Facing the Giants

               

 

I’m finally home after a week of Vida Joven training in Jinotega.  My friend Oneyda had told me there would be tests, but I’m not sure I really knew what I was in for.  It felt like we had all been shipped off to the Christian version of Hogwarts: First-years, second-years, on and on and on, all living on campus together, sitting through class together, eating meals together and talking about which assignments were due the following day and whether there’d be an exam.

It was a beautiful experience in a painful sort of way or maybe vise versa, but either way I felt really stretched in a number of areas, namely having to go through all of it in Spanish.

Even though I’ve become very comfortable interacting in Spanish with my friends here in Granada, there’s something about going to camp and addressing a crowd of 200+ in a foreign language that just makes me shiver.  For that reason I have been very reserved in taking any opportunity to do so.  In the campamento de nuevos that we brought kids to in December, we watched a movie called “Facing the Giants” which translates to Spanish as “Enfrentando tus temores” which translates back to English as “Facing Your Fears.” (I’m sorry. I’m not sure that was necessary.)  At any rate, we are trying to encourage and motivate the kids to do just that.  Last week was my turn.

I got nudged into doing something last minute that I would not normally volunteer for – Sing in front of the entire camp during our ‘talent’ show one night.  There was only one song I was interested in singing, but I didn’t even know all the words nor did we have more than a few minutes to practice.  I suppose some things in life you just go for though, so I went for it.  It was the first time in 5 camp experiences that I was able to get up in front of the entire crowd, say a few words and then sing a song upon which I had, at most, a shaky grasp.  I’m just glad that it was a Christian song so that when I closed my eyes to pretend that all those people weren’t there, at least I didn’t look like a freak.

 

The point is, in that moment at least, I didn’t let fear stop me from doing something in front of a bunch of people that I love to do anyway.  Even though it took an initial shove on the part of my friend Yener, I marched right up on that stage, did my thing, and was really glad when I got to march right off.

 

I know that the Lord was working on me in some different ways last week, but having to face that giant fear of judgment was definitely one of them.  He might not have disappeared completely quite yet, but he’s certainly a bit weaker.