I’m a sucker for anything Africa.
If we’ve talked within the past year and a half, you know that.
There’s an abundance of reasons to fall in love with Africa,
but don’t let anyone fool you. It’s no walk in the park.
God changed my life with a month in Kenya.
I’ve failed at putting just how I feel into words so here are a few pictures expressing how this trip will make you feel.
After a few days, you get ready to start ministry.
You hear you’ll be teaching Bible stories, handing out cups of “ooji”, singing.
Doing whatever help is needed at the school you’ll be working at.
It almost sounds like what you do when you teach Sunday School at church.
But it’s really hours and hours of this:
And you went on the trip not wanting to be a mom but somehow God gives you so much compassion for all of these little guys that are absolutely fascinated with the kind of hair they’re not used to.
After getting acquainted with your current home, you fall in love with the rooster that your teammates name “Gerard”.
He’s the closest reminder of your dog or cat that’s missing you back in the States.
He will then be the reason you can’t eat meat when you come home. Because every time you want chicken nuggets, you remember Gerard.
So you’ll become a vegetarian for the next year and a half.
And then you see more huge brown eyes staring at you because the sun turned you redder than a lobster, but how can you not melt at this face?
So far, your trip becomes an array of rambunctious children, squatty-potties, ‘ooji’ (porridge), sing-a-longs in schoolyards, and nosey baboons sticking their hands in your matatus (vans).
And you get overwhelmed at the foreignness of all of it so you ask God to show you why He brought you there in the first place.
And God whirls a few trials your way,
like everyone on your team getting malaria or some other mysterious African illness all at the same time,
making for trips to the hospital every day for two weeks.
Which means you might spend the night in a
shady hospital
with fluorescent lighting,
on a bed made out of
two chairs and a sleeping bag,
while your leader feels like death.
And that gives you a chance to share your pillow pet with her.
Through all of this you realize God doesn’t want you to change the world by teaching songs or handing out food or doing all of those other things you thought you were called to Africa for,
because that’s really the smallest part of it all. God wants you there to rely on Him during the rough times. He wants you to create community in your team and love everyone like Jesus loves.
God taught me a heck of a lot when He took me to Kenya.
I learned something my leader told me the first week we spent there,
“you need Africa more than Africa needs you”.
It took a month of clinic visits, energetic kids, and dirt roads for me to learn that God is going to work in Africa with or without me. I’m not going to make any difference on my own.
He wants a willing heart to follow His lead.
After praying my heart out, a year of ups and downs, and the wonderful support of friends and family, God brought me to the World Race Gap Year, the trip I’ve been talking about for two years now.
It’s official. I’ll actually be leaving this September for nine months.
I can’t thank you all enough for your wonderful support, encouragement, and prayer.
