winner!
What came into my mind was a book that I had read when I was around fourteen, fifteen years old, a book I had read a time when I was barely a Christian and had not thought about since then. It was called 'We Dance Because We Cannot Fly' by Guy Chevreau (read it, it's a flippin beauty of a book!), it was about an organization called Betel, after a quick Google search I sent them an email asking whether a placement would be possible. It turned out their next internship started on the same date that my placement was meant to start. Perfect. I sent off an application form, the heaviness and apathy that I had felt towards all the other opportunities was not there, instead enthusiasm and peace.
A week before going back to college I received a phone call telling me that they had accepted my application.
God remained faithful.
As per usual, my worrying did not restrain His faithfulness.
If you've got this far, well done! This was an absolute essay so well done for persevering, what I would ask you to do is pray for me, please pray...
- That I will learn lots, and go with a humble, servant heart. That I will be joyful, enthusiastic and content with whatever job is asked of me, and that despite the packed schedule be energized for any task put before me.
- I'm going to be living very closely with the women on the recovery programme, even to the point of sharing a room with them, as someone who values independence and personal space a little bit too much this will be quite a challenge so please pray that I will embrace this.
- That no matter what I will have such an overwhelming, Christlike love and compassion for those women, that I will develop really strong, trusting relationships with both the residents and the Betel leaders.
- That I will be constantly relying on God so I can be a good role model and witness to the women.
- That I will have the privilege to see a glimpse of the transforming power of the gospel in people's lives.
God is good all the time
God is good and that is His nature.
Apologies that this is so long! If you read it all, well done, you have more patience than I do especially if you're one of my friends who doesn't yet know Jesus
God bless you
Caris
x
