In Wildwood, our purpose is to get jobs and to build relationships with our coworkers and eventually share the gospel with them. I currently work as a roller coaster operator which is pretty dope. We work weekdays around 30-35 hours a week. It has admittedly been exhausting but God has been creating a reliance on Him to simply get through the work day.

One way we love on the students we meet is through a weekly event called coworker care. We create little goodie bags and write encouraging notes to them. These small gestures have been a great way to display our desire for compassionate relationships. It’s also been a way to invite our coworkers to our events and start conversations that may be difficult to initiate during working hours.

In addition to these nights, we regularly go out to evangelize on the boardwalk (around twice a week). In these times, I’ve been slowly feeling the Lord tug on my heart which has been such a relieving and freeing feeling. Learning to rely on the Spirit in these moments has been helping me to fight my pride rather than running from it; however, I still fear the judgement of man and lack both urgency and boldness. As God continues to reveal brokenness in this place through the conversations I’ve had, the need for Him is becoming more apparent. I’m excited for the rest of this mission 🙂

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For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “the righteous shall live by faith”

Romans 1:16-17

Hi Y’all
Sorry I’ve been MIA for a while. I’ve been a bit overwhelmed by my thoughts and really needed a lot of time to process but here is my first update post!

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In all honesty, I was very apprehensive about coming to Wildwood (which probably isn’t what you wanted to hear after I already took your money), but through the process, God has continued to reveal how broken I am and is increasing my reliance on Him. 

In the four weeks leading up to my flight, I began to feel a sense of guilt and abandonment in leaving my church community for two months. For the last 4 years, our youth/young adult family has been struggling so to leave for 8 weeks in the midst of growth was scary and felt irresponsible. However, when I spoke to one of our team leaders about my situation, he encouraged me to think about exactly why I felt the way I did. After a lot of reflection and prayer, I believe I still have a genuine heart for the community BUT I had built up a savior-like complex, in which I believed I was responsible for the change and growth in my friends. I felt fear in leaving this family because I thought it would be detrimental to their faith and in that, I was withholding that part of my life from God and trying to control it with my own hands. While I still had a desire to give my summer to God, a combination of running from that pride as well as the obligation to follow through on my commitment eventually led me to Wildwood. 

Clearly these are very impure motivations, but in these last two weeks they’re slowly being stripped away. At first, it was difficult to truly love on community here because I lacked grace and replaced it with judgement. The idea that I was leaving something behind in coming here built up expectations for the community and work we would be doing so I was honestly disappointed. When I sat with God, I complained to Him and was desperate to know my purpose in being here, and while these questions have yet to be fully answered, it is clear that I am pridefully neglecting a community that God purposefully brought together.

My prayer now has been for God to burden my heart with the love he has for my community here and to remember Psalm 139, in that we are all wonderfully and fearfully made. This has been an encouraging reminder that God loves me in full knowledge of my inability to love Him. I want to lean into community but I am still lacking a heart that genuinely loves them but God has been moving. There’s been lots of other things that have been going on in my head but this summer is about a lot more than me so I’ll stop for tonight.

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All honor and glory to God forever and ever! He is the eternal King, the unseen one who never dies; he alone is God. Amen.

1 Timothy 1: 17 NLT