Reflections on Discovery

I spent the summer in the Solomon Islands. You go across the world, you find yourself.

The trip was amazing, life-changing, and instrumental in allowing God to reveal things to me... about myself. Seriously, it's like I didn't even know myself before.

Well, self, it's great to finally meet you.

Here are a few things I learned or came to terms with on this trip:

I'm more of an "extrovert" than I thought.

I've always thought of myself as very introverted. I'm pretty shy, I keep quiet around strangers, and I'm quite bad at striking up conversations with people. Tracy, one of our trip leaders, asked us all how we score on the Myers-Briggs personality test. I couldn't remember if I had taken it or not, nor what my letters were. We had several group conversations about everyone's test results and what they mean. The first letter is either an I or an E, for introvert and extrovert, respectively. Tracy said that this characteristic is based on whether you are energized by being around people or by being alone. All but two people on our team were introverts. I thought I was an introvert, but on this trip I noticed that I always avoided being alone and generally tried to spend even my down time with people. Tracy said that an introvert can spend a whole day alone and be fine. When I spend too much time alone, I get depressed. Thus, I think I must be closer to an extrovert than I realized. So strange!

I'm an oral learner.
This is legit. We had a lady come in and do a workshop on Bible storytelling. She gave us an assessment to see if we're oral learners. I scored 70% towards oral (rather than literary). I never knew this about myself, but it actually makes sense. I tend to retain information that's told to me better than information that I read. I learn more from the Bible when I talk through it with other people. I like sermons that have lots of stories in them. Usually I would rather watch a movie than read a book. I think this means that I should to try listening to recordings of the Bible. I've never done that; it could be groundbreaking for my walk with God.

I need to have "real talk".
I suppose I've always had a best friend. There's always been at least one girl in my life with whom I could share anything that was on my heart. I didn't realize how important relationships like this were to me until I went on this trip. I love my teammates. We all got along really well and we respected each other and thought of each other as family. But we still didn't know all of the ins and outs of each other's personalities at first. A few times, I found myself bottling up emotions and thoughts about what was happening around me and feeling like I had no one to share them with. Sometimes I would get really quiet and wait for someone to notice, but no one did. I soon realized that this wasn't anyone's fault but mine. I couldn't expect people to read my mind. I knew I had to reach out for help when I needed it. Once I realized this, I did reach out. I was blessed to have many deep conversations, what I call "real talk", with a few of the girls on my team. It was freeing to be able to share my struggles, hear other peoples similar experiences, and pray together. Now I know that I need this in my life and it should help me to stay emotionally healthy in the future.

My love languages are physical touch and words of affirmation.
I knew that these things were important to me, but I didn't know just how important until this trip. Along with the Myers-Briggs personality test, we talked a lot about the five love languages (The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman) and who "speaks" which ones. I didn't know what mine were at first, but I soon figured it out. I knew that I could show love using all five of them and they all communicated love to me, but what made these two stand out is that without them, I didn't feel loved. I realized that if I'm not regularly hugging people or being uplifted and affirmed, over time, I actually start to feel quite unloved. It makes so much sense now! We all told each other what our love languages were so each person on the team could always feel loved because w knew how to show it to them. Praise God!

I prefer one-on-one interactions when I need to be intentional.
This is something I learned during my time at the language booth and was reminded of during my village stay. Talking to the people who came by the booth was actually way out of my comfort zone. I just didn't know what to say and I hated the awkwardness and uncertainty of a dying conversation. I saw the way my colleagues engaged with people and I noticed which times I actually felt confident in my conversations. I realized that I did best when it was one-on-one, just me and one other person, as opposed to me in front of a group or a crowd. When there were big groups of people in the booth, it was intimidating to me and I closed up. This doesn't mean I don't like being in groups of people, but if I have to get something accomplished, I would prefer to address people individually.

I love community living.
Some of my favorite times and definitely the most relaxing times were spent in the house with the team. We cooked together, ate together, sang together, prayed together, cleaned together, shopped  together, did laundry together, traveled together... it was community living at its finest. I loved never having to be alone if I didn't want to (I rarely did). Even though we were in tight quarters and shared everything, there was so much cooperation and respect that issues never came up. Perhaps this is because everyone had essentially the same agenda. Realistically, it was a very rare situation, but it was a once-in-a-lifetime absolute blessing.

I have a passion for hospitality.
When the majority of our team had to leave Honiara early one morning, I wanted to make sure everything had been taken care of, everything went smoothly, and no one was stressed. I didn't really know exactly what to do for them, but I so badly wanted to help. Kit baked bread the night before they left and I stayed up with her. Then we got up and made sandwiches for their lunch on the boat. We hugged them all as they left the house. I was sad to see them go, but I found that I was filled with such a desire to serve them and so much joy in doing whatever I could to make their packing and departure easier. I had no other experiences quite like it. I knew I had a passion for hospitality, but God made it so clear to me then.

I have been living in my weaknesses.
During our debrief in Fiji, each of us interns spent an hour or so talking with the two leaders, Lee and Tracy, about our experience overall and our acclimation back into the U.S. society. During my "interview", the first thing they did was tell me my strengths. It was wonderful! They didn't want to highlight our weaknesses except to help and encourage us. The one that Tracy had for me was that I'm too hard on myself. She advised me to not dwell on my weaknesses. I realized that that is exactly what I have been doing my whole life. I believe I knew it at some point, but it was brought to my attention again, and this time as a serious hindrance to my growth. They pointed out the strengths they saw in me, most of which I could see in myself as well. I decided it's time to stop living in my weakness, and start using my strengths so that God can use me the way He intends.