Christmas in Zambia
This Christmas was a really amazing one but also a really really hard one. I spent Christmas with my team exchanging secret Santa gifts, trying to make a cake, failing at making buckeyes, eating so much African food, sweating instead of shivering, leading the worship for my team that night and dancing around our “house” to Christmas music with my favorite people.
This Christmas was hard because I was away from everything I knew and was comfortable with on my favorite holiday. I was away from family, friends, and the cold weather.
This Christmas was beautiful because I spent it in Zambia surrounded by a completely different culture and my favorite people. I spent this Christmas with my teammates which have become literal family. I spent this Christmas failing at being an adult with my 10 other sisters. I spent this Christmas living on the missions field and living out my biggest dream ever.
This Christmas was hard but so so good.
I learned this Christmas that it isn’t about the presents, it isn’t about the snow, it isn’t about the Christmas carols, but it’s about the one who created us all… JESUS. When you have no added commotion and no added fantasy around Christmas time you really get to experience the true meaning of Christmas… and I got to experience that.
Where I live there are kids that have no toys or extra clothes. There’s moms that can’t feed their kids and dads that struggle to provide for their families. I see drunk people 24/7 trying to drink their pains away. I see small children carrying their even smaller siblings on their backs. I see poverty at its finest… and it sucks. It’s sucks seeing these things around Christmas time… but I’m glad I did. It taught me the true meaning of Christmas and that it is about Jesus and not the presents and commotion.
Amen. Hallelujah.
This Christmas I sacrificed my normalcy and safety and comfort to be in Zambia and love on others. It’s hard and sucks sometimes but wow it’s also so so good and worth it.
I thank God everyday for this opportunity to live on the race and experience such amazing things this year. I thank God that you crazy people reading this blog right now believe in me enough to have donated to me and to care enough about me to read my scattered blogs. I thank God for the moments I think I can’t do it anymore because he continues to carry me through. I thank God for the adventure he is allowing me to experience. I thank God that he is rooting people in my life that I know will always be rooted in my life after this trip. I thank God that I am experiencing my first year on my own overseas and that I am learning how to “adult” while traveling the world of all places. I thank God that he has blessed me with a year of growth in him. I thank God that he has called me to such a crazy and intense life of ministry. I thank God that I am even walking this earth right now. I thank God for Holidays spent in crazy crazy places in crazy crazy situations. I thank God for a lot of things.
Wowzers.
OH AND I ALSO WENT ON A SAFARI IN BOSTWANA AND NAMIBIA AND MY WHOLE TEAM WORE SANTA HATS!!!
Merry Christmas
***Prayer Requests***
– I have been experiencing anxiety lately for some very specific reasons so please pray God will continue to work through my heart in those areas.
– We are having team changes going into Malawi so pray that my new team will unite in love, unity, grace, and joy! And pray as my current team separates that you will be in our hearts cause we are extremely sad we are splitting up.
– That as I leave Zambia soon that God will just push through my team and let us finish strong and powerfully.
– I have 5 months left and WOW it’s flying by. Pray these next 5 months just continue to get better and better and better and sweeter and sweeter and sweeter and that I will keep learning and growing.
– PRAY FOR DEBRIEF WHEN WE ARRIVE IN MALAWI!!!! Pray for rest and recuperation. We all need it.
THANK YOU FOR READING!!! I love you all. So much.
