We were all put into two teams and I barely knew anyone on my team but I had to come out of my comfortable shell of keeping to myself. I did everything with my team from, the horse riding obstacle course to cooking, I had to force myself to speak when there was a flow of conversation. I do not speak or understand Afrikaans so that made everything worse because I had to constantly remind people on my team or anyone I was around that I did not understand what they were saying or I would isolate myself from the conversation.
Another comfort zone that was a challenge was climbing through a tire on the obstacle course. This tire was about 3 meters high according to my estimation. I feel uneasy when I have to be in high places because I do not want to fall from that high. The rule is you are not allowed to touch the first meter of the poles holding up the tire so that just made me feel worse. I had to put trust in my teammates who I barely know to help give me a boost up and help me come down. That experience broke so many barriers in my heart and I began allowing myself to believe that not everyone is too bad and that you cannot give them a benefit of the doubt.
My highlight of the trip was the obstacle course, I had so much fun breaking barriers and creating memories of me being adventurous and not backing out on any of the obstacles we did. Ironically the tire obstacle was by far my favorite out of all of them. I enjoyed the fact that I went through that tire. If I could go back I would do it over and over again.
On the third day of the trip, I separated myself from people for a few minutes that the Lord gave assuring words. He said to me,
“ I will not waste your gift, I gave it to you.
I will not let you go without, I am your Father.
Accept my love accept My affection towards you and see what happens.
Give me all your attention and watch how your life will change.
Let me take care of you my child.”
These words are a reassurance to me as I have begun my journey here at Mixchange. So many questions were running through my head, will I be able to cope without my parents, although I know I am where God wants me to be I will say I still wanted to go about this journey with my strength and I wanted to plan everything out for this year how I am going to handle my finance so I do not go “broke”, I wanted to be 100% sure of how I will take care of myself. But those words assured me that I can trust God completely without worrying about myself. I know that he loves me so much that he won’t leave me stranded all I have to do is to give him my all.
Another way I encountered God was through the love I experienced with everyone I was with, this was all genuine love, and I am still reminiscing on that God love I experienced through people. I was deeply touched by it. I have never experienced true love from anyone outside of my family, every time I gave people My time or love they would not value it so I learned to be closed off and not let myself love anyone or get too close to someone because they would end up hurting me.