Swaziland is by far one of the most incredible places I have ever been.
The rugged, untouched beauty of the mountains and the bright smiles of the children made leaving at the end of last month one of the hardest goodbyes on the Race so far.
The name of the children’s home we worked at was El Shaddai. It is one of the names of God that means, “All Sufficient One”. I don’t think I ever knew or understood God as his name “El Shaddai” until this month.
For running a children’s home, a school, a church and a household of her own, our contact Charmaine was incredibly calm. I am very familiar with the verse, but Charmaine showed me very plainly what it actually looks like to “cast all of your anxiety on Him”. One day a government food truck pulled into the driveway to drop off free boxes of food. Charmaine told us she hadn’t arranged for the delivery, but had simply prayed. She showed me in that moment what it looks like to have no money to feed your children, but to know without a shadow of a doubt that God would provide…and He did! Every single day.
Living in Swaziland forced me to examine my own faith. It made me wonder what my life would look like if I relied on God more than I relied on myself. God tells us to cast our anxiety on Him because he CARES for us. But, how often God is willing to care for me and I just don’t give Him the opportunity?
This month my team is living in Jeffrey’s Bay, South Africa. I took this photo 2 minutes from our front door. What a way to spend our last month on the World Race!
We are working with different community outreach programs, running soccer camps and VBS, doing surf ministry, a little manual labour…and obviously taking long walks on the beach.
My American World Race family got to celebrate Independence Day on the 4th (We started the night by chanting “U-S-A! U-S-A!”…ahhh gotta love em!). But, I couldn’t let them completely forget about Canada Day on July 1st.
First of all, to those of you who think Africa is swelteringly hot all year round…it’s not.
It is winter in Africa right now, and most nights you can even see your breath in the air.
As we headed to ministry at a construction site on the morning of July 1st, I was very thankful for my thrift store flannel and for friends who crochet woolen hats.
It turned out that the construction site was for a log cabin school (one of the only log cabins in Africa)…and not only that, it was a Canadian designed log cabin school. As I looked around at my friends bundled up in scarves and plaid flannel, sanding, varnishing and moving logs, I realized that this might be the most stereotypically Canadian Canada Day I have ever experienced. I also realized that despite my excitement of getting back to the Great White North, I can’t imagine wanting to spend Canada Day anywhere else.
The abstract idea of “seizing the day” suddenly becomes very real when there are less than 30 days left on the Race…So here’s to Month 11! Here’s to living by faith, and to making each day count.
