1 Chronicles 29:11 – “Yours, Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the splendor and the majesty, for everything in the heavens and on earth belongs to You. Yours, Lord, is the kingdom, and You are exalted as head over all.”
As I sit here thinking about how I want to go about writing what I would like to share, I think of the dinner we had last night. Weird I know, but hear me out for a second and we’ll see where this goes.
So, we have some amazing cooks on our team! They manage to make everything taste amazing while still staying within our budget. I am so thankful for their talents with food. Last night, we went a little unhealthy and had these giant cheeseburgers with home fries, and onion rings on the side! Full and satisfied, after eating our delicious burgers, my brain started to wander. Somehow (maybe I was just tired and in a food coma), I correlated the fact that God is like the chef and we, His children, are like the spices used to make the food taste good. The chef chooses which spices he wants to add and where and in what he wants to add them to. Ultimately, there are numerous combinations the chef could use, and all those combinations would still taste good.
So how does this apply to any of my experiences here in North Africa? Well, as the days go by, I am realizing more and more that I am not here because I chose to be here. I am not the one making the difference, I am simply the “spice” that He chose that is being used to add to the sustenance that is already here. God has gone before us, and He will still be here after we leave.
Going into this new country, I did not foresee all the connections we have made; and, I definitely did not foresee the strong connections that I have made. I will later talk about my connections within the international church, and within the education program I get to be involved in here; but for now, I would like to focus on the local connections God has opened doors to for me and my team.
It was day two, we had just arrived at our air bnb, and we decided to check out the mall a block away to go get food at the giant grocery store there. The mall is a pretty decent size and a lot of young girls our age work at various stands throughout. This mall is where it all began. Instantly within that first week, our more outgoing teammates got the numbers of three different girls who work throughout this mall. They immediately made plans to meet with them. One girl did not speak any English and we did not have much hope in building a relationship with her as google translate can be hard to work with. But, God’s vision is soo far beyond what we can see right in front of our eyes.
Four of us went out to tea with this girl and it was so much fun! She was so adorable and just so excited to make some American friends to hang out with. As we sat there sharing in her culture, learning about her beliefs, and sharing ours with her, she took my scarf around my shoulders and began wrapping it around my head. This was super humbling as we were told not to wear head coverings as in this particular country it could represent that we believe the same way they do. I felt very uncomfortable, but at the same time honored that she felt comfortable enough with me to bring me into her culture like that. And for her, covering my head was more like fun and innocent dress up as she shared with me how she lives every single day. I left the covering on the rest of the day we were out as my goal was to bring her honor and to show her I really do appreciate her. After a few hours of slow conversation through google translate, she invited us over to her home to meet her sister who speaks some English.
All in all, we hung out with this girl and her sister for ten straight hours and it was amazing! We were all placed in a humbled position as learners recognizing our need to listen and understand before speaking. By the end of the day our hearts were on fire. Mine specifically was burning with a kind of love I have never felt before. A love that only comes from Christ. These girls, that I barely even knew, all of a sudden meant the world to me.
A few days go by and we invite them over for dinner. After dinner, three of the four of us who made the initial connection decide to take them out to ice cream! We all just talked and laughed with them and our relationships grew even stronger. Specifically, my relationship with the sister. We are about the same age and for some reason we both feel so connected to each other. It was a weird feeling for me as it tends to take me a while to truly feel connected to someone. My teammate believes that our strong devotions and the firmness we both hold toward our different beliefs is in some odd way binding us together and I think she may be right. I cannot say that I yet know how God is going to use this similarity in our personalities, but I do know that He is absolutely and totally in this.
Time goes on and her and I were texting. We were goofing off as she had the goals of setting one of my teammates up with one of her friends. All of a sudden the conversation takes a turn to my leaving in a few weeks and we both recognize how sad that is going to be. I tell her I will for sure stay in contact with her and we will continue to be friends. She asked me to promise that I will be her best friend forever and my heart began to melt. We continued to talk about our futures and staying in touch with each other during the life events that are important to us. She was so loving and so sweet! Its so crazy the encouragement that was formed for both of us in that moment. I am in awe and I look forward to seeing how God, really, uses both of us in each others’s lives from this point on.
This isn’t obviously the only relationship that has been made here. In short, my teammates have made some very strong bonds as well. On top of that, two of them have had the opportunity to share the good news in full with a guy very open to “different religions” and my other teammates mentioned the cross to our neighbors while walking around the city with them. Don’t forget to check out their blogs and the perspectives they share on what God has been doing in this place.
All in all, our relationships with the locals has been a part of the recipe I initially overlooked as impossible to make. But the thing is, it was never on me to make anything happen. It was never on my teammates to form these connections. All in all, we are just the spices that God as the chef is using in the meal plan He has already worked up. God is already at work in the hearts and lives of those He has called, and it is our job to simply trust Him with the lives He has placed in our paths. It is our job to trust that we are just meeting Him where He is already at. In return, not only is He revealing his heart for the nations to me, but He is also revealing more of His heart for me as I learn to rely on His love more and more in this process.
