Right now I am sitting at a coffee shop in Nelspruit, South Africa. We’ve been here for nearly a week now. We only have two and a half weeks left in Africa before we head to Central America. Each morning our team has gotten up and prayed together. We’ve been heavily focusing on “listening prayer” for the last week. Specifically we’ve been asking God what it is that we need to accomplish in our last weeks on this continent. Each morning we have felt, unanimously, that he has been telling us to sit and be patient; to spend time in his presence and ministering to each other.
Those of you that know me may realize how difficult that is—to just sit. It is the same for my whole team. We all have this adventuresome spirit that spurs us on to tackle the entire continent. Sitting in South Africa, in a city similar to something back in the states doesn’t settle well with our personal desires, but God is so much bigger than that. My team tends to be more comfortable or enjoy our time more when we are roughing it or when we are coated with a few layers of dirt. When we’ve spent a long day with children crawling all over us, or establishing a church in mud up to our ankles, it’s often more satisfying for me. I feel like I’ve gotten things accomplished. All week God has been telling me to relax, though. Not to be lethargic or lazy, but to rest in him. It seems like he is trying to prepare us spiritually for something even greater than what we have already experienced this year. Please be in prayer for my team as we continue to seek the Lord in what to do for the next few weeks here in Africa.
When our squad heads out of the continent we’ll have a brief layover in Switzerland, then a twenty-four hour layover in Madrid. We’ll be able to leave the airport for that one, and we are thrilled about that. We’re all trying to come up with ideas of what we can do that day. The boys were hoping for a bull run. Hah! After Madrid we stop in Bogota for another short layover, and finally fly in to Costa Rica. We will be between Costa Rica, Panama, and Nicaragua for the last three months of the race. It is somewhat overwhelming to think we’re so close to the end already. This last year has flown by. You can be lifting my future plans up in prayer as well. I’m still unsure of exactly what I’ll be doing when I return—but I’m pretty certain it will have something to do with missions. I would also appreciate if you begin to prepare yourselves to hold me accountable. I will need your help and encouragement to keep from becoming complacent. There is so much I can do on U.S. soil, and I don’t want to fall into the trap of thinking I need to be overseas to minister. Thank you so much, guys. You have no idea what you all have meant to me over the course of this trip, and how much I will continue to need your backing and prayers.
