Today was easy again. I think they're waiting until we get used to the place... they must know it's not normal compared to every other normal part of the world. We already have a homework assignment. We're reading a book by Steve Thompson called “All of you can prophesy.” I'm not halfway through it yet and I already feel that God wants to show me something huge. I feel that I'm resisting though. I think I might be a little afraid of what He wants to show me. Not that I think He would have me do something that would hurt me in any way, but that He might lead me down a drastic path. That adventure that everyone talked about in youth groups – it must be true. If you're going to follow God and do whatever He wants you to without question, He's inevitably going to take you places you never imagined. I'm already thinking a lot about the spiritual aspect of this trip, which is the only aspect that we are focused on, and how resisting will hinder progress. Mom always talked about my “spiritual man” and I think here is where he is going to awaken and kick me in the pants since the alarm clock already went off years ago.

I admit I come here in a state of shame. I know for sure that this state of mind doesn't come from God, and I know for sure that even the leader of the first Christian church stumbled. I have to thank God over and over again since the mistakes I make are automatically forgiven once confessed. I CONFESS!!! I failed God one more time and He somehow finds it in his unconditional-loving heart to forgive me one more time. I simply can't understand why. My little brain and my extremely weak spirit try and try to grasp and understand His love.... to no avail.

In any case, I can tell God is working on my heart in little ways. You know what they say: admitting you have a problem is half the battle, right? Well, I have 5 billion problems... I'll talk about today for example. Yesterday they gave us a piece of paper and each one had a phrase or just a couple of words on it. Mine said, “I will always help you,” and when we did the activity, after searching for the answer the night before, I decided in the last moments of the next morning to think about it. Help. What about help does God want to make clear to me? Then, in the afternoon, I remembered a conversation I had with Juana on the bus. I told her that I had a little monster inside me called independence. I simply want to do everything myself. I don't want help and I don't want direction and I don't want people to tell me how to do things. I even mentioned that maybe this will kill the little monster inside me... or make it grow. In that moment, as I was remembering the conversation I thought to myself, I have a choice: I can resist, I can hang onto my independence and I can continue thinking that I don't need anyone; or I can surrender, I can recognize that I need God's help, that everything I try to do on my own is fruitless and ends in failure, and I can accept His hand and grow. One of these choices will kill this little monster, and the other will obviously make the little monster the modern-day Godzilla.
Then, before we all met together again to do the activity, I talked to D who went to the conference last week with so many expectations. I didn't say anything at the time, but when he first told me about waiting for something huge, I first feared that he would start talking about leaving E.V. Then I thought, passively, I think he just might not have the experience he's hoping for... He didn't. And he told me that even though he was waiting for the great revelation, it didn't come until the next day or a few days later when he spoke to one of the missionaries that was sent out from E.V. This man sat down with him and heard D tell him he was frustrated because he hadn't heard from God. The missionary thought about it and said, “You asked for God to challenge you... this is your challenge: trust Him.”

So, at the gathering where we shared all our little pieces of paper and what God had told us, boy did I have a story. First that I'm recognizing one of the billions of problems that I'm going to for sure discover here, and second the answer: open my spirit to Him and TRUST Him.