Our squad ended up extending our time in South Africa for an additional month. We spent a week in Nelspruit for debrief, and then had nowhere to go while waiting to retrieve our passports from the India Consulate. We spent a night praying as a squad for God to open a door for us to stay somewhere for free… and as He always does, He provided. He led us to Manna Christian Fellowship Church in White River, South Africa where we lived, worked, fellowshipped, and rested for three wonderful weeks
When we first arrived at Manna we thought we were only going to be there for a few days, maybe a week tops. The plan was to head to Swaziland as soon as we heard about our India Visas. But God had different plans for us.Because we never really knew how long we were going to be staying, I never let myself fully settle into life at Manna. I never really unpacked, and I lived in waiting for the word that we were heading out.I viewed Manna as an in between; a pit stop between Month 4 and Month 5.
But Manna quickly became all of Month 5. And it was a beautiful month. We were blessed beyond belief by the staff of Manna and enjoyedpivotal time for our new team to start bonding and unifying by getting to know each other. It was also really sweet time with our whole squad. As our alumni squad leaders were readying to leave at the end of Month 5, God truly blessed us by ordaining for us to be together for their final month on the field.
During the weekdays each team was assigned a different task to help the church staff. Some cleaned the church and its offices, some helped in the kitchen and distributed food each day to the kids in the surrounding areas, some helped build props for the church’s drama department…. Our team gardened. A lot. And by that I mean we pulled weeds almost every day that we were there. It was a needed task and definitely helped the church. But it was hard to view it as ministry compared to the work we had been used to doing for the past four months.
As I viewed our time at Manna as a time in limbo and never felt like we were doing true ministry, I didn’t looked to God for what He was teaching me during my time there. Yes, He was challenging my patience and I had to look to Him for energy to keep gardening… But pulling weeds couldn’t possibly be the best thing that God wanted us to be doing. There had to be more. Right?
As I stooped over in the garden pulling weeds under the blistering sun one day, counting down the minutes for us to be done for the day and not really paying attention to the weeds I was pulling, God asked me… “How would you be pulling weeds in this garden if I personally asked you to pull these weeds? How much more effort would you put into this if you knew I might walk into this garden at any moment and see how you were working? Would you want Me to find you complaining and putting half effort into the task I asked you to do?”
The words of Colossians 3:17 truly came alive for me that day. “Whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.”
Sometimes God is going to ask us to do exciting things for His kingdom. Sometimes He is going to ask us to do the mundane. But He is always, always asking us to work for Him with a thankful heart and to strive for perfection in our work to bring Him glory.
