I have wanted to be in Africa since the 6th grade. It's taken 10 years of waiting and 8 months of breaking for God to prepare me for this continent.
This month I have the priveledge of living and working at a school for the visually impaired. My 6 teammates (who you now know) and I are living in a small house on the school grounds. We sleep on bunk beds with beautiful princess canopies, also known as mosquito nets, that smother us in our sleep as we are being protected from malaria. In addition to the 6 of us, we have many more roommates in the form of cockroaches, who have taken a special liking to my room. This month we are blessed with a flush toilet (though it's still a squatty), vintage doors and windows, and clear running water (upgrade!). I wake up each morning to the sound of roosters crowing, go through my day listening to children laughing, African students singing, my teammates worshipping, and then fall asleep to African thunderstorms. It's a rough life.
The students have impacted both my teammates and I in incredible ways. They are incredibly intelligent, strong, full of faith and creativity, wise and confident in the Lord. It takes hardly any time at all for these students to dive deep in a conversation. They are not interested in boring small talk, but have a passion for knowledge and waste no time in talking about matters that are truly important.
The first few days at our ministry site, my teammates and I did some manual labor. We worked on building a green house that will benefit the students in the future. Mostly, we just dug around and played in the mud. Someday there will be beautiful tomato plants growing in our green house!
God has been teaching me so much this month. He has instilled in me a deeper confidence both in him and the gifting that he has given me. Over the past few months, many people have called out in me the gift of 'teaching'. Naturally, I denied this because I, as an introvert, hate being in front of people or in the spot light. I have a deep conviction that women should not preach over men, so I find it no coincidence that God has placed me on an all girls team. So, when our contact, Captain Leonard, asked one of us to preach on Friday, I felt like I needed to do it.
I chose to preach on Faith; Hebrews 11. I focused on the many people throughout the bible who have chosen to act on what God called them to. As much as I was preaching to the students, I was also preaching to myself. God has called us to go to the nations and preach the gospel, and though I was nervous, I was obedient.
It is now only half way through the month, but I can already tell that this is a place where I would happily return in the future. I am so thankful for this journey and continually amazed by the ways that God is blessing me. Though I have experienced pain on this journey, I wouldn't have the joy that consumes me now if it weren't for the experiences in my past. Praise God for Africa!
