- storytelling56
Humans of Ten2: Part 3
As the Ten2 Project 2021 has come to an end, I asked several Ten2 participants to answer two questions: What is something you want to take home with you and apply? and What is something you want to leave behind? And if they felt led, to share an impactful moment they experienced. These are their responses. I hope it encourages you, uplifts you, and shows you how the Lord has been working personally and powerfully in the lives of the Ten2 participants in Kosova.
Kalynn Williams ~
“I want to take home the value of using so many different gifts because one of the hardest things this summer has been working with such a large group. We want everyone to be used and valued and on the Pristina team, we are finding ways to do that. Just finding new ways people are truly gifted so the team is better as a whole and so people will feel more valued and are able to contribute and learn from one another.”
“I want to leave behind the idea that I need more than I do. That I need more self-care and spiritual care than I do. The more we take our eyes off ourselves to focus on other people the more satisfied we really are and the less we need from other people. Whenever we look towards others and pour into them it pours into ourselves. I don’t need as much as I thought I did, and I need to lay that down and leave that behind.”
Chris Beck ~
“I want to take back the prayer life I started to build here. We enter a spiritual conflict once we become saved. Being in a country that is mostly Muslim makes it becomes more apparent to me that there is a real spiritual battle going on. I’m praying more during the day because I’m more aware of the conflict and that people’s eternities are at stake here. I think in the US, we have experienced culture Christianity so there is this assumption that we don’t need to pray that intensely because everything is going well. I don’t think that’s the case, so I want to continue the consistent prayer life I’ve developed. Even when we go back to the states, there is very real spiritual conflict. Physical comfort doesn’t mean everything is ok because people’s souls are still at stake. I don’t want to go back and become stagnant in my spiritual disciplines.”
“I want to leave behind imposing my expectations on how I can be used by God where I think I know my strengths and weaknesses are. It’s a helpful thing until we tell God how we are supposed to be used, rather than allowing Him to use us however He sees fit. Because His ways are higher than ours and His plans are better than ours. I want to go back home and say that I have an idea of how I can be used but I trust God more than I trust myself.”
Annie Lucas ~
“I want to take all my relationships with me because I think they are really special, and I don’t want to leave them here. I will continue with them in communication.”
Emma Hearn ~
“Because of a lot of hard things going on at home, I am leaving behind a lot of my innocence. I am taking with me inspired faith. The believers in the local church here refer to unsaved family members as people who ‘don’t know Jesus YET’ and I want to have that perspective for my own family.”
Rebekah Briles ~
“I want to take away staying in-tune with the Holy Spirit and remembering the importance of praying in the moment. Prayer is a moment-by-moment thing, so how much the Holy Spirit leads I will pray. We would pray before kids’ week at the kids’ camp. If we didn’t know what to do, if we were struggling to find something extra to do, or if we needed something and it wasn’t there yet, and Makenna, the pastor’s wife, would pray that the Holy Spirit would bring ideas to our minds. Simple things like that that we don’t think about and that we try to plan ahead so that doesn’t happen, we can rely on the Holy Spirit to guide us when problems occur. What I want to leave behind is the spirit of joy.”
Kristian Morris ~
“I want to take home a missional attitude: to always be on mission no matter what I am doing. One thing I want to leave behind is my pride. We are here specifically for missions, that is my objective. Back home it’s very easy to forget that that is my objective all the time because I’m working on things that seem monotonous like music, school, daily things that can seem mundane. The reality is God can be found in those things too. God can provide opportunities to love on people and show them Jesus in those things too. Just because I go back home does not mean I’m not on a mission and God won’t bring opportunities to share the gospel with people. God has humbled me by giving me the mentality of letting go of myself and what I want to do by giving up my dreams and desires and wanting to do what God calls me to do. That’s the whole reason why I ended up on this mission trip. Carrying on that mentality throughout the rest of my life would be awesome too. Being here is different than what I prefer. I would prefer being at home playing music. It was a process, I pleaded with the Lord, ‘help my will align with Yours.’ By God’s spirit I want to be here, but my flesh does not want to be here. My flesh wants to be comfortable in what, where, and who I know. So, it is a sacrifice, but aligning my will with God’s will, but it’s what it took.”
“This is my first mission trip. I signed up for Ten2 two years ago. Every semester at Liberty we would have global focus week where organizations like GEM come to promote what they are doing and to encourage students to get involved in missions. When GEM came my freshman year, I was dead set on what I wanted to do for my summer. I wanted to go back home, be with my family, and intern at my church and be comfortable. I had no desire or intention to go on a mission trip over the summer. So, when global mission week came around, I would tuck my head away and not make eye contact so they wouldn’t try to reel me in and try to give me their pitch that I didn’t want to hear. But one night Mike came into my hall and spoke. He gave a pretty compelling speech about the statistics regarding missions and how between men and women going it is very lopsided. Women are often on mission trips and men are not. We need Godly men who will let go of their lives and go on this mission too. I felt convicted, ‘God send me!’”
“I started to sign up and all the while I really did not want to go but God wanted me to go. I prayed to God to help my will align with His. I prayed that for a week and then the next week I went to North Carolina to play keys at my friend’s church that weekend. We stayed at the pastor’s house and his wife was the student director. While I was there, I needed to pay the placement fee for where I was going to serve before I figured out where I was going. Last year I was supposed to go to Germany. I didn’t know where I would get the placement fee and the wife overheard me talking about it with my friend. The next day she gave me the placement fee to go on this trip. ‘Wow, God, you really wanted me to go.’ I didn’t have a relationship with them except for staying over at their house for the weekend. I did not know them. To me, if God is going to be faithful through people that don’t know me, how much more faithful will He be through people who do know me and my heart? That was confirmation from the Lord that I should go.”
“I didn’t end up going because of Covid-19. This year I was reluctant to go again but God was calling me to let go of myself. I did not know if I would do anything musical and giving up music for two to three months would be scary. God told me to go, and He has been faithful in that. I have been able to play on the worship team, serve musically, and serve you guys musically. I do have a passion for music ministry and serving people in that way. Being here God has developed my heart for missions. I am not sure of the capacity, but I know I want it to be a part of my life. I know I want to do it in some way. This will not be my last mission trip. Nathan had an opportunity to sign a record deal, but he turned it down to do missions. That is actual sacrifice and actual laying down your life. God killed those dreams for His will and Nathan followed the Lord’s will.”
Jenna Landers ~
“I want to leave behind doubt and I want to take home that I can choose joy even when I don’t get my way. There have been days that I wanted to do something specific, but I would pray that whatever God wanted me to do today, to let me do that. Then when I wouldn’t get chosen for a ministry I wanted to do, I would say, “Okay God I’m going to choose to be joyful and choose to see why you want me to do this today.” Every single time that I felt grumpy on the inside, the whole day the holy spirit would show me why. That conversation is why, this special thing that you got to do that no one else got to do is why I wanted you to do this today, getting home sooner than everyone else so I can have time to myself is why. Just the littlest things, choosing joy when I don’t get my way is something that I am learning and want to take home.”
Jess Gehman ~ “ Something I have learned is not making my time with God a chore but making it something I need and want every day and not something to check off my list. I want to take that back, making my time with God more intentional.”
Sarah Dybalski ~
“I want to take back ministry in the mundane. The Lord has been telling me that He has the little things here for me and they are part of the big things. Waking up in the morning and making your bed, having conversations with people that you’re not necessarily close to is practicing love. All these things lead to something bigger. Here it has been so fantastic to be able to meet people on the side of the road and have conversations with them. I want to take that home. I want to leave here my uncertainty about God’s love. That’s something I have been struggling with a little bit, so I want to leave that here.”
Sam Campell ~
“I don’t want to lose the language; I don’t want to go home and forget all the words I have learned but keep it going. I also want to tell everyone and their mom about Kosovo. We didn’t know about this place at all. They really love America, but our generation hardly know they exist. I can’t blame them because I didn’t know they existed either, but now I’m going to tell everyone about them.”
“I picture God telling the story of us. He already has our whole lives written out, He already knows what’s going to happen and He’s just reading it to us. That’s how I picture life is certain circumstances. I feel like I’m constantly so excited for the next thing that I’m trying to flip pages in this book that hasn’t been written for me yet or haven’t yet been read to me by God. I’m constantly seeking what’s next. I have yet to sit and be present and how to meditate on the seasons that I am in now. I get comfortable in places and when you get comfortable, that can be a dangerous thing because when you're uncomfortable that is when God uses you and starts to grow you. I want to leave behind that fastness of things and just be present.”
Katie Snyder ~
“What I’ve loved is that I have gotten along with everyone on this trip. There has been zero drama, which has been amazing. I learned that we can be in control of our own emotions, and we are the ones that take it to the next level. So, it’s what you give into. I’m going to take that back with me because I have some roommates that can be confrontational, which can be uncomfortable. So, I guess knowing this is nice and being able to apply what I learned.”
“I also learned that I don’t need social media while being here. I want to leave that behind. The excessive use of it and how it felt like my everything when I was home. When I’m out and about I don’t have cellular, but the number of times I click onto it is so bad and I never realized. I want to practice keeping up the patience in avoiding social media.”
Kassidy White ~
“A place that I've grown in is learning the differences between people even more than I already understand people. I feel now I understand people, that people are different but here I've had to apply that immediately. I've never been in this situation where I have to be with 50 people that are different from me and we think differently, act differently, we do stuff differently, we have different humors, we have different ways of coaching situations. Even though that has been extremely difficult it has been exciting being able to have those relationships and being able to grow in them. It's been fun learning how to be around people that are different and getting to know people and appreciate their differences.”
Jenae Stevenson ~
“Looking back, I see how God provided every step of the way for me to go to Kosovo. Before I left, I was doubting God’s goodness and grace. I was dealing with the weight of my shame from the sin in my life. I looked at God through skewed lenses that I created. I thought God would not let me go because He was ashamed of me, too. But that is not the God that we serve, and He showed me that. God reminded me that I was there because of what Jesus did that day on the cross and then 3 days later. I was there because of Jesus and nothing I have done but everything He has done for me and for the world. One day in Kosovo, the weight of my shame started pressing down on me again and the Spirit prompted me to thank Jesus. So, I thanked Jesus and thanked Him a lot! Thanking Jesus turned my shame into pure joy, humility, and deep gratitude! Thank You Jesus for dying on the cross, for resurrecting, thank you Jesus for paving a way so I can have a relationship with you and proclaim the hope that You freely bring!”
– Jenae Stevenson, Ten2 2021 Participant & Storyteller