“I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” Romans 12:1-2 

What does it mean to present my body as a living sacrifice? The Lord has laid this question on my heart quite frequently lately. I am actively learning what this truly means and how to actually live it out. 

I have always loved to serve others. One of my top love languages is acts of service and I’m an enneagram type 2: the helper. Serving others in any capacity definitely takes some sacrifice – time, money, energy, etc. However, I often think of the story of Martha and Mary. Martha was so focused on serving and being a good hostess. Mary, on the other hand, sat at Jesus’ feet and listened to His teaching. Martha sacrificed her time with the Lord to pursue an earthly agenda, while Mary sacrificed her earthly agenda to pursue time with the Lord. 

Because of my personality combined with being the guest house host, it is extremely easy for me to fall into the footsteps of Martha – getting so caught up in what needs to be done that I put off sitting at Jesus’ feet. It’s easy for me to react the way she did (and I’m paraphrasing), “But Jesus, look at all that I am doing and no one seems to care. Why don’t you help me with what I want you to help me with?” Martha’s eyes were on herself and her responsibilities rather than on Jesus. She was sacrificing all right, but not living sacrificially. 

In order to present my body as a living sacrifice, I must look to the One who made the ultimate sacrifice: Jesus. I can’t present my body as a living sacrifice if the sacrifice Jesus made for me doesn’t impact my daily life. I have been rereading the book, “Because He Loves Me: How Christ Transforms Our Daily Life,” by Elyse Fitzpatrick. The premise of the book is that people who have been Christians for a long time sometimes don’t actively preach the gospel to themselves because it can seem very elementary. We think that because we already know and understand it, we can move on to Christian living without going back to it. But when we don’t meditate on the ultimate sacrifice that the Lord made and aren’t living to praise Him and please Him and thank Him for it, then we’re just going through the motions and changing our outward behavior, but we aren’t experiencing true transformation in our hearts. And when we change our behavior on our own, we will always end in failure. 

One thing I’ve been learning is that walking with Jesus does not happen passively. It’s easy to let the busyness of life take my focus off of Him. It’s easy to say, “I’ll pray later,” or “I’ll read my bible later,” but later never comes. Then I get frustrated with God and ask Him why I’m not experiencing His presence or His peace. But thankfully, He’s lovingly teaching me that abiding in Him is an active and conscious pursuit of Him daily – whether I feel like it or not, whether I’m busy or not. It’s laying down my earthly desires and to-do lists and seeking to know Him and love Him more. Then from knowing and loving Him flows the desire to bring Him glory and this is where living sacrificially starts to develop. I used to think that living sacrificially meant serving others until you ran dry. But the focus of living sacrificially is not that at all. Serving and loving others definitely flows naturally from living sacrificially. But I think about Abraham and Isaac. Abraham abided so much in God. He walked with Him, he knew Him, he loved Him, and he trusted Him fully. He had to be crushed when God asked him to sacrifice Isaac, the son for which he and his wife had prayed for many years and the Lord finally blessed him with. It seemed impossible for them to have more children. Why would God ask him to give up what he had spent so long praying for especially after He promised that Abraham would have descendants that would outnumber the stars? The truth is, the “why” didn’t matter. Abraham sacrificed his heart to the Lord. He trusted the Lord beyond what his human mind could understand. Because of his trust in the Lord’s sovereignty and goodness, he laid down his desires, hopes, and dreams amidst the heartache and walked in obedience to bring glory to the Lord. And that, my friends, is living sacrificially. 

Now remember that this is what the Lord is actively teaching me and I’m just sharing it with you as I’m learning it. I definitely do not have this down pat or am even close to being good at it. But it is something that the Lord is working on in me. So, I will take all the prayers I can get to abide in Him more, seek to glorify Him in everything, and grow in living sacrificially.

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Since coming back to San Juan, we hosted two awesome teams that I had so much fun with and getting to know Riley was such a treasure! We have so much in common and I’m so thankful for the time I had with her! 

My birthday was on August 5 and I felt so, so loved! Riley and Kelsi planned an awesome day for me and it was one of the best birthdays I’ve ever had (even though I didn’t get any good pictures with Kelsi or Riley)! Sadly, Sarah was out with the team and wasn’t able to attend the festivities on my actual birthday, but she wrote me the sweetest card! They surprised me with friends at my favorite restaurant for lunch and I had the most beautiful cake! Then we went to the clinic for Riley and two of my friends from church to donate blood (something that means so so much to me because it’s a way for me to honor my Grandpa John). So I was so grateful that my friends were willing to donate blood on my birthday! Their donations brought us to a total of 36 pints donated to our clinic from friends of Solid Rock! Our goal is to get to 50 by the end of the year! 

Sarah, Kelsi and I had a beach day to celebrate the following week at my favorite beach, El Quemaito in Barahona! We met the sweetest boys from a town near the Haitian border who live with an American couple. It was fun to play with them and hang out with them! We’re hoping to possibly do a barrio clinic near where they live, so that’s something we can pray about!

I got to go to a back to school teacher workshop with Hector at city hall. It was very interesting to experience teachers’ back to school preparations here. It’s not much different than the workshops in the states. It was cool to get to be a part of it! 

I found an adult’s volleyball group to play with (and it has been some REALLY GOOD volleyball!!) and it just so happens that one of our Dominican doctors, Dr. Borit, plays there regularly, so it’s been cool to play with him! It has felt really good to move my body like that again! One of my best friends back home asks me every time I’m home to play in tournaments and sometimes I do, but I don’t last very long. Haha So I told her I will be ready to play when I come home!

I was able to go to El Cacheo with Sarah, Kelsi, Pastor Ronnie, Anulfo, and Brenda. This is one of Kelsi’s passions, so it was cool to get to see how she’s investing in our community outside of SRI. I attended Michael’s wedding and also Euclides’ foundation’s back to school event! Gallo, who some of you may know from playing softball in past years, invited us to eat lunch at his house. Sarah wasn’t able to go as she was preparing to head home, but Kelsi and I went and ate chenchen, stewed chicken, rice, and beans! It’s one of my favorite Dominican meals!

Since Kamanda has moved back to the states, I have become the coordinator of the student sponsorship program and have been working on preparing for student sponsor updates. I’m glad to have a few weeks without teams so that I can focus on our schools for a bit. I’m really passionate about education and am very excited to be able to have a more hands-on role with our schools. I was invited to attend CCED’s graduation and loved getting to be a part of their special day to celebrate their students and I even got to see Olvis’ son, Dariolvis, graduate! 

Dolly is growing like a weed and is spoiled rotten. She has the funniest personality and is a really good snuggler (while I’m sitting out in the parking lot). 

I have teamed up with a guy at church to start a young adults group. We had a game night last week to kick it off and it was a lot of fun! It consisted of intense games of spot it, spoons, and uno. I’m excited to study the book of Ephesians with them over the next few weeks! 

Prayer requests: 

• Spiritual and physical rest and restoration during this break 
• Strength for our team to carry out the ministry set before us & fruitfulness in it 
• Deepened relationship with the Lord & community through our bible study (and open hearts for some friends I’ve invited who don’t know the Lord yet) 
• Health & safety for family back home