A year and a half down... 6 months to go

It feels like just yesterday I was writing my struggles of moving to a foreign country, learning a new language and making new friends. A year and a half later, Ecuador feels more like home than anywhere on earth. It is so easy to go through life pleading with God to "do something" and then forget to thank him when he does. So I want this to be a time to look back and remember some of the key moments the Lord stepped in for me this past couple years.
I remember May of 2007 when I had just stopped working for Prince of Peace, was working at Starbucks and felt like my life had no direction. I clearly remember telling the girls in my Bible study that I was probably just going to die because God didn't have a plan for me (dramatic, I know :)). When I finally decided to let it all go and let the Lord do what he was going to do was when the opportunity came up to go with SIM to Ecuador and work in a coffee shop, the exact thing I really wanted to do.
I remember October of 2007 crying out to the Lord asking him what I would do if I could not converse with the people I so desperately wanted to minister to. I remember clearly that he told me to move forward into this abyss called "learning another language" and even if, by the end of 2 years could say no more than two sentences to someone, I was doing what he called me to do and that should be enough.
I remember starting a Bible study in the first 3 months I was here, even though I felt like my Spanish was like that of a 4-year-old. I watched as the Lord took my limited vocabulary and His Word to change the lives of the girls in the study.
I remember being asked to take on the managing position at the cafe. I remember telling the Lord I was not equipped for this... that my Spanish wasn't good enough, that I was too young, but the Lord told me to take it anyway.
I remember being asked to lead a short term team of a church I did not know for people who were twice my age. The amount of excuses I came up with as to why I COULD NOT do it are immeasurable. But again, the Lord took it, used them, used me and turned it into something beautiful. (I can't wait to see what he has for this team THIS year!)
As I write all of this, I smile to myself remembering the fear and doubt I felt in my heart each time the Lord asked me to do something too hard for me to handle alone. I smile because if it weren't for these hard times and difficult experiences, I wouldn't know the sufficiency of the Lord as well as I do today. Thank you Jesus for walking with me in the happy, sad and the difficult. A year and a half down, six months to go... may the Lord bring himself glory through my time here.