I’m blown away by God’s providence. God is so faithful, He takes care of children and blesses them in ABUNDANCE, providing for their needs to the detail in His perfect timing. I have seen God work in incredible ways in the last couple weeks, and I stand in awe of His faithfulness. Does it surprise me that God is faithful? Nope, that is all He is, there is no shadow of turning in Him. Am I still amazed and in awe? Of course…. How can I not be? Let me share a few of the crazy things that God has proved himself faithful in recently.
Several people on our team had been struggling with health and sickness issues last month; the sweltering heat of the Mozambique summer sun added the risk of dehydration to the usual possibilities of traveler’s sickness and local bugs that were passed through the loving orphans we cuddled every day. Aubrie had been suffering from migraines all month, but it wasn’t until other syptoms started showing up around Christmas that we realized something was up. So when we were in town, Aubrie and I went to a clinic to have a blood test run for her, one that we were pretty sure what the result would be. When the technition handed Aubrie the results, we didn’t need anyone to translate the portuguese to figure them out… Aubrie was positive for malaria.
I know when I saw that, I kinda had a mental freak out. What was gonna happen? Was Aubrie gonna be ok? Aubrie and Christy had just attended a funeral several days before of a 3 year old child that died of malaria. What did we do? But the results were responded to with logical prescriptions of the proper medication and admonitions of care and rest, and I saw the juxstaposition of my American reaction against the reality of the disease here in these African villages. After getting Aubrie home safely to bed (or rather, to sleeping pad), the next morning Kayla and Laura went to get tested as well, prompted by symptoms of diahrrea and fatigue. Upon their return, we learned the news: Kayla was fine, but Laura also had malaria.
Because Laura has Grave’s disease, our concerns for malaria complications was high. Kayla called our lovely squad leaders, and after a few minutes she returned…. And told us we needed to be ready to leave Mozambique the next day. The Lord provided us bus tickets, and within 15 hours of the phone call, we were headed to Johannesburg, South Africa.
I really don’t need to go into detail describing the bus ride from Mafambisse to Maputo, Mozambique, except that it was a school bus full of Africans and with the typical chickens in the front seat and a goat riding on top with the luggage. No joke. The drive was 21+ hours, with a 4 hour break at midnight for the bus driver to sleep. Oh, did I mention during this time both Aubrie and Laura are trying to maintain their sanity as well as Megan, who was struggling with a flu bug of some kind. I’m just saying, I may or may not have had the pleasure of cleaning up vomit. We arrived in Maputo to catch another bus from there to Joburg, but this time we got the much better end of the travel spectrum and enjoyed ringing in the New Year on a practically empty charter bus. The Lord provded.
Meanwhile, Lia and Joshua (our wonderful squad leaders) were searching for housing for our team’s arrival in South Africa. God is crazy how he works, cause Lia was getting her hair cut and sharing about our team and our needs, was overheard by a woman who asked for more information to share with her church for prayer, our needs were placed on the texting or “SMS” prayer chain, and Peter and Hesta Du Bruyn answered our prayers. They placed us in their flat behind their house (which by the way, had a POOL), but even more then providing us with amazing housing, God blessed us with a family through them. They took us in, fed us home cooked dinners, welcomed us as family. Their daughters Bernadette and Xaria became insta-sisters to all of us, and I know I felt so at home with their family, I didn’t want to leave.
But after an amazing week of rest and restoration, both of our physical bodies and of our spirits as well (during which Aubrie and Laura got tested again, and the results showed their recovery from malaria), it was time to move on to our next month of ministry… Ask The Lord, or ATL. Our month in Mozambique we had spent a lot of time in prayer and in seeking what the Lord had for us this month, and in his leading we had found a coffee shop in Cape Town that was open to us doing out reach through their business. But there was one problem… God didn’t show us housing. Despite hours of searching online and countless phone calls to hostels and apartments, we couldn’t find anything within our budget during the tourist season. Our deadline had come and gone long ago, so the final decision was made: we would be staying in Johannesburg and teaming up with an orphanage called Door of Hope. We had been following his leading when we were researching Cape Town, but by his leading he provided us with an amazing ministry here in Joburg.
This is going to be an amazing and challenging month (more information about our ministry will follow this blog) but above all I have loved to see God provide for us abundantly and in his perfect timing. Sometimes patience is the order of the day.
“But those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.”
Isaiah 40:31
