I hardly know where to even begin…but I will say this is a blog you will want to read and that living through it is something I will never ever forget…
Quick timeline of the crazyness to get to where I am today…last Monday left Moldova, went to a ministry site I support here in Moldova called Stella’s house, then to a ministry site in a different part of Moldova my teammate just partnered with, then to Romania on Wed to meet up with the squad, left Romania 6 am sat to catch a flight to Africa, first lay over in Athens Greece….World Race style we took the 3 hours we had jumped on a subway and went off to explore Greece for a few hours, back on the plane flew into Qatar (near Iran)…arrived in South Africa 9:30 AM Sunday, bus was supposed to come at 1 pm…but things fell through with our bus right before we arrived in Africa so we landed and our precious new squad leaders jumped on that to try to figure out….
“Stuck” in South Africa for 2 days…
So we were supposed to be driving to Malawi on Sunday but actually because of many different things needed to stay for 2 days…so we slept at a hostile/backpackers place…it was awesome, personally this is part of the world race that I LOVE, I love that plans change constantly and you end up somewhere random. It turned out great as these two days God knew we needed because we were not ready for Africa yet and we got to spend a lot of time in prayer and worshiping, reaching out to the residents that were living there and an America 18 year old boy traveling the world by himself, and I laid down ALL expectations of Africa and told God I was loosing my life, to find it only in Him…and boy did God know we needed rest for what was to come….
Zimbabwe Border…
Traveling since 6 pm, arrived at the South Africa border at 3 am, got to the Zimbabwe border at 4 am…As soon as we got there a seriousness and heaviness fell over us as we quickly realized situation that lay ahead. The borders here are corrupt and as we walked single file inside the building past many people gathered outside I prayed for safety and for these people…as I watched people beg for money with little babies wide awake on their backs my heart broke for these people…As I continued to pray I shut my eyes and the Lord showed my picture after picture of dolphins and spoke very clearly and said, “When have I not been faithful?” Your team here will be protected by me, when nothing about this place seems peaceful, I am still with you…I said, “Never God, never have you not been faithful”…my peace returned and I sang praise and worship songs the rest of the time and went up to my teammates and encouraged them as everyone was so tired…
…at 4:45 the sun started to rise and honestly my first thought was, oh man why does the sun rise so early here now I’ll never be able to sleep back on that bus and I have already been awake 23 hours! Again God spoke and he said, “You are a light in a very dark place and as you shine your light and pour out your love on my people, so I will fill you with light. Bringing light into a place of darkness completely changes the atmosphere and as I watched the sun rise I was reminded of God’s love and mercy on his people each day. This day set tone for the next 3 months for me as God showed me what the presence of light to a place could do…He said you will shine my light in Africa, in places that are dark you will be my light…
Left that border at 7:30 AM and headed out for a very long drive to the Zimbabwe/Mozambique border (you always have to check out of a country then into the next one) that closed at 6 pm
Arriving at the Zimbabwe Border…
We arrived at the Zimbabwe border to late for them to let us through so we had to sleep on the bus that night…I can honestly say this was the worst night of sleep ever in my life. 65 people, 65 seats, smashed in between two girls, people all over the place, no AC, no wind blowing, hot African night…people started loosing it literally. All I could do all night was try to think of anything besides the fact that my body was drenched in sweat along with everyone else’s sweat, I started to feel extremely claustrophobic and like I could not breath…this a very hard night as a squad but in the end it did teach us a lot and brought us closer as one team.
Getting through the Zimbabwe/Mozambique border the next morning…
We woke at 4:45 when the sun was rising and got ready to be the first in line to get out the country…we got out of Zimbabwe fine, but then coming to the Mozambique border at 7 am it was a whole different story…like the border to enter Zimbabwe, Mozambique also made us pay too much money to get through and even after we had paid this corrupt border they still would not process our visas and would not work with us…after talking to our bus driver from South Africa things started to hit me harder about what was going on and the possibilities of what may happen started to spin around in my head and I jumped up knowing we needed to pray BIG time as a squad…my teammate Tommy had the same idea and we gathered up our squad outside right next to the border office and began all praying out loud…It’s cool here because people speak English so as we prayed people listened and watched curiously…one of our 2 squad leaders (there are 2-Joshua and Lia) Lia came up to us and asked for prayer, there were a lot of decisions to make with how to handle them not giving our passports back to us, they were on the phone with many people back in the states and other places trying to figure things out, when Lia started to cry and said “Please pray for us, we don’t know what to do, we have nothing more to give.”…I started to cry too, broken for our squad leaders who had big decisions to make and broken for my teammates…then it turned into a HUGE time of full out worship, singing praise songs to God that he was bigger, he was greater, and he would get us through this…everyone starred at us and understood every word we sang, the children gathered near us and clapped along with us, along with two amazing missionaries we met from Malawi, it was one of the most powerful amazing things I have ever been a part of, praising God in Africa at the border crying out for Him to help us because we were weak and nothing was working out…God is SOOOO good and at 2:30 PM we got back on the bus and headed on, by the grace of God they decided to write our visas out and give us back our passports…forgot to mention that earlier that day while waiting outside all of a sudden we see a dust tornado coming through, ripped off the roof of a hut and was heading straight for us, my girls and I started running and jumped over a stone wall and got to the ground waiting for it to pass…TIA TIA TIA (This is Africa)…this is what was say and do this little dance when something crazy happens in Africa…
Trying to make it to the Mozambique/Malawi border by 8 PM…
Needing to book it to the Mozambique/Malawi border because they held us up SO long getting into their country…as we came to a traffic jam to get over a bridge our bus driver jumped a few curbs and talked to traffic control to get us over this huge bridge in time that was getting construction done on it and only one lane was open…we arrived at the border at 7:45 cheering and so excited we had made it!! Come to find out that actually the border was open until 9 but due to the huge thunder storm it closed down at 7…the irony was painful and also so crazy I just burst out laughing (and I had not slept in days)…so we slept at the Mozambique border this night and decided we could not all sleep on the bus together again so the men slept outside the bus on the concrete, under trucks, on cardboard, and 2 in the luggage compartment…lol that night we thought they locked the bathrooms so everyone was going outside, which was fine until one person on our squad got caught by security and was taken to the police station in the middle of the night, one more hurdle God helped us jump through J…we made it through that night, woke up at 5 am to get ready to cross 2 more borders and finally be in Malawi, our final destination…
As many details as I typed out there is no way I could fully explain to you the crazyness and intensity of this travel week, it is only possible in person so ask me when I get back It was a week of my life I will never ever forget…this is when the world race really starts to get rough I am realizing (praise Jesus they do not start us out in Africa I don’t know if I would have made it). This experience grew my relationship with the Lord big time, my faith in Him, my relationships with my squad…it was amazing by the end we shared everything with those in need…it was the first time in my life where we were hungry and thirsty and sometimes all there was were sips of water to be had until you could find more…
Random Facts:
-saw baboons while driving through Mozambique
-we now go absolutely everywhere, every step, with a guy on the team, even when they have to guard us while using squatty potties…and when there is no potty at all…the men are doing a great job and although it is a ton of work for them to constantly be with us we thank God for them on our squad!
-our contact/pastors wife is going to teach us with her own child how to carry your baby on your back with a sarong wrapped around you
-we are going to learn to carry things on our heads here like they do!
-yes there are lots of huts in Africa but also normal homes too J
-The times we are not crusading (read next blog) around Malawi we are staying at our contacts fathers house, sleeping together in begs with mosquito nets all around us, living with his many children, hand washing clothes, beautiful view of the big mountains, eating lots of Seema (made with cornmeal and water)…this is the coolest family ever we LOVE them so much and we all feel like we have known each other forever
Welcome to Africa!! Here was just an example of how the rest of my 3 months here will probably be..TIA TIA TIA…but I am ready, I am ready for things not to go as planned, I am ready to lay down my priorities and wants each day to serve the Kingdom and go with the way this culture operates which is completely opposite to American culture. Now starts 3 months that I know will radically change my life, I cant wait, I love Africa already, it is amazing, the people are beautiful and I want to see what God is doing here!
Love you all, pray hard this next 3 months, many things are about to come!!
