Why does the Lord restore us? The purpose of restoration is to get back to the original vision, the purpose we were called to. Last year we started a season of restoration, and this year we’re focusing on our vision so we can run in what God is calling us to.

We want our students to know Christ and be led by the Spirit. We want them to know what it looks like to live in the Kingdom. We want to create a Kingdom culture where students understand their identity and how to live it out. Our staff are living out what it looks like to walk that path.

In the end, we want our students to go out confident in their identity in Christ. We want them to be able to say: “I’ve seen this walked out. I’ve watched people do it, and now it’s my turn to live in the Kingdom.” Only then can they step out and transform Guatemala.

This season of restoration is giving us new eyes to see things clearly and set aside distractions. This year is about focus and coming into alignment with what God wants us to do each and every day.

The start of the year has been kind of rushed because we’ve finished our construction project, and our staff has just jumped into cleaning up, painting, whatever needs to be done.

We’ve also been really focusing on our staff commitments. There’s a number of commitments that our staff make when they come to work here, and we’re going through them together so that everyone will be on the same page.

We’ve been talking about commitment to the vision, and a commitment to love: not just loving our students, but loving each other. Jesus instructs us to love each other the way that he loved us (John 13:34-35). And the Bible says that when we do this, everyone will know that we are his disciples.  This new season is about relationships so powerful that they point others to Christ, about unity—perfect unity, even—because that’s where he says he shows up.

In our church, we’ve been given the word “restitution” for the year 2020. One of our teachers shared with me a vision she had where she saw us all together at the school, and there was a huge table laid out with gifts, and there was a huge pile of our original Global Shore sweatshirts, one for each person.

I think it has to do with this season of restoration, of getting back to the original vision. There’s still so much that we want to see. When we’ve gone through restoration, we’ll receive that restitution — we’ll receive back what we’ve lost.

The Lord doesn’t forget his promises, and they aren’t lost. He’s not slow to bless us, he’s not stingy with his hand. We’re called to focus this year, running in the vision he’s given us. If we’re faithful to what he’s calling us to, it’ll be a powerful year. //