Africa is hard. Well, Malawi is hard. Trying to choose this place every day is one of the hardest things for me. A lot of times from home, you only see the highlights that make this place look amazing (not saying it isn’t). But what happens when you realize that it’s not just the glamorous highlights? When you don’t have a church to go to to fill you up? When you enjoy this place more from a car window? When you feel far away from God? When you just want to be home?
Think about it… when you think of missions, most of your minds go straight to Africa. Although this place does need missionaries, there are a lot of difficulties in living here, more than the videos show. People have so many different beliefs than you expect.
False prophecy is a big thing my team has experienced while being here, and there are people who come up and touch you, as if they think they have the right to.
The kids will fight over holding you hands, normally the older kids win.
You will probably have used a squatty potty at some point.
Bucket showers will become the norm.
You’ll sit down at each meal not knowing what type of meat is on the table(I may have eaten a dog by now).
There’s so many different things going on that add up and make you feel like you’re going to explode. Even in the middle of the night, there are mosquitos in your bug net, and you just want to cry because you’re so exhausted.
I have no intentions for sugar-coating my struggle here. It’s been so hard. For the past few weeks I’ve felt like I’m at my breaking point. Through it all, it’s been more difficult than ever to spend time with God. I just want to run away from everything as long as I can. The mission field doesn’t excuse us from having a difficult time being in the word every day.
So why am I here? Why does God let people go through difficult times? From my experiences, my guess would be for growth, for us to get to a point of completely relying on Him. To keep searching for His contentment. Let me tell you, if you don’t know this already, contentment is something so so difficult to find. How can I be content in ANY situation I go through? That doesn’t just go for when you’re going through good times or even really horrific times… the most difficult time seems to be in our day to day life.
To be brutally honest with everyone, Malawi is not a place I enjoy at all. That does not mean I can’t be content and seek God here. I know I’m here for a reason. Sometimes it’s crazy to think that God is with us all the time. Sometimes I just don’t feel Him at all. It’s hard not to wonder why He lets these feelings come up. I miss my mom. My sister. There’s moments when I wake up dreaming I was home and that’s the point when I can’t hold the tears in anymore. I let myself feel miserable. Craving to be home. To eat something besides nsima or goat.
But God is still moving here and showing me so many different things.God is such a funny guy. It saddens me when people look at Him like a stiff that just throws rules at you. Being here, I’ve gotten the chance to experience listening prayer. It may sound crazy to some of y’all which I respect because we’re all entitled to our own beliefs. The first time I sat down to do it with my first team, I didn’t get anything. I figured it just wasn’t for me. Later on my bed, for some reason I decided to put some good ole classical music on, and then it happened. Words seem to flow onto the paper. It ended up being a three page paper (front and back). It’s funny because in that moment, I realized that He’s been waiting a while for me to just sit down and listen. He covered so many different things that have been on my heart. So many struggles I’ve had and he told me what to do.
It breaks my heart to know we can slip so far away and not even know it… not seeing Him in day to day life, whether in the bush of Africa or the suburbs of America. But then when you start giving some of your fears to Him, He completely comes through. Whether it’s through a prayer or a cry. Think about it. This funny guy loves us all more than we can express in any language we use, even when there are moments (at least for me) when you just don’t want to do what He wants anymore… like when you start daydreaming about a shower that actually cleans you or, my moms cheesecake(which I think we all wish we ate more of at Thanksgiving).
There’s going to be hard times no matter where we are, but the point is to find contentment everywhere we go. To not let any season take us down so low that we feel the heat from hell coming up.
It’s time for us to be fearless. To do things that others may look at as crazy. To love people even when they don’t deserve it, because honestly who does in the end? That’s where I am right now. Searching for contentment wherever He takes me, even in the unknown places. I’m getting there. I don’t know what the future looks like right now, but I don’t live there. I live here. You have one life to live, so live it out with the desires He puts on your heart. Live in the moment. Be crazy. Live for Jesus.
