Sometimes God has different plans.
Sometimes you think you know what’s best for yourself, but
really you have no idea.
Sometimes He needs to take it all away to remind you that He
is still in control and His timing is always right.
As some of you might know already, I did not leave for Kenya
on July 7th . The AIM leadership and I decided to hold me back for a
couple more months for some extended training. God gently reminded me that He
is out of time and that He wasn’t ready to send me quite yet. God is definitely
crazy in His ways, and I guess that is why He is God and I am not!
I will be spending the next couple of months back in
Gainesville, GA for some more missionary training one-on-one with the headship
of this project. During this time I will be focusing on myself and what God has
to reveal and uncover about who I am in Him and how I can walk in complete
freedom and wholeness to who He has called me to be. I could not be more
excited to learn and gain wisdom from such godly leadership. His hand has
already been in the entire process… at first it was hard to swallow that I
wouldn’t be going to Kenya right away, but the Lord has been humbling me day
after day that this is exactly where He wants me right now.
God seems to kindly remind me that this vision was His from
the very beginning. What if my role for the past 8 months was just to get the
vision going, and never to go to Kenya? Would I be ok with that? Would it be ok
if it wasn’t me who got to bring clean water and employment to the people
there? And the Lord gently reminds me over and over that I am merely a vessel.
Kenya is NOT MINE, it’s His. This vision is NOT MINE, it’s His. These are all
hard questions that the Lord has placed in front of me to put my life into
perspective. Now I know that I WILL be going to Kenya in a short amount of
time, but I think that He had to pull it away to get me at a place where I
recognized that my mission had almost become an idol. He had to remind me that
what I do for Him isn’t as important as who I am to Him; and sometimes the Lord
has to perform drastic measures to remind us of that.
So when I look at these next couple of months of
preparation, I see God opening me up and letting me examine what is truly
inside of me; I see Him revealing His ultimate truth over me so that I can
stand confidently in His name and KNOW that I am His; I see Him working in the
rest of the team and molding them; I see Him refining the areas of me that
aren’t of Him; I see Him revealing more and more of His vision in Kenya and in
the rest of the world; I see Him making our team even stronger than before that
we can fight the hard battles and be victorious for His kingdom. That is what I
see. And I could not be more excited to be exactly where He wants me, even
though sometimes it is really hard to accept.
Kelli, Matt Ruple, Matt Patch, and Logan left on July 7th
for Kenya. They have arrived safely and they are beginning to start some groundwork
in the camps and start to build relationships with the people there. Please
keep them in your prayers as they are walking onto new soil. Pray that God
gives them the eyes to see things that their earthly eyes could never imagine.
Pray for wisdom and discernment as they are beginning to invade the enemy’s
territory. Pray for safety and health, and pray for miracles to happen.
Also, please pray for me in this season… that God would do
His thing… and now matter how hard it is, I pray that I would have strength to
get through and that I would be reminded of His promises to me throughout this
journey.
During the next two months I will still be a full time
missionary under AIM. So, thank you to my supporters who have given so
generously throughout this vision. I would pray and ask that you would continue
supporting me financially even during the brief time here in the states and
throughout my time in Kenya. You have no idea how much a part of this vision
you are. Thanks so much for your support and prayers and love towards me, the
team, and Kenya.
Keep checking back here for more about what God is teaching
me through this season and into Kenya! If you would like to see how the team is
doing in Kenya, check out the blog here!
