We've been so blessed here at this hostel with the owner Crazy Dave [who definitely lives up to his name!]. For our last worship session before splitting up in Swaziland, he brought us all up to the top of a mountain where the view was incredibly gorgeous. We were able to worship while enjoying the beautiful view suffused with many different colors. While we were up there we spent a few minutes of our time cleaning up the trash and glass that littered the peak. We didn't get it all cleaned up but we definitely left it better than when we came. Crazy Dave thanked us for cleaning some of it up, since he takes people up there all the time, and then continued to say something along the lines of "The journey of 1,000 miles begins with one step." We may not have cleaned up all the trash and broken beer bottles, but we started a good work that maybe one day will be completed.
I realized our ministries each month are the exact same way. Particularly last month in Mozambique. While we were there with our contact Eli, a majority of the time was spent waiting for his funds to arrive to begin the construction on the rest of his orphanage. Once the funds had arrived we only had about a week to try and do as much as we could. We left with so much still needing to be done. But that was just the begining of the journey. The first step of 1,000 miles, if you will. God chose us to be a part of that step, to be the momentum that kicked off this journey. It's now our job to trust that God will stick with it to the end while we continue to do his will across the world. His work will continue to be done without us, we are just a simple part of his master plan. More will come after us in each country, sometimes we may completely change someone's life and bring them to Christ, other times we may be that first step and plant that seed that someone else will grow and nurture into a full blooming flower. God has amazing plans for Eli and his work in Mozambique and I'm so thankful to have been a part of it, but God's not done yet! I trust he will continue to work and do his thing! At the end of each month it will be hard to leave each country with so much work to still be done, and people to be brought to Christ, yet each month I will leave confident in the continued movement of God and The Holy Spirit in that place.
Philippians 1:6 says "being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."
