Exceedingly Abundantly Above and Beyond

So, I haven't blogged for a very long time...like years. But, my daughters and I have just returned from a missions trip to Lima, Peru with COTM Missions serving at Camino de Vida and I have to start putting some of my thoughts into words to process them. Plus, this way if people want to know details about the trip - they can read the blog and I won't bore to tears someone who is completely uninterested by telling story after story after story!

I think I need to say that I decided to go on this trip because my daughters wanted to go on this trip. COTM had several trips a person could sign up for but Caitlin wanted to go to Peru and she is under 18 so she had to be accompanied by an adult. When we had our first meeting before the trip and everyone was sharing why they were going to Peru - I felt like an imposter. God had not spoken audibly to me telling me to go to Lima, I had never really even considered the Peruvian people. One guy from our group had already made several trips to Peru, one had been praying for Peru since he was a child, even my older daughter, Lauren, had had this particular church on her heart for years. For me, I knew that I wanted to serve God somewhere...I knew that I wanted to go on a missions trip...I knew that I wanted my kids to have a missions trip experience - where they come back more thankful for their lives and their things and their parents. I wanted them to see how good they have it. So even the whole time we were raising the funds to go I felt like I was piggybacking on Caitlin's desire to go to Lima. I felt fake.

When the time for the trip was drawing close, people began telling us to have fun and there was always talk of a trip like this changing your life but I felt like it was wrong to expect to have fun...I felt like the priority should be on changing the lives of others - not on personally having an experience.

What I found was that serving God, being obedient and willing to serve others does it all - it changed me, it changed the community, it changed my daughters, and it was fun! God is so cool like that - serving Him blesses everyone involved - it wasn't either/or! I can't think of a time in my life where I worked as hard and laughed as much or loved as deeply or felt like I was making a difference or made as many lifetime friends or was as proud of my daughters, and on and on and on!

The Bible says in Ephesians 3:20 that God is able to do exceedingly abundantly above and beyond all I can ask or think (infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts, hopes or dreams)..and that is exactly what He did!