Hope stretches across the African skies and it has been an honor and deep joy to walk through a corner of this continent and witness a fragment of what Jesus is doing in this place. Here is a glimpse of what the last three months and this beautiful continent held:
Zambia held change, the power of story, and anticipation as Team Hallelujah was divinely brought together for the first time.
We dug, clipped, planted, and watered in the garden, painted the milky white walls of our current home, and ate excessive amounts of toast. We got to serve alongside our ministry hosts in a VBS for teenagers from an orphanage down the road. We walked them through an exercise where they expressed, through words and pictures, how they see the Father, and how they are seen by the Father. We also walked from home to home in surrounding villages to share good news while crowds of children tugged at our skirts and relentlessly clung to our arms. We played and laughed and sang and danced in the dirt streets together.
I celebrated an African Christmas in the most unique and memorable fashion. We hung our worn socks on an eno strap that were stuffed with notes and small African treasures. We helped put on the Christmas service in a nearby village where we shared the story of our coming King with the little ones, sang Christmas carols, and my wise and courageous friend, Lizzy, preached the sermon. Then I ate Christmas dinner inside of a warm tent, beneath a flashlight, with two dear friends.
Botswana held grace, healing, and a whole lot of rain.
We were secluded deep in the bush of Seronga, Botswana that is now affectionately known as “Camp Chill”. I slept on the ground with only the layer of my tent between me and the sand that also quickly filled the inside of my sleeping bag. I often woke up to obnoxious donkey calls and birds that sounded like crying babies. I also slept less than 100 yards from a deadly hippopotamus. The nearest grocery store was three hours away on a dirt road, so we took one grocery shopping trip to feed 15 people for the entire month. Our host family was incredibly gracious and loved us so well. They made us lots of coffee and cooked a big lunch for us every day so that all 19 of us could gather around an endlessly-giving table and share a meal together.
I met a precious soul named One (own-knee) during our evangelism ministry and went to visit her shop every day along with four other women. We worshipped together, studied scripture, shared stories and pictures, and then knelt down and washed her beautiful feet.
This month held lots of hammocking, praying, worshipping, sandy runs, breakfast pans catching on fire, stormy skies, getting pooped on by a precious but (needless to say) diaper-less baby, and sleeping beneath wildflowers and the full moon.
Namibia held truth, praise, and the truest form of rest.
My team had exposure to several different ministries as we partnered with a local church in Windhoek that is exceptionally mission-minded. I assisted in a preschool classroom, visited a Chinese church, served in a soup kitchen, and laid hands on new mammas and their precious babies that were just hours old. I also traveled to the bush for a few days and stayed at a Romanian mission base where they have sought to reach the physical as well as spiritual needs of the Xun people. The Xun people speak a beautiful clicking language and live in open huts surrounded by desert sand. The Romanian missionaries started a school there where 200 children walk barefoot up to an hour every morning to receive education, hot meals, and the love of the Father. I got to assist in the kindergarten classroom where we chased each other in circles, shouted out the colors of the rainbow, and sang songs about Jesus and a very large hippopotamus. I also got to be a part of showing the Jesus film in a nearby village at their local church, which was an opening in the bush with a towering and covering tree. We ended the night dancing to African music around a fire and beneath the most stunningly starry sky I have ever beheld.
This month also held the celebration of a new gift of life-my sweet nephew, Jedidiah Moon!!! Jesus danced and a host of angels burst into song as the Father kissed the earth with his sweet presence. He is stunning and so FULL of unimaginable light. His squishy cheeks are awaiting 794 kisses from his auntie come the end of June.
Africa held the most captivating and celebratory skies. It held many of my tears that watered the ground. It held the echoes of swelling laughter. It held wonder in the eyes of its people. It held a new song that longed to be heard. It held praise that burst forth by way of the hills and the clapping trees. Africa held and continues to hold indescribable glory that spills over falls of surrender and joyfully shouts the name of Jesus across the nation.
I have just arrived in my final continent and I believe it has already stolen my heart. I am aching to begin discovering Asia’s glory and color! The Father has declared, “The best is yet to come!”
