Two months down and the Fusion Squad has already moved into it’s third country, Ethiopia! Ethiopia is beautiful and I can honestly see myself staying here long term. There’s a lot of ministry needs but God is clearly moving and doing big things. I’m excited for the stories to come from out of our month here. For now, I want to share what God has been teaching me so far.
In two short months I’ve seen God in ways I never had before. I’ve seen new sides to Him and I am starting to earnestly believe things about Him in my heart that I had only believed in my head. So here’s a quick break down of a few lessons God has been teaching me.
The first lesson is prayer is powerful. This is by far the biggest lesson I’ve been learning on this mission. It isn’t that I doubted prayer or it’s power before. In fact back home I got excited by prayer often. But never like this. Back home I think it was too easy for me to overlook answered prayers, to see God’s provision has something else. Having a place to stay, food to eat, clean water to drink is just a given, not an answered prayer or provision from God. That was my mindset before this mission. These last two months I’ve seen prayer after prayer answered in situations where the only explanation was God’s provision. Which leads into the next lesson I’ve been learning.
God provides. With the uniqueness of this route and not having any set place to stay or ministry to do, everything we do has to depend on God. One of my favorite stories I’ve been able to put in my pocket happened in Rwanda. My team was trying to decide our next move and where God wanted us to go and stay. We had already bought bus tickets to a place that was five hours away, but we had no idea where exactly we would be dropped off, the tickets only gave the general area, and we had no idea where we’d stay once we got there, our wifi was limited. As we were praying and the time to get on the bus was quickly coming, all of us heard God saying to trust Him and to just go. So we did. Within five minutes of getting on the bus, my teammate Mhairi and I met a man who introduced himself to us. He asked where we were going and what we were doing there. We quickly revealed we had no idea about the place we were going to and didn’t know where we’d stay. He in turn revealed he had friends that owned a hostel where we were going and he offered to call them and work a deal to help us meet our limited budget. Within an hour into the trip we had everything worked out, as well as our new friend promising to take us to the hostel once we arrived. That is just one story of God not only providing, but providing in abundance for us. This story also gives an example of the next lesson I’ve been learning.
Relationships are important. Meeting people and being intentional about getting to know them has opened so many doors and offered so much insight. Countless times while walking on the street I’ve run into people who wanted to hear my story and share theirs. During these conversations I was able to learn different perspectives and cultures. God also used this as a way to provide our team with food or transportation, which is a huge bonus since our budget is tight. I extend the importance of relationships to the relationships within my squad. I absolutely love the people who make up the Fusion Squad. I’ve learned so much from them and have experienced such joy by being with them that some of the hardest goodbyes happen when we separate even for only a few weeks. Without these relationships I would of missed out on so much.
The most important lesson I’m learning so far is God wants us to seek Him. Many times my team would look for guidance on what we should be doing but in the end no matter what we chose God just wanted us to be looking to Him and seeking His Kingdom. A lot of what we’re learning is to see God more clearly and grow closer in relationship with Him. The more we do that the more naturally doing ministry in every day life will be, whether it be overseas or back home.
I’ve learned plenty of little lessons since being in Africa. Lessons like salads are not the same here (I got chopped up onions and a hard boiled egg that was classified as a chefs salad), toilet paper isn’t often a given in public restrooms, in fact, toilets aren’t a given in restrooms, traffic laws are optional in most places, and don’t question what kind of meat is in the meal just appreciate that meat is apart of the meal. Some lessons, the big and the small ones, aren’t always easy or comfortable, but I’m excited to keep learning and seeing God in new ways.
