It was the very first night in Mozambique. We had just travel over 60 hours and arrived in Maputo around 2am. On our drive into one of my squads ministry site, a man decided to hop onto the back of our trailer carrying all of the squads packs to try to steal something! Our caravan of cars began to swerve to get the guy off the trailer then chased him away by almost running over him! (Remember this is at 2am) One of our cars pulls over, chases the guy down, beats him up, casually walks back to the car, and we continue on our way like nothing happened. Bizarre? Yes. Scary? Absolutely. So we finally make it to where we are staying for the night. We unload, eat a meal (again, it’s 2am), and just as we are about to start figuring out sleeping arrangements the ministry host tells us that we all have to sleep inside because she is afraid for our safety. She has two guards and a 7 foot tall concrete wall topped with razor wire and broken glass bottles surrounding the property. She then told us about how a year or so ago someone broke in her house in the middle of the night in beat the crap out of her. Now I’m freaking out inside a little bit. I just traveled over 60 hours, I’m hot, I’m sweating, I’m tired, I’m in Africa— I think to myself “What the hell have I gotten myself into”. So we set our tents up in the house that wasn’t really big enough for our group of 50 to tent in. It was a tight squeeze. We paired up inside the tents because not all of them would fit And then tried to get some rest before another day of travel for my team to get to Sybil’s house. As I laid down I felt overwhelmed by fear, stress, doubt, and just plain old tiredness. I prayed for protection and a good nights sleep. Little did I know God would meet me there in that hot tent in Maputo. I fell asleep and was awoken by the sound of an Islamic call to prayer. Even now I question whether I was really awake or not because no one else in the house heard it. I was frightened by the sound. I instantly began to pray pray pray for protection. I prayed for my fear to go away. I fell back asleep. I then had a dream that my squad and I were standing in a circle holding hands and praying. All I remember is hearing the words “John 6:6”. When I woke up the next morning I began to flip through my bible and looked up that verse. Here it’s talking about the story where Jesus feeds the five thousand. In verse 5 Jesus asks Phillip how he should feed the large group of people. Then verse 6 says “He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he would do.” Meaning Jesus asked Phillip how he should feed the people to see what he would say and how he would react even though he already knew how he was going to provide. This struck me deep. I know that I am going to encounter a lot of tests here on the world race that God has set in front of me only to see how I will react because he already knows how he will provide for me. And he will provide. I need to just learn how to trust him in that. He has been teaching me to trust and have no fear over and over again throughout this month. Especially on our second Sunday in Chokwe. Our host decided to take us to visit a small village church on the outskirts of town. We drove and drove on these bumpy dirt roads through the bush of Africa to get to this small but humble mud hut church. On our way Sybil asked our team “who wants to bring the word to the church today?” We all became extremely quite and then all at once started nominating each other. No one really wanted to do it. We were fearful. I felt in my spirit God calling me to step out of my boat of comfort onto the waters of trust. I stepped up to preach. I can tell you one of my biggest fears for the World Race was this exact moment, someone asking me to preach when I had no time to prepare. I spent the next 30 ish minutes alternating between praying “God please give me your words” and thinking to myself “what can I say to these people to bring them hope”. I decided it was time to tell my Maputo story and it reminded me to trust because I knew that he would lead me through this.
John 6:6 shows us to have no fear and trust that God will provide for us in times of need. Yeah, times might be tough. You may be in a situation you were not prepared for. You may be in a test. But know that God is Emanuel, meaning “God with us”. He won’t lead you into something without having a plan for you to get through it. Philippians 4:19 says “And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus”.
In all honesty I couldn’t type out what all I said to that church body. I honestly believe that God interceded on my behave and used me as a vessel to speck to the village people. That’s all I wanted and all I could have asked for and because of that it turned out better than I could’ve imagined. As I got up on the stage I started with a prayer. I lifted my hands and invited God into the church and asked him to make my words his.
God knew he would provide for me. He was just looking for me to take a step of faith and invite him into the situation and he met me again in the mud hut church just like he did in Maputo.
Have faith,
Emily
