As I have been working in the World
Race office and my role has changed from being out on the field to
being a part of the inner workings, if you will, that make the whole
thing happen from behind the scenes, I will admit that I have missed
the excitement of being out on the field. I think it is a little
easier for us sometimes to get excited about what God is doing when
we hear or see stories out in the world about the amazing things He
does, like healing someone of HIV in Africa or how while in eastern
Europe with no where to stay for the night the Lord says follow the
flags and it leads to missionaries to partner with for a month (you
might recall my blog called “Follow the Croatian Flags”). If you
are like me, it can be harder sometimes to be as excited or in awe of
God from a desk in an office but this week my experience has
challenged that perception.
One of my main responsibilities for the
World Race right now is coordinating ministries for our teams to
partner with in Southern Africa. In July we have been planning to
have teams in South Africa and Swaziland however a number of
circumstances for many of our partners in those countries have
rendered them unable to host teams at that time. So I, with the help
of some others on our logistics team, have been searching high and
low for ministries able to host teams in those countries for July. It
has been a real challenge and though the Lord provided places where
many of our teams can minister, I returned from a short trip to Kenya
with four teams still with out a place to go for July.
Being very short on time as July is
just a few weeks away now, I spent my first day back sending out
emails to anyone that we could find that might have a ministry need
anywhere in southern Africa for July. With a lot of prayer going into
it, I admit that I was still feeling a little apprehensive about it
just because of the time pressure and the fact that it had been very
difficult to find anyone so far. Then the phone on my desk rang.
I answered and found on the other end
of the line a missionary from South Africa who was very eager about
the email I had just sent her about possibly having teams come in
July. “How many teams do you need to place?” She asked. “Four”
I replied. “I’ll take them all” she said excitedly. “I have
been praying and praying for a big team to come and help me launch
new works in the area that I am in.”
All the “no”s that I had received
from other hosts over the last two months were actually the answer to
this Woman’s prayers. She not only needed a team, she needed four
teams and the Lord connected our need for four teams to be placed.
I will say that hanging up the phone
from that conversation I was pretty excited. I was in awe of how the
Lord continually establishes our steps and that everything works
together for our good. Through this struggle to find hosts, I found
myself remembering that while it is an office job I do, I am just as
desperately in need of the Lord’s help and intervention as I am on
the field praying over a sick person and even from my desk job, I am
just as excited and blown away by what the Lord can do out of His
love for us.
