Kitale, Kenya
Kenya was my favorite country in Africa for how the month went overall. Our contact was amazing. Bishop Moses is an amazing man of God and my team and I were blessed to spend a month living in his home and serving the community he loves so much. We spent the month partaking in different ministries. We taught/helped out in classrooms at a small school outside the biggest slum in Kenya. We spent sometime praying In a hospital and talking with the patients. One day we went to a women's prison and shared a video, words form the Lord and worshiped with them. Many women came to the lord that day and the Holy Spirit was flowing all over the place, there was a glow to the room and the faces. My favorite part of the month was the last week when we went to Bishops personal church and walked all over the town visiting the homes of members and their neighbors. My team split into two groups and walked up and down the country side of Africa with some wonderful elders and leaders of the church. When I say we walked all over I mean it! The town is smack dab in the middle of thousands of acres of cornfields, and they are not your typical fields, no flat lands in sight. To give you perspective by the third day the men had scoped out the best walkers, Sarah and I. We spent that day visiting 18 houses and walking for 4ish hours UP and DOWN the country side! I would not trade it for the world, this is what the first missionaries to Africa had to do to reach the people and it was an honor to follow in their footsteps!
Morogoro, Tanzania
Tanzania was a hard month. We preached a lot, gave our testimonies a lot and went to schools and did all the above plus some. The highlight of Tanzania and maybe Africa was going to a village 3 hours away where we slept under two huge mango trees and washed in the river that ran 15ft from our tents. We walked all over the place, moving bricks, clearing land for a new church and out to a Masai village and another small village. I preached at the small village, and boy was that an experience! The Holy Spirit rocked my world with that message and should me how amazing it can be when you fully rely on Him! For this month my team was with another team, and they struggled with sickness all month long which led to beautiful Liz going home to get healthy.
Maputo, Mozambique
This month was spent spending time with friends. Not only with the other team that was with us, but with the kids and workers at Beacon of Hope. This month was so good for my team, we got to spend a lot of time hanging out and putting in good quality time. I celebrated my 23rd birthday with my friends and the day included balloons! Christmas was amazing! I spent most of the day cooking which for me is a treat! I fell head over heels for the little boy Popino who is the adopted son of Angie our American contact who was stuck in South Africa the whole month (we got to meet her on our way to joburg). The morning we left was very hard, but it was also a good feeling knowing that I did not hold myself back from any relationships this month.
Africa in hard there is no doubt of that. But it is also beautiful, full of life and in need of all of you. So if you go do not let yourself stay in the low places, cling to the good, search out God in everything. See Jesus in every face. Who knows maybe you will fall in love with Africa, or maybe not and instead you will grow in ways you never imagined.
