For those of you who haven’t read my previous blog, go back and read it as this is part 2 to my blog summarizing the biggest lessons I have learned since being in Africa. It is important to note that my last blog focused primarily on what God was showing me through my team and I didn’t even talk about how God spoke to me through our host or ministry. I will post a few more blogs about my time in Rwanda and Uganda. This blog, however, is about lessons I learned in Kenya and Ethiopia and will primarily focus on lessons I learned from other teams.
I spent most of the month of August in a small village in Kenya called Kaptagat where most of our ministry involved working and living at an orphanage called Grace of God family. This month our team spent the month working with team Deepa and a lot of what I learned this month came from them as well as our ministry host. One thing being around a new team reminded me of was how much can be learned from every person I encounter. They all possessed qualities that I want to walk in and I can say that I really learned how to walk in love better as a result of spending time with them. For example, two of the team members on the team are some of the most relational people I know. They literally talk to everyone they come in contact with and make whoever they talk with feel known, heard and most importantly love. I wish you all as my friends, family and supporters could meet these people and see how well they love. I lived through the month of August completely and utterly inspired. After further evaluatio and reflectio, I realized how significantly of an impact they made on my month when I realized that I probably was the most relational I had ever been in my life that month. I formed a lot of relationships and got to know many people because their example made me feel uncomfortable and it caused me to move. There is a rather uncommon phenomenon that happens very frequently and commonly since being on the world race. That phenomenon is being inspired to the point of action. I am not talking about a feel good motivational speech or a pep talk to be better or even someone setting a good example. I am talking about someone who stands so far above normal, someone exceptional, that they literally make you feel uncomfortable where you are at and make you want to move and desire to change. This is what happened every day I was in Kenya. After further reflection, I started thinking about my team and how I felt inspired by each one of them at different points in the race and I know that each one of them have influenced my life for the better. Sometime, especially when it comes to family and ourselves we can become critical and focus on all the negative stuff we see, instead of allowing ourselves to be inspired and changed by the good. It was then that I realized that is what we have. We have a family. We don’t always get along or like each other, but we are always here for each other and we consistently love each other and choose into each other. I learned so much more in the month of August that I just don’t have space for, but I promise more blogs are on the way speaking more specifically about each month in Africa.
Last but not least, let me tell you about my last month in Africa. We spent last month in Ethiopia and it was truly unforgettable. The biggest thing I learned during last month would be along similar lines of what I learned in Rwanda and it’s that the picture I am looking at right now at this point in time is not the finished product God has in mind instead it is a transition into God’s masterpiece. To begin with, the month started with PVT which is an event where all of our parents get to come join us at whatever ministry site we are at for a week. During this time they get to see more or less how we have been living the past 9 months and join us in ministering to the community we are in. The work God did in some of the parents lives is nothing short of miraculous. Parents who never had a rerelationship with the Lord began one for the first time and it was just evident by some of the parents attitudes that God was at work in them. It just reminded me that no matter where you are at or where one of your loved ones are at in their walk with Christ; whether they walk in close intimacy with him or they don’t even know him, God isn’t finished. This gave me great hope for the future not only for what God is going to do in my life, but the miraculous works yet to happen in my friends lives, especially those who don’t know him. So many of the parents that came shared large parts of their story with all the broken parts and knowing if God could transform that mess of a life into something beautiful he can do the same with your life and your lost friends and families lives as well. I learned so much more at PVT that I just can’t share on this blog but I will in later blogs. However, God’s lesson of his work never being finished continued on as my team left Hope Ethiopia to go to a new ministry site called Blessing the Children located a few hours from where we were for PVT. Our team spent the last two weeks of Ethiopia painting and doing home visits with another team called Team Torch. I can honestly say that God used this team and the love and joy they walk in to generate new dreams and visions of the kind of person I want to be. We spent the two weeks with youth from the local area and all I could see was boundless love for the kids, our hosts, and even our team, from each person on theit team. Whether it was through acts of service like sweeping our room without being told, to telling our host she looks beautiful every morning, to having pure joy everytime they see a child, the ways this team loved for some reason just stood out to me so much and it made me Jealous. I wanted to walk in that kind of love. That’s when I was reminded of my favorite chapter in the Bible Romans 8, specifically Romans 8:23 where it talks about how we who have the first fruits of the Holy Spirit (those who belong to Jesus) are groaning for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies waiting for the day where our bodies are made perfect and we walk in perfect love. He reminded me that this is his final goal for my life and every step we take is one step closer to the final goal. He also reminded me to seek the higher gifts as 1 Corinthians 14:1 says “Pursue love, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophecy“ and in reading this I realized it wasn’t bad to be jealous of the way other people have but we are supposed to seek these gifts out with fervor because God is love and he wants to walk in love and if seek and ask for this, he will be faithful to give us the desires of our heart.
Stay tuned for more fun stories and lessons from my time in Rwand. I will be posting frequently this month and hopefully I can catch you all up before I start my final month in Portugal.
