The whole journey leading up to this trip started with God lighting a fire in my soul for working with girls and women like the ones in the bars at Bangla. So naturally, coming here I was looking way forward to speaking life and value into these women. All along that was my prayer, that God would let me tell these women that they're beautiful and so valuable.
So, our bar ministry started. I was ready and excited to go talk to women at Bangla. I just wanted to speak words of life to them. But our first few times there, I hardly got to speak to anyone. My other teammates, Radha and Autumn, were hitting it off with women and laughing and playing connect four. And there I was, sitting at the bar, drinking Sprite and praying…well, BEGGING God to let me talk to someone. One woman even sat down really close to me and just as I reached over to tap her shoulder and make conversation, she walked away!
"God..YOU set this fire in my soul, YOU provided the money to get here, YOU called me to do this work and now you're not even letting me talk to anyone!" I kept praying.
Then, last week, it all hit me like a ton of bricks.
All my life, I've looked in the mirror and thought, "I'm not beautiful. I'm ugly." I've believed that about myself for so long. I placed my value on what I saw in the mirror and since I didn't like it, I believed I wasn't valuable. As I thought about that, I could hear God saying to me:
"Kendra, why would I let you speak value to my daughters at Bangla, if you, who are also my daughter, don't believe it about yourself? You can't speak it to them if you can't speak it to yourself."
After reflecting on that and letting God speak His truth over me, for the first time in my life, I looked in the mirror and didn't hate what I saw. In fact, I liked it. Because I realized my beauty was in Him and not in earthly things.
Monday came. Time for the bars again. Only this time…I knew God would let me speak to women because I finally saw my OWN value. And guess what? Not only did I speak to women…the women came to me! When I saw the beauty in myself, God finally allowed me to speak life to the women at Bangla 🙂
After walking the road one time, a HUGE rainstorm came. The road cleared. People ran into bars for shelter. There was literally no one in the street. God said, "Go, run and dance in the rain!" What other chance EVER would we have for EVERYONE on Bangla to notice us? I told Autumn we should go for it and she agreed. So we took of running and dancing and splashing in the torrential downpour. Everyone was clapping and shouting and whistling at us. It was one of those sweet moments I'll hold onto forever.
In the rainstorm! (yay for a waterproof phone case!)
When I got home, one of my teammates, Allison, had written me a note that said, "No longer will you stand in the shadows…you were BORN to stand out"
That's the truth, we are not born to blend in. We're born to step out in Jesus name 🙂
