Goodbye Gainesville

Good night/morning. I am writing this from the Atlanta Airport where we will be sleeping tonight to catch a flight to Nicaragua tomorrow morning. This means that our time at training camp in Gainesville has come to an end. It was a sweet, edifying, hard, uncomfortable, beautiful, joyful and oftentimes dirty experience. 2 weeks of sleeping in tents with somewhat friendly spiders, port-a-pottys with stool that should be brought into a lab for research, cold bucket showers, laundry that never dried and always managed to stay stinky, and lots of rain. Despite so much discomfort, I have never been this consistently joyful and the catalyst is the grace and love of Jesus.

I have grown up in the church as a believer and attended a Christian school in high school where I learned about Doctrine of the Bible, Apologetics and other classes that taught me virtually all the facts of Christianity. These past two weeks, my head knowledge of God has transferred to my heart and I am learning day by day how sweet it is to be in His presence and in relationship with Him. I have learned so much and the verse that keeps coming up in my head every early morning and late night of training is Psalm 92:1-2, which says, “It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to Your name, O Most High; to declare Your steadfast love in the morning and Your faithfulness by night.” He has carried me through every day with such indescribable love and faithfulness. God has answered so many prayers in the short span of 2 weeks and as I reflect, I am simply just thankful. I am thankful to the Father and also thankful for those who have funded this experience. I am sincerely so grateful.

There are so many little stories I would love to share but I will keep it brief and tell you the main things I have learned so far before entering the field. First is the beauty of the Body of Christ. When God’s people are functioning out of His abundant love for them, it overflows into their relationships with those around them. Being surrounded by a community who mourns with you, celebrates with you, honors you and holds you accountable has been a wonderful experience and I cannot wait to see how God will use the many giftings in my squad in Central America. The second thing that has stuck with me is learning to be still with Him. I have always felt like if I am still I am unproductive, achieving nothing and therefore worthless and unsuccessful, but God is slowly breaking down this lie. I am learning that all I have to offer the Creator of the Universe is “a broken and contrite heart” (Psalm 51:17). I only have to be a child sitting in the Father’s presence, willing to listen and obey. This has been so freeing. God holds up both ends of the bargain. I don’t have to achieve or be perfect to be loved by Him. I am learning to hear His voice in the stillness.

I also got baptized in a lake in Gainseville to outwardly express my inward rededicating my life to Christ. This was a beautiful moment and one I will cherish forever. I did not feel like crying or screaming or jumping up and down when I came up from the water, I just felt unexplainable peace. I have never felt more secure. I don’t want this to be a temporary, emotional high that fades back into lukewarmness. I want the real thing. I want to really know Him and really learn how to do life with Jesus at the center. 

One of the girls at training camp sent me off with a profound message that sums up this next phase of my journey, “You are loved, so go love.”

Its getting real, I would appreciate any prayers for our ministry in Nicaragua and thank you for listening. I will hopefully be able to blog once a week.

(P.S. it is now over 2 weeks free of nicotine and God has graciously carried me through this process with little to no withdrawals which in my life is truly miraculous) 

• <3 Sylvie