I truly cannot believe I am practically 2 weeks away from hopping on to a plane to head down to Atlanta for training and meeting my team. This is the last thing that will happen before we head down to South Africa as a team, and it has only recently started to hit me.
I’m BLOWN AWAY by God’s faithfulness.
First by the amount of both spiritual and financial support I have received. Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who has supported me, I honestly have no words.
I met some of my teammates already (thank you Instagram) and that took a huge fear off of my shoulders going into training by myself.
I snagged some sweet flights to Atlanta so that I can be home for the last youth event of the year (and then hop on the red eye to Toronto, yeet)
I have my family’s support and they are all excited for me to go (but also scared, but I mean I get it)
It has been a crazy two months of prepping and getting everything together, like vaccinations and long skirts (spoiler alert, Edmonton pretty much doesn’t sell those in March or April because it’s still freezing). A couple of my friends at church have asked me what my primary emotion is when I think of the trip, and I still consistently say excitement, because I can’t wait to go and experience this new thing and see God work in others and work in myself.
But I think I’d be lying to myself if I said it was all easy.
If you know me, I LOVE to plan trips … that I never end up going on, mostly because they’re ridiculous or because I get freaked out. I think it’s because it’s fun to imagine what everything will be like (I’m a big over-thinker, I’m in my own head a lot). So when the thought becomes really real, it’s scary.
And this last weekend it became really real. You know when you start running through all the “what if’s” of a situation? Like “what if my team doesn’t like me”, “what if I can’t talk to my friends and family often”, “what if I can’t sleep”, “what if I have no alone time to recharge”, “what if I really can’t handle being away from my friends and family”. So that has been running through my mind the last few days.
It’s just been getting really real. Like I’m actually going to get on a plane by myself, fly down to Atlanta by myself, meet so many new people, get on another round of planes with my new team, fly to South Africa, and live in a foreign culture for two months (with probably more big spiders, eek). I’ve never done anything like this, especially alone.
But I think the coolest part of all the hard stuff is realizing a few things:
1. I am NOT alone and I will NEVER be alone. Because even when I was upset, I still felt God’s peace surround me. If God has been pushing me to do this, He is not going to leave my side. Not now, not ever. I think more than anything, He’s probably excited to do this with me.
2. I’m absolutely stronger, emotionally and mentally, when I’m full of the Holy Spirit. 2 Corinthians 12:9 says “‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weakness, so that Christ’s power may rest on me . . . For when I am weak, then I am strong”
3. God is going to continue to be faithful during the trip. I was playing my piano and worshiping one night when I felt God say that He is going to take care of me. My friend Jenaye said that she never doubts whether or not the sun will rise everyday, but the Bible says God is even more faithful than the sunrise, so we have no reason to doubt a God who is THAT faithful
I don’t think it says anywhere in the Bible that following what Jesus has for us is easy. In fact, it’s really difficult most of the time. But I delight in the fact that in this experience, God has a plan for it all. Every good, every bad, every joy, every disappointment.
If you would keep me in your prayers for these last weeks of prep, that would be swell! Thanks for reading, hopefully I learn to be more consistent.
~ Mackenzie
