Well, one more week left in Riga!! Time has gone by incredibly quickly and I have mixed feelings about it. I'm super excited to go to Moldova for two weeks, but I also really love it here. We've got to do some amazing ministry and we've seen fruit come out of it too, so that's awesome!
This last week we were part of serving the European Leaders Gathering for YWAM. Basically, about 150 Euros from different YWAM bases all over Europe were gathered for 4 days for a conference. Our team did a lot of hospitality stuff, serving food, cleaning bathrooms, etc. But we were able to be a part of some worship times and we were also able to network with people during break times. It was actually pretty sweet to be able to talk to people from all over Europe. Since, as you know, Germany has been on my heart recently, I jumped at the chance to talk to people from the Germany bases. I got to talk to one woman, Toni, from the Herrnhut base, and she gave me really good advice on how to deal with my next steps in deciding what to do with my future after DTS and how I can best honor my parents in my decisions and stuff, and she gave me practical ways to be involved in missions and she told me she'd love to have me at any of the YWAM bases in Germany in the future. So, that's exciting! But yeah, I've just been thinking a lot about my future after DTS and what I want to do. I think I've decided what my next step is, but I got really good advice week this and that's that I need to just focus on the next thing God has asked me to do and not try to plan my whole future out. So that's helped a lot.
Another thing God has really revealed to me this past week is why I've struggled with certain things in the past and I've seen a lot of His promises fulfilled. As some of you may know, I used to struggle with depression pretty heavily when I was younger, and I always wondered why God had me in that place, and why I had to deal with it at such a young age. And people always told me that maybe I was going to be able to minister and help people in the future who have or do struggle with the same thing. And for the last few years since recovering from it, I never saw that come true. But this week I was able to share my full testimony with one of my friends who struggles with depression/anxiety, and she told me, "you have no idea how much that's helped me". I think because I could really truly understand what she was going through from experience, and I wasn't just someone telling her they really knew how she felt even though they didn't, that spoke heaps to her. I've never felt so deeply for someone as I did this week. I would never wish upon anything what I had to feel for so long and so deeply. And I wish she wouldn't have to deal with it, but God's got it under control. So yeah, this week I've discovered why I had to deal with it for so long and I'm actually thankful that I did because my words would have just fallen to the floor in front of her if I didn't understand what she was going through.
God has proved himself to be so faithful and amazing the last week! I'm super excited to see what God has for our team in Moldova, and I also can't wait to get back and share lots of stories with you guys!
Love you and miss you all.
xoxo,
Laura
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