Reminiscing

The other night my team and I had the opportunity to meet
with an American missionary here in Timisoara, along with a team of young
people that he is taking to Kenya later this summer. They wanted to gather
together for fellowship and to “pick our brains” about Kenya, having
heard that we had recently visited there. None of us really knew what to expect
of the evening and it had been a long day at the children’s center that day. I
didn’t plan on talking or engaging much, but the evening turned out much differently
than I expected. We all told a little about ourselves and explained our trip
and what we’ve been up to for the last nine months and got to hear about their
upcoming trip as well. We shared a delicious dinner together and the questions
started rolling. They were definitely prepared and covered just about anything
I could think of: about Africa (Kenya)
in general, the culture, team norms/ dynamics, food, health, everything! The
questions were challenging and really made us think at times, which turned out
to be an excellent processing time for me. I’m not the greatest with processing
information/ experiences in a timely manner so it was really good for me. At
the end of the night, I’m not sure how much they got out of it, but I know I
was definitely blessed. It was so good to be able to reminisce and share
stories with people who genuinely cared and who would soon share a similar
experience. I think I speak for many on our squad when I say that we were ready
to be out of Africa by the end of our time there.
Three months was wearing and we were ready for something new. Not that it
necessarily left a bad taste in our mouths, but we were ready to move on. It
was really good for me to be able to recollect the positive things and all the
ways we saw God work. To explain how we shared the Gospel with people who had
never heard the name Jesus before- to remember the children from the orphanage
we got to visit a few times- to recall the crazy, long walks through the desert
doing “hut-to-hut” evangelism. It was also fun to hear stories of my teammates,
since we were on different teams back in Kenya, and hear how their
experiences were so different, yet they were bringing kingdom in their own
ways. We all agreed on our walk home that the evening was a great success- both
individually and for our team. We were able to share how we live life in
community, discuss/ solve problems, and learn how to love and serve each other
better each day. It was a great encouragement to me and yet another example of
how God can take any expectations we might have of something and completely
shatter them (in a good way!).

Much love.