I wanted to step back in time and continue to share the story of when I had no voice and how the Lord brought me through it…
Chapter 4 – The Bible Reading Brasov, Romania. December 31st, 2022. My 247 team and I felt the Lord collectively call us to give the first fruits of our 2023 to him. That looked like doing a bible reading/bible burn. It was a core memory for me! We started in Genesis, the second it turned to January 1st and read all the way through the bible to Revelations. We took 1-hour shifts and read nonstop for 73.5 hours! We might have slept for 10 hours but we were washed and fueled by the word! During my shifts, I couldn’t whisper read for longer than a chapter or two before I felt like I couldn’t breathe. The Lord popped the incredible idea of phoning a friend into my mind! I would call all kinds of people to read for my hour and the timing and hours lined up perfectly.
During the really early hours, I would phone people from The States and during the day I would call several of my P Squad family members. It ended up being one of the most special things to include people into! The Lord showed me what it looks like to allow others to hold your arms up in another way and that I still matter. I wouldn’t tell my team who was going to read for my hour and it was a game of “who is the next surprise guest!” Shout out to Mama Bear, Abby Vogue, Becky, Katherine, Sarah, Samantha, Mikahla, Raquel, and my 247 family who volunteered to read during this time. It was the sweetest to hear people who love me dearly, step in to help me complete this. I heard them say how it touched them as well. It was an aspect of community I learned.
I also had the perspective of getting to sit back, watch, and soak in all that the Lord had for me during this time. I saw scripture and stories from a whole new lens. Stories of life, death, sacrifice, surrender, and devotion. All pointing back to God’s love for us. This love is unconditional and has been woven throughout the pages! This love that I was just beginning to grasp and would further surrender to as this no voice journey continued.
Chapter 5 – Shifting Bucharest, Romania. January, 8th 2023. After we finished our ATL days we headed to Bucharest, Romania for a mini-debrief! This is where we would regroup before heading off to Albania but also switch teams. I will be honest, switching teams with no voice, was one of the scariest things I have had to walk through on the race. I had spent the last 4 months with my 247 team who have become family to me. I had walked through some hard stuff with them, grown bedside them, and accomplished some crazy things for the kingdom. They knew me and I knew them. I also had no voice for weeks at this point and there was no sign of it coming back. I would have to start over and establish myself in a team with no voice. It was exciting to get to learn and grow with new sisters but also scary, confusing, and sad to leave my 247 family. The Lord was teaching me to have a huge dependency on him and that he knew what I needed in this season. He whispered to me “I have this.” Things were shifting and I could not control any of it. He was asking me to step into a new season with no voice and no idea what the outcome would be.
I entered my new team of 1-800-ask-a-farmer. It was hard but I had so much peace with this team! I remember our first team dinner, they wanted to know my heart. They were willing to learn sign language with me, to actively listen to my whispers, and to patiently wait for my text messages. God knew exactly what I needed in this season. He knew I needed the Farmers to walk with me and teach me that I was just as valuable without a voice as I was with one. These gals supported, loved, and allowed me to grow with the Lord and pushed me toward him. They were patient with me and helped me figure out what life was like with no voice. We were dropped off in the middle of Albania with a mission to spread the gospel and be ready for what the Lord had for us.
Chapter 6 – The Surrender Elbasan, Albania. January 2023. We had been dropped off in Albania for about 3 days. I cycled into another time of being really scared and not trusting in what the Lord was trying to teach me. I was really scared that there was something physically wrong with me and I would have to go back to The States (my mind was in worst case scenario here). I went to several doctors during our first week in Albania. Our hosts were so gracious in fighting for appointments for a voice they had never heard. The outcomes were not positive. No one knew what was wrong and there were no answers because physically I was fine. I entered into a state of extreme brokenness after the last doctor’s appointment. I wrote a blog in the middle of this time and you can read the rawness of it here (raw&real). I ultimately learned what it looks like for the Lord to fight for me and I was beginning to grasp the concept of the sovereignty of the Lord.
At this point it had been over 40 days with no voice, I had just got back from Greece, was feeling really depressed, decided to try saying absolutely no sounds for 4 days, and couldn’t voice any of this to the people around me. I was so broken by the weight of the whole situation, I felt like I was drowning in it. I couldn’t see the end and felt useless in ministry. I was a missionary that couldn’t share the gospel with words. This was really hard for me. I realized that I couldn’t keep going on like this. I was at our favorite coffee shop in Elbasan and it was there the Lord flipped a switch in my heart. This was my cry to the Lord straight from my journal…
“Here I am Lord. Still here with no voice. I have accepted it but I don’t understand it. It baffles me. I don’t understand anymore. I see this wall. I accept it and I receive it. I’m tired and I am still a little lost. I say I don’t have answers but I think there are some that I just don’t want to hear. I couldn’t before but now I am ready. Lord, I don’t remember who I am with a voice. I feel like I have been pounded into the ground. Here I am. I don’t question why. I don’t know why, but I know you have a purpose.”
That switch was the surrender of my heart. I finally accepted what was happening. I was accepting “The Wall.” The wall, in simple terms, is this really big thing that is in your way that is not moving or going to leave soon. I had one in front of me. I couldn’t control it, I had no ability to make it go away, and I needed the Lord. I was ready to accept what he was trying to teach me through this situation. The Lord gave me two choices. One, I could continue down this road of fighting, yes, but fighting the wrong thing. Two, I could fight for the transformation the Lord is trying to do in me and the things he is trying to teach me. You see what I didn’t realize in my last blog post was that I was fighting with an unsurrendered heart to the situation. I was squirming against the things the Lord was teaching me. When you accept the hard things that you can’t change and open up your heart in the position of a learner, you unlock something really special. You become teachable and the Lord can work with that. The fight became easier. My eyes were open to new possibilities for ministry and the desire to want to try to talk again. I allowed God to move in the midst of my struggle.
Chapter 7 – Dumbfounded Elbasan, Albania. January 28th, 2023. Days went by and I found joy in ministry again! It was still hard but I was seeking opportunities to show the love of Jesus from afar. I dove into what we call watercolor ministry. I watercolored so many paintings with so many people. From kids to moms. Just getting to be alonsgside people in community. A lot of the paintings were for beauty for ashes events. Sweet Victoria on my team has the largest heart for women. She coordinates these events for them and we get the privilege of serving beside her during them. I painted a lot of paintings for them and finally felt like I did some ministry.
We were holding a young woman’s event in a few days and she asked me to share at it. I was like “how? I can’t speak,” Honestly, I was partially trying to get out of it. She said “pray about it and let me know how we are going to do it.” I said ok, if this is what surrender looks like then I will. Surrender to the unknown and to the complicated. Surrender can look messy at times. When I was preparing the Lord gave me a cool vision of how to do this. I typed up what I wanted to share and Victoria said she would be willing to read it. My part in it was that I would draw my testimony on the white board behind her for the others to see.
The day rolled around that we would hold the event and I went to a coffee shop to prepare myself for the afternoon. I had this sense that maybe I could start speaking some words that day so I began to say the ABC’s. I only got to the letter K before I couldn’t say a word anymore. I had to get wifi at the coffee shop so I could send what I wanted to share to Victoria. She said “The last paragraph low key brought tears to my eyes” and asked “Who would you like to read it?” I still to this day, until I just typed this out, thought she asked “would you like to read it?” (Meaning the last paragraph) she never did though and I read it wrong. But it planted the seed in my mind. I was going to read the last paragraph. I knew I wanted to and I knew the the Lord was going to let me.
We started the event and what unfolded was so special. It’s hard to capture it in words but I will try. Victoria began to read what I felt the Lord put on my heart and a sweet woman we met translated to Albania for her. I drew in simple picture the beautiful story found in Exodus 14 of the Lord fighting for the Isrealites and redemption in my life.
The last paragraph rolled around and I stepped up to the plate with a boldness like never before. I knew I could speak but I didn’t know for how long or how strong. I stood close to the translator. I was ready for my God to fight for me. I opened my mouth and my voice filled the room! What?!? I read the whole paragraph with my full strong voice. This is what I got to read OUT LOUD to these beautiful teenage girls…
“Just as God says who I am, he says who you are too! He calls you beautiful, a masterpiece, loved, his child, and wanted. The bible says that “when God created them, he made them in his likeness.” When he created you, he was looking at himself in a mirror. God created us to look like him. Back to the story, God loved the Israelites and saved them. He parted a whole sea for them! He loves you that much too. It’s hard when our friends, family, and circumstance around us tell things about ourselves. I want you to know that God created you to be just you and that is enough. That he loves you so much that he would die on a cross for you to be with him forever. When you hold that in your heart, everything changes.”
I got to speak life over them! I love speaking life and believe it is a gift the Lord has given me. I got to say that God created them and because of that they were enough. They were loved and that Jesus died on the cross for them.
Throughout the whole thing, my team was in tears. I was in tears. I finished and it was emotional. The girls in the room didn’t know why this was such a big thing but they could feel that a miracle just happened. The Holy Spirit was moving in the room. I SPOKE! God gave me the voice for that paragraph. We put it in P squad chat and everyone went nuts because we had all been praying and fighting. Waiting for the Lord to move and he did!!
The craziest thing happened after though. After I walked out of that classroom, I could no longer speak and my voice went back to the way it had been for 40 days at that point. I learned in that time the sovereignty of being a willing and living vessel of the Lord. I was ok though. I had been given a gift of hearing my voice again. I had forgotten what it sounded like and literally only heard it in my dreams at night. I was hyped though because God was healing more than just my voice in this time. I was content if that was the last time I could speak but I was hungry for more.
Stay tuned for the next chapters of this story…
With Love, Morgan Kate
