January, Botswana, month 7. Where do I begin?
Botswana, is a nation about the size of Texas directly north of South Africa. This is where the Kalahari desert is. Botswana is known for their beef (they have many more cattle than people) diamonds (world leading exporter), and safaris.
This month I started out partnered up with team Led (John, Jonathan, Kelsie, Mandy and Danica). For the past two weeks we’ve been engaged in a ministry called Unsung Heroes (UH). Instead of having a ministry host that we are partnered with, our job this month is to seek out potential people, Unsung Heroes, that will serve as ministry hosts for WR teams in the future. UH is all about listening to the Lord’s leading, stepping out in faith and networking (a lot of networking).
For me those first two (listening to the Lord, and stepping out in faith) are stretching things to engage in. However because of the way this month is setup we didn’t have a choice. We had to dive in. Our last day of training (Sunday) we knew we had to leave the next day, so we prayed, asking for words, pictures, any way the Lord wanted to speak to us, and we listened. When we came together, several people felt a pull to head north, Kelsie had an image of two rivers coming together, and I had a picture of people mining/ miners. Most all of us knew nothing about Botswana, so we hit the web looking for cities in the north. Francistown is one of those cities and according to their Wikipedia page it is the capital of the North, the mining city that started the gold rush in the whole southern cape of Africa and the place where two rivers meet. We left the next morning.
When we left we didn’t have a solid plan for lodging. We had searched diligently but with our limited budget the chances of places being online is pretty slim. We knew Francistown was where we were supposed to go so we went and sure enough one of our team members struck up a conversation with the woman sitting next to them on the bus. This woman was so excited to hear what we were doing she called up taxis to meet us at the bus station and led us to the perfect local place that was under our budget.
That was just two days into the month! There are more stories that I am hopeful to share with you (by blog or in person). Going into it I was scared of UH. I was afraid of the whole feeling of not knowing and not really having a solid plan, which is actually a big part of the Race. Yet, I am so glad I didn’t let the fear and possible anxiety stop me and team Led from being led this month. We wouldn’t have had the experiences had we not.
We can convince ourselves that we are what we believe, but what do our actions say about us? I’ve been challenged that what I say (and think) I believe doesn’t always match up with what I do. The only way that changes is trusting the Lord—stepping out into the unknowns of life and going in the dim direction from where we heard His call. Trust isn’t about having clarity as it is about having hopeful expectation and faith.
I want my actions to say that I am that kind of person.
What about you? Where are you at when it comes to listening to the Lord and stepping out into His leading? What do your actions have to say about what you believe and who you are?
