This week at IMM, we hosted two pastors in Spain to help lead our staff retreat. Unlike last year where we went to a monastery for the retreat, this year we stayed in our building, at IMM. An internal staff retreat.
At this time last year, I had just arrived on the field and was still incredibly jet lagged. I remember roaming the halls of an ancient monastery and reverently touching the stone, breathing in the Spanish mountain air, and convinced it was all part of a dream I had yet to wake from.
This year, I just finished a 10 day long vacation with a close friend across the Iberian peninsula. I felt confident navigating multi-cultural situations and treating Spain like the home I’ve begun to consider it as. But it’s taken almost a year to get there. For months, I felt as though I was drowning in culture-shock, unable to even walk down the street and buy snacks at the convenience store.
So what changed? It certainly wasn’t the Lord’s faithfulness, favor, or presence. Those remained the same through the whole process. I’d love to say my own skill and endurance gave me the strength to grow under this pressure, but that’s simply not true. The only difference between healthy living and drowning is the power of Christ. It’s only been by his hand upon me that I’ve been able to grow and adapt and heal while in Spain, in a foreign country surrounded by complete strangers.
IMM is being refined in so many ways. Our team is being strengthened. Vision is being awakened. Distraction and death is being conquered, and new life is springing forth. Even so, God, in His infinite goodness, has given us the time to touch every stone, breathe in the Spanish air, and live out the dream He’s given us since the beginning.
Psalm 27:
Verse 4: One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek Him in His temple.
Verse 8: My heart says of you, “Seek His face!” Your face, Oh Lord, will I seek.
Verse 13-14: I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.