I know I said I loved Haiti buuuut I definitely love Africa a WEE bit more.
Last weekend we arrived in South Africa and had a rest weekend called leadership development weekend. In my opinion LDW was quite amazing because we had a Starbucks down the street from our hostile. (; We stayed up late (because of jet lag not by choice) and played games and I laughed the hardest I had so far on the race. Our last night in SA we went to the Johannesburg Hillsong Church and let me tell ya when I say that it was the best night of my life that it was the BEST night of my life. The environment God has created through Hillsong churches is THE most inviting, hospitable, freeing, spiritual, riveting, joyful, fun, and euphoric experience I have ever had. It was a feeling I can’t even explain. Every person in that room was so deeply engulfed in the Holy Spirit. I have never danced, jumped, sang and worshipped so feelingly in my entire life. It was moments where I could feel how alive I was and how alive God is inside of me. Good stuff happened there and I can’t wait to go back to South Africa in a couple months!
We’ve been in Botswana for three days now and I’m in love. Our ministry is SO GREAT. Ahh two days of it so far and wowie wow is all I can say. Our days are packed full and we stay extremely busy. We have huge youth ministry events we plan for the church, media ministry, evangelism, prison ministry, hospital ministry, hospital ministry, a baby orphanage on our base, sports ministry, worship teams, bible studies that we hold at schools and more! We normally go to the church with everyone else on staff at Love Botswana everyday and work until were sent home which is any time between 1pm-9pm.Yesterday we were at ministry from 8am-8pm. Woo for long productive God filling days!
The staff here is amazing and we’re SO blessed to be working with incredibly spirit filled men and women everyday.
Another thing that is VERY exciting is our living conditions!!!!!!! We get to stay in our own house with air conditioning and a washer!!! WOW! Thanks God!! We also get to cook our own food which is so fun. We’ve made three teams that all rotate for cooking dinner, grocery shopping and cleaning. It’s extremely comforting to be able to blast music and dance around the kitchen while we cook dinner together. *shout out to Nick for being a phenomenal cook and teaching me a thing or two* It’s a very family like environment. In the last week I’ve learned that home is not an actual place, it’s where God wants you to be. I am home.
Last night, I was unexpectedly given the opportunity to give a sermons this morning. Our teams knew someone had to preach to an entire school at 7:30am and it was about 10 o’clock at night when we realized nobody had anything prepared. I had a couple ideas, along with some notes to give anyone who felt called to do it. After awhile it seemed that I was the only person that would do it. I did NOT want to preach a sermon. Never in my entire life have I spoken in front of a large crowd like that. Never have I EVER preached or spoken to a large crowd of people about God. And what if what I said was wrong or didn’t make sense? But something in me (holy spirit, haha what a cool guy he is) told me to do it.
After doing some warm up jumping jacks, pep talking myself in the shower, lots and lots of prayer and my teammates giving me an immense amount of encouragement I started writing down notes for a sermon. It ended up being about what God had taught me about in Haiti and what he’s still walking me through right now. I prepped, wrote down notes and voiced my ideas out loud till about 12 am. *shoutout to Daven and God for listening and being there into the wee hours of the night* I later went to bed with confidence that the Lord would speak through me.
This morning I woke up and was scared out of my mind. What the heck was I thinking? How in the would was I going to do this? How did I got to bed with so much confidence last night? Man was the devil trying to knock me out! Instead of letting those thoughts sink in, I pressed into the Lord immediately while I made a glorious breakfast of coffee and Cheerios. WIN!
Later that morning we walked over to the school, my team prayed over me and I was put in front of the crowd.
I heard the Lord say to me “Just talk and tell the story.”
When I heard him say “just talk” I was like oh? It’s that easy?
So I did. I talked about finding contentment in the Lord and how it effected me when I was turning to worldly things for comfort. I told the kids that most days in Haiti were extremely hard for me. I explained how I turned to my phone and then food when I was sad, uncomfortable or homesick. I then moved onto Botswana and told them about how much joy and life was breathed into my soul as soon as we got here. God showed me about half way during the first day here that I need to remember that he is in the joy as well. He told me that yes I need to go to him during my discomfort and in the hard times but I also need to seek God’s peace continually ESPECIALLY IN THE GOOD TIMES BECAUSE THAT IS ALL THE LORDS DOING.
Side note: PRASIE HIM for leading me through that sermon and growing me in it. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I could do it but I did.
Later on tonight our team put on a youth group event called fire by nite. I had the pleasure of being the MC or MC Hammer as I liked to call myself. It was super spirit filled and an extremely powerful night. Nick preached the bombest message ever that left us all convicted in some way or another. Ashley and Kelsey led a beauuuuutiful worship service, and Shane and Emily brought the excitement with some foofy games. Right before the service was over we have the teens an opportunity to come up to anyone of us and we would pray for them. Two boys came up to me and one of them remembered me from my sermon earlier that morning. He told me that he goes to one of the boarding schools here and hasn’t seen his family in three terms. He’s 13.
I was homesick on the race and God led me to preach about what he’s been working in me through this whole process. Then it leads to me speaking to kids at boarding schools. I didn’t even find out till way later in the night that I had an impact on the kids. I gave them something to go to the Lord with as they struggled with the same things. Wow. God is so cool you guys. I can’t even wrap my head around how he did that.
If you’ve made it this far in my blog WAY TO GO! And thanks for reading and keeping up with my journey!
Special shoutout to my girlie Elizabeth!! She turned 19 SO HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! LOVE AND MISS YOU!
Stay tuned for more about life in Africa! ????
-Kaylin
