When God Slows Us Down: Lessons From Guyana
NEXT is a 2-4 month mentored cross-culture immersion internship. Guyana is one of the newest sites for NEXT, with Christina being the first intern. There, she learned from a long-term missionary and helped lead in meaningful ways.
In Guyana, I developed and taught science and Information Technology (IT) lessons two days per week. In turn, God taught me a lot through this experience.
One day, I had a student with inconsistent attendance come in to learn Excel. She was visibly taking a bit longer to grasp the concepts and was slower than the rest of the students on the computer.
Throughout her internship, Christina was mentored and led by long-term missionary Angie Hemric.
I found myself having to wait after each slide for her to catch up with the rest of the class. I started getting frustrated as things were progressing very slowly. On the drive home, God spoke to me through Luke 15, the parable of the lost sheep.
God showed me that we are that one sheep, and no matter how long it takes for Him to bring us back into His fold, He will do it. He is patient with us and will wait for us to come back to Him, doing whatever it takes Him. He highlighted that maybe the student was that one sheep, the one that I had to be patient with and run after, no matter how long it took her to understand things. Because there was more value and rejoicing in that one sheep coming back and finding their way.
God blessed me through His lovingkindness in other ways, too. On Fridays in Guyana, we had our faith and fun nights, where we played games and talked about our faith. While I was there, we bought a keyboard, and I was able to introduce a worship component and teach the kids how to play some worship songs. What a joyful noise!
God also revealed to me firsthand that making disciples comes from relationship building. Throughout my time in Guyana, I studied how the Bible talks about the poor and needy. God repeatedly calls us to care and serve them. We see Jesus consistently sitting and eating with people who have been forgotten. By building relationships simply just to serve them and exhibit God’s heart, we can point people to the source of true love that is only found in Jesus.
Another lasting impression is learning that 4 in 10 people lack access to the gospel. That’s shocking to me. Living in North America, I feel so grateful for how accessible the gospel is to me, but also disheartened at how comfortable I’ve gotten in my own bubble. I feel that the need is huge, now more than ever, to contribute and share, especially in places that have never even heard the name of Jesus.