Two weeks ago my whole squad went to The Awakening. Sounds fun right. Haha, it was. Adventures in Missions likes to do this thing called an Awakening anytime two AIM teams are close to each other. We got to do this with Squad B who is currently in Swaziland. Squad B is another Gap year squad who launched at the same time with us. In fact, we traveled with them all the way from Atlanta to Joburg. We met them in Pretoria. The Awakening was 3 days of all racer led sessions. We were divided into 5 separate categories; hospitality, storytelling, evangelism, worship, intercession. I was on evangelism, not my top pick the Lord has his plans. Each night the leader of Gap Year from AIM would speak. the first night she spoke about how to have a lasting faith with God, a continual yes. Every time you are asked to do something from God, it’s a yes. in the big things and in the small things. The next day the evangelism team spoke, then we were all put to activate the things we had learned by going out and evangelizing. My team was me and three other racers from squad B. Most of the teams were bussed to a mall, but we had a guy, so we were given the option to stay back and pray for the teams going to malls or walk an unknown distance to a grocery store. I am lazy, I did not want to go out. Pretoria is hot, all the roads were dirt roads, but I could feel the spirit saying ‘you are going to walk to the grocery store so get over it.’ I decided we should sit down and pray as a team just to clarify where the Lord wanted us to go. Of course, everyone was like ‘the spirit is telling me that we should go,’ so that’s exactly what we did.
Walking there was HOT, but it was actually fun and good. When we got to the grocery store, we walked around but there weren’t many South Africans there, and another AIM team was inside the store. The amount of Americans rose quickly above the amount of South Africans. My team went outside to look at the other stores around. We noticed an older woman. She was skinny, tan, and wearing a bright green vest to indicate that she was a car guard. We approached each other and said hello. She said ecstatically “I am the happiest person here and it all comes from up above.” My first thought is wow she is high. She is just too happy to not be, right? I asked her why she is so happy and why she thought it comes from above. Her reply “God. Jesus Christ is my savior, he has provided for me and my children, I get everything from Him. I am a diamond in the rough.” We continued to talk to her about our own faith and our purpose for being here. She shared about her children and the different churches in town. Her faith was inspiring and her energy was unlike anything I have seen so far in South Africa. It was a cool day, and it even gets better.
Later that night we had worship. As we are praising the Lord, a squamate of mine came up to me and started describing a vision the Lord had given her for me. God was holding me in his hands and I was trapped in darkness. He squeezed his hands tight and held on. Then he let go and wiped away all of the darkness to reveal a diamond in his hands. She continued to say that the Lord wants to remind me that I am in His hands and that he has such a deep desire and love for me that he would take all the darkness and make it into a diamond.
As I shared this with my team leader Abigail, she said how all week she had been impressed with how consistent God was. It’s so true! That day the Lord put two people in my path to remind me that I am a diamond in the rough! God continues to reveal how faithful he is, but also how faithful I need to be. Life with Him means continually saying yes. A small yes can bear big fruit in the future, but you’ll never know until you say yes.
