Four months in Africa has come and gone. Tomorrow, my squad and I will depart for Vietnam, where we will have debrief and team changes before getting started on the Asia leg of our eleven months (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand). While I am extremely excited to experience this new part of the world and these new cultures, I am feeling very bittersweet looking back on my time in Africa.
One thing that I have learned that will stick with me for the rest of my life is that when you desire something and God sees that desire in your heart, He will overdeliver. I see this all over my life. I especially see it with how He gifted me and equipped me for this incredible journey around the world. God knows all of our passions and all of our gifts. He knew I loved the world, and He knew I loved Him. So he gave me the World Race. Something that I could not have come up with on my own – something that I attribute completely to the goodness and creativeness of our Lord.
Africa, thank you. Thank you for the once-in-a-lifetime experiences you gave me. Thank you for opening my eyes to the struggles of the world I used to be completely blind to. Thank you for hurting my heart in a way that made me want to push in closer to God and surrender everything to Him. Thank you for melting my heart with your beautiful, warm culture. Thank you for giving me the adventure of a lifetime – an adventure that, if you can believe it, will continue into Asia in ways I can’t comprehend yet.
I met so many people who inspired me. So many people who display incredible strength and told stories of the miraculous ways God has worked in their lives. I lived in a way that stretched me out of my comfort zone in every way possible – in a way that broke me down and built me up again stronger. I saw healing, I saw miracles. You can choose whether or not you want to believe that – but I saw it. God is incredible.
There were a lot of times I cried these past four months. Cried from laughter with my team, cried out of pain for the conditions people were living in and what they have had to go through. I cried while sharing my story and cried listening to the stories of others. I cried because I missed home and cried because I was so astounded that God chose me to go on this journey. I cried because of how blessed and lucky I know I am, despite all the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual discomfort I have felt these past four months. Because, like I said before, this discomfort has produced growth in astounding ways. The type of growth God KNEW I needed.
I believe in miracles. I believe God can heal if you ask Him to. I believe that God can do anything, because I have seen it. Not only that, but because I know in my heart how good He is. Even though we can’t physically see Him, He is in each of our hearts when we accept Him there.
So Africa, thank you. Thank you for growing me. Thank you for opening my eyes. And most of all, thank you for bringing me closer to Jesus than I ever thought possible. Thank you for giving me the privilege of serving and getting to know your beautiful people.
South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Malawi…
I will never be the same.
To my team, thank you. Thank you for loving me at my best and loving me at my worst. Thank you for laughing and crying with me. Thank you for playing monopoly deal with me countless times and always being down to watch Disney movies. Thank you for calling me out when I needed to be and giving me so much grace when I messed up. Thank you for being exactly who each one of you has been to me – a fierce friend.
Esther, Irma, Hannah, and Joelle…
You are my sisters for life. I love each of you so much. And to whoever gets the blessing of being on a team with you in Asia … I can’t wait to see how you impact their lives the way you have impacted mine.
It is safe to say these four months have been some of the best and also some of the hardest of my life. And I wouldn’t change one thing.
A couple things going into Asia:
We will be transitioning from Southern Africa – an area of the world where most people speak English, nations are openly “Christian”, and working with host families and ministries – to Southeast Asia – an area of the world that has communist nations with limited spiritual freedoms, many people do not speak English (besides in big cities), and months where we may be finding our own ministries rather than working with hosts.
Because we will be in nations with limited freedoms, I will need to password-protect my blog for the safety of myself, my squad, and the organizations we are working with. Prayers for safety are greatly appreciated and I cannot wait to see what God does during these next three-and-a-half months.
Effective tomorrow, December 7th, to read my blog you will need to enter the password “imisschipotle”.
God bless!
