Could it truly have been almost two weeks since we arrived here at our home in Northern Africa? My goodness the time has flown! It has been over a month since we left the states and honestly, I blinked. My hope is to share a quick snapshot of what daily life has looked like since we left Spain and share a few of my God stories—the moments that just undeniably bear His fingerprints and presence to me.
Setting:
For our time in Northern Africa, my squad of 34 has now dispersed into towns all across the country in our small family units (teams). We are currently in a closed country and the best way I can explain it is, I am allowed to be a Christian but anything organized or “churchy” will be shut down by the authorities here and would most definitely negatively affect any of the believers we interact with so security for the sake of our brothers and sisters in Christ here can not be stressed enough. For these reasons, I will never directly reference towns or names and ask for sensitivity in regards to the public realm of sharing.
But my team is currently doing life in a small beach town and live within a short walk to the ocean! So many praises, because I just stinking love the ocean. We get everywhere by walking and man we get those steps in haha. Occasionally we taxi, which is always an experience given the language barrier, and like anywhere we have had great experiences and not so great ones. So, I generally just say a quick prayer when I jump in that our driver knows where we are going and won’t overcharge us. The other day I started with my broken Arabic and the driver laughed and responded with perfect English. He not only knew my state (Idaho) but knew about Boise State Football! Incredible! And we shared a sweet conversation while dodging cars, carts, and pedestrians.
Lifing:
There’s so much here I could share about! If I could explain it, I would say that as a team we always come back to this idea that “Life is Ministry and Ministry is Life.” We are all about sharing normal life with its rhythms and routines with bold and relentless intentionality to abide in the Spirit and follow after Christ.
Since arriving, we have had to figure out very normal things like groceries, planning family dinners, and cleaning schedules, while simultaneously developing our team values, seeking God in prayer, and going out to intentionally build relationship and be the His love in the community. It’s fun, exciting, and challenging as all seven of us are equally creating and recreating what a healthy, Kingdom oriented family dynamic should look like as a team and as the body of Christ. We are so thankful for two of our alumni leaders who stayed with us for the first two weeks sharing daily life and wisdom with us in this creation stage.
Overall, it has so honestly been sharing normal life with some amazing foreign flares. It’s deep conversations, worship, cockroaches, talking with the grocery clerk, buying bread and getting to know the blind woman on the corner, one super fun team movie night complete with popcorn, brushing teeth with a water bottle instead of the faucet, camels on the beach, call to prayer sounding, messing up pronunciations, spoken word slam night, and receiving so much love and hospitality from our local friends.
God Stories:
The Lord is present and active everywhere and in all situations and I’m truly understanding this more and more day by day. One so particularly powerful moment for me was when my team shared worship with our host and friend the pastor of underground church. We were just so deeply worshipping with our friend, when the Lord laid the idea to wash his feet so heavily on my heart. Some of my teammates had mentioned it earlier, and that night it was just touched my heart, so I got a quick nod from my friend, snuck out, and grabbed a bucket and my towel. When our friend saw it, he immediately got up to wash our feet and we motioned with big smiles saying we wanted to wash his feet but he insisted. In seriously a holy moment, this pastor who had so self-sacrificially served us by hosting us the past few days got on his knees and went around and carefully washed each member of my team’s feet. There was so much to that moment. I was in tears as this man so genuinely displayed the love of Christ in such an authentic way. He then gave one member of my team the honor to wash his feet. The body of Christ is an amazing and powerful thing and sharing with the persecuted church is not something I will soon forget.
Please join me in praying for: my team’s unity and heart’s during this time. We are growing closer and closer and tapping into the creativity and gifts we share as a team, and our heart is just to be Love to those we meet and encounter. I would also appreciate prayer for the city we are in and the connections that we have made. Praying seeds will be planted and watered.
Thank you so much for all of your support and encouragement! It truly means the world to me, and it is an honor to share this journey with you. Message me if there is anyway I can be joining you in prayer right now or any crazy stories that I have missed haha.
Blessings,
Breanna
