Burnout

I need a break. I've been feeling it in my body and knowing that I need a break from doing ministry, from counseling, from helping people in general. This might sound really bad but I need this time to rest up and to just stop immersing myself in the culture and start to do things that people might perhaps think that I shouldn't because I'm indulging myself, but I know I need to. Because I feel as if I'm losing my sanity. And I need to rest up before I move to another country and do more ministry. 

I just read up on missionary burnout and I'm seeing myself in it, so this will be my last post about ministry in this country of Peru.

I am going to take a break. I'm going to just be living and enjoying life and just rest up without feeling the weight of obligation or responsibility upon my shoulders for this short time until we move in March/April. 

I know I can write without guilt that I have done all I can while I was here. Spoken what I had to say. Shared the Word, taught the Word, counseled, gave materially and done what I sensed God tell me to do to show His love. But I am not their Saviour and only God can work in their hearts if they let Him. 

I know I gave 99% of me. Perhaps others could have given more, but it was my 99%.

And now, if you will excuse me, I will rest. I must rest. I will give myself permission to rest. 

I can still be found on my personal blog, just click on the button, "Adeline's Blog" on the right hand side of this blog and it will take you there. 

Till later,

Adeline

Free Will

 Throughout the course of our living here in this area of Lima, I've spoken to, counseled and shared Jesus with 2 girls at the park where we take our dogs. You read about one of them in my last blog entry. She decided to choose death. 

Since then, I've been going over and over in my head what I had actually shared with her when I met her, checking to see if it had been sufficient, if I had shared Jesus with her or not. Suicide is so selfish and its ripples go really far. It affected me and I had met her only once and it made me wonder if I was at fault for not doing enough. 

But I know I did what I could at that time and a little after. I'm learning that I can lead a person to the living waters of Jesus but it is up to them to want to drink from it. 

Free will.

This story is about the 2nd girl. She asked Jesus into her life the very first meeting at the park. I text  messaged her at Christmas and exchanged greetings but then never heard from her until a week ago. The first time, she had been really depressed and had asked God to send someone or an angel to talk to her. Guess who God sent. She was so in awe that God answered her prayer literally. But even though she received Jesus into her life that night, she wasn't ready to be discipled or go to church.

The second time around, she cried out to God to bring someone to talk to her to counsel her in doing things the right way. God is so funny. He coordinated that night for me and hubby to walk the dogs super late to meet up with her as she was entering the park. We talked for an hour while poor hubby and the dogs sat around, hungry. She wanted to meet  me again and I told her I would bring her a bible. 

Yesterday, we met and I started teaching her key verses from the bible about her identity and what Jesus had done for her and basically, at the end of it, I very directly said that she knows what some of the promises of God says about her and it depended on her what she does with the information. It could sit in her mind and never be used or she could believe it in her heart and walk in it. She decided to go to church with us tonight.

Her verdict after church tonight? "This is not like a Catholic church at all! It's like one big concert!" She decided she wants to go again. She's planning to go tomorrow night for the young adults meeting and I will meet her again next Tuesday at the park.

One chose death. The other chooses life. 

We all have a choice.