Rachel Zimmerman

What to do when you feel alone and need someone to fight for you? This past year has been quite a balance of fighting my way through but also falling into the arms of God and allowing him to fight the battles for me. I wrote this blog to process many of the times I've felt alone and wanted someone or a group of people to come through in a situation. I needed to have some time between moving here and hiring an entire clinic staff and starting a clinic. I needed some time.... I needed you to fire the employee when he stole thousands from us. I needed to be protected and valued... I needed you to tell me I was doing a good job in the midst of the transition and the position I held that was more than 3 people could handle. I needed you to recognize the non-stop effort. I needed you to be culturally sensitive to me. Here I was trying my darndest to be the most sensitive person I could possibly be to avoid offending anyone and getting called a 'hypocrite' and

A friend messaged me recently and kindly mentioned that she thinks of me when she’s taking hot showers. It was sweet and I’m glad that I’m thought of (sometimes it feels like you’re forgotten on the mission field from your former life, friends, etc). But it also got me thinking…. Thinking about the troubles on the mission field and the daily struggles that I face. It is not a lack of hot showers. I don’t think, ponder, or waste time with thoughts about my cold shower. I don’t mind the shower. I don’t mind the ‘physical discomforts’ if you can call them that. I don’t often (sometimes I do) think about the things I’m missing out on from my previous life (good food, starbucks, being able to pick up a smoothie at the corner). The things that I do think about, talk about, that do keep me up at night: ·          Relationships : just like the relationships that you have at home are complex and challenging, cross-cultural relationships can be challenging. Especially in Haiti, there is