The first word that comes to mind when I think of Zambia: joy
When my team (Tenacious) entered into the first Word of Life church service, we all felt genuine joy and celebration for how good our God is. Praising God is a joyous occasion, and man did I feel free to dance with reckless abandon for the Lord!
Here’s a recounting of April:
We were in Lusaka, Zambia with Word of Life Church during April.
Ministry looked like getting involved with the church community, visiting the sick in need of prayer and encouragement, sharing a message with either the youth, the influential women, or the entire church.
During Easter Weekend, our team joined the big Word of Life Conference and both learned and witnessed so much of how powerful ministry is when the church relies on God rather than on human power–people were healed, including some of my teammates. Bailea had a shoulder injury that required surgery when we returned home, and God completely healed her.
God also called me out of my comfort zone into deeper waters of faith.
There was a women conference once, and I felt God calling me to share a message, so I volunteered to speak that day.
My team and I didn’t know what to expect from the women’s conference, but we were imagining more than just a handful of women. . . women who were much older than me and who I felt could share so much more with me than I could with them.
But I trusted in God because he called me to deliver a message I once heard that impacted me about the circumcision of the heart (circumcision is a painful process, and when we chose to follow God and give Him control of our lives, he begins to circumcise our hearts and mold us into godly people who are loving, understanding, gracious, like Jesus. The process is good, but it hurts. . . A LOT).
I trusted in 1 Timothy 4:12
Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity.
I may never know how much God is using the message in the lives of the church community, but I trust He chose me to deliver the message for some reason(s).
What I do know is that the women revealed how encouraged they were to see a young woman share the Scripture with so much insight because it evidenced a close relationship with God–it gave them hope for their young youths struggling with modern 21st century temptations.
Looking back now, I am so grateful God used not only me, but my entire squad of 50 young people to encourage all our missionary hosts in Ecuador, India, and Zambia.
Because we simply lived out 1 Timothy 4:12 and were pursuing God as hard as possible, and God worked through us in powerful ways because we said yes to His calling.
It’s a choice to put away excuses and the haters in order to follow God’s calling.
Although the choice is hard, God is faithful to His promises and it’s oh so worth living a purpose-filled life God invites EVERYONE to accept; we just have to be brave enough to say yes to God.
