Three and a half months later...

Just a few thoughts...

Somebody told me, not long after I got home from Africa, that the next few months would be when I learned the most from what I experienced. I didn't understand at the time but I think I do now. I don't know why it is, maybe I just process things slowly or it's needed a chance to sink in, but the last month I've felt that God has been challenging and changing me while bringing so much of what I've learned together. When people ask me what Africa taught me, in the past it's been hard to condense my thoughts into something that they would understand or begin to be able to grasp, but I think I know now. Africa showed me just how incredibly fragile and precious life is and how insignificant material things are. Consequently, that stuff can not satisfy yet all the while screaming that it is God who can. I can't deny how marvelous and great He is, and when I see this I can't help but realize how small I am. Standing in wonder of Him, I long to give Him everything, to worship Him, surrender completely. It's been so amazing to see how God has taken what I saw and helped me to grow through it. He's shown me the areas in my life that I have withheld from him and gently pried open my fingers, freeing my hands to worship him more.

Blind

I really didn't have anything to say... I was just overcome by an overwhelming sense of guilt that I haven't posted anything for a while so I thought I would. OK, not really. I just don't want to go to bed yet... I got on here not knowing what I was going to write about, but the task it's self proved to be a worthy topic. I KNOW that it's been too long when I can't remember what my password is... yeah, I know...that's bad. Maybe it's just because I'm such a devoted student that I can't make time to blog...
I must have tried at least 10 different passwords.. ranging from old ones that I've used in the past to my dog's name. I was getting really frustrated and could not think of any other possibilities, and was trying them over and over in hopes that something would work. Then I looked down and noticed that I was supposed to be typing out one of those annoying little code things that pops up for security purposes.. or whatever. I HAD been entering the right password, I just wasn't giving it all the information that it wanted. Blinded by frustration I totally had missed something that was right in front of me. I wonder how many other times this has been the case? How else am I blind because I let myself get so wrapped up and overwhelmed? Sometimes, I just need to take a deep breath and open my eyes.

Weightless

Tonight I went flying with Dad. I love spending time with him, doing what he loves and letting him show me how. It was a calm night, perfect for flying and escaping to a place high above the noise and busyness of life. I've always loved the take off. It's an amazing feeling when suddenly your no longer touching the ground and everything is slipping away, growing smaller. But more than that I think I love it because it's a feeling of total surrender, faith in something out side of your self. In that there is freedom. I have no control, I'm left with nothing but the choice to trust in what's holding me.
We flew over the Iowa sunset and watched it until there was only a little shimmer on the horizon and then as it slipped away completely, or until tomorrow when in God's perfect timing is rises again. I found as we coasted 3,000 feet up that I was calm and peaceful, the thoughts and stress of life I had left below. That is what I want for my life everyday, even when my feet are on the ground. To be completely suspended by trust, holding on to nothing that might weigh me down or cause me to doubt the one in the pilot seat. I don't want to be tied to this world or the wealth and empty promises it brings, not bearing the burden of my own selfishness or need for control.
As we turned on final I could see the pale blue and teal lights of the runway, so perfectly aligned as if they had always been there to lead us home. They reminded me of the simplicity that comes in trusting God's plan and direction when we're willing to let him be the pilot of our lives.

All There

School has begun! Change is sometimes a hard thing, I'll admit that it was difficult for me to let such an amazing, life changing, exciting, wonderful summer go! Looking back over the memories, I truly feel blessed. While change is hard, it's almost always a good thing. A new chapter of this thriller story called life. So with the new semester in my view I have several choices to make. What will I make of it, what will I let it make of me? After spending a month in Africa this summer it's easy to compare what I'm doing now and view it as trivial, unimportant, certainly not as glorious. I'm so excited about the ministry opportunities God has given me for the next couple of months and can't wait to see what he has in store, yet school seems daunting at times. It's tempting for me to not want to care about it.. to just "make it through" and get it done. But then I think about it and I realize that THIS is what has been given to do. At this moment, for this time, this season, this is my ministry my chance to serve Christ in ALL I do. My parents have always told us to "Do your best" and sometimes I cant get that to stop echoing in my head. Just getting it done is not my best. Too many are satisfied to 'just get by' when we're called to do each task whole heartily- as unto God. I may seem small right now, a class, a paper, an assignment, but those who are faithful in little are faithful in much. I'm finding I can't get there all alone. I need accountability to push me through and I'm so thankful for the ones holding me to it! Most of the time its the small things in life that show our true character and how hard we're willing to work for something. It's not about going through the motions. One of my favorite quotes is by a man named Jim Elliot who said, "Where ever you are, be all there". So obvious, yet I'm challenged by it's simplicity.

People keep asking me about pictures of Africa and I have most of them up on Facebook, but here are just a couple.

Fingerprints

I've been reading the book of Galatians this past month and Chapter 4 has really stood out to me. In it, it talks about Abraham and his two sons. One of those being the son that was born by his slave wife and the other from his freeborn wife. Verse 23 hit me in a way that I had never thought of before. It talks of how his slave born son was a human attempt to bring about the fulfillment of God's promise, and how his son born from his freeborn wife was God's own fulfillment of his promise. It just made me think about how there can be such a difference between a human attempt of something and God's own fulfillment. I don't want to have anything that is born of my own human attempt to bring about God's promises and plans for my life. Yet it's so easy to do when you start to look at things through your own thinking and not by faith. It's easy to make decisions and get ahead of yourself when you're excited about something or when your afraid or simply because you haven't taken the time to pray about something and so you act out on your own reasoning. I would imagine that that was the case for Abraham and Sarah. Through their eyes they believed that it would be impossible for God to fulfill his promise through them, so they came up with their own plan. I think for myself I like to try and figure everything out a head of time, my own life plans and possibilities, but I'm realizing that I have to be patient and that the only place to be is right where God has asked me to be at that very instant. When we were in Africa we talked a lot about God 'messing up' our dreams and how to truly serve him we have to let him lead us even when that mean letting him take what we hold dearest to our hearts and what we have planned for our selves. It's only then that he can truly lead us and we can learn to trust him. When I look back over my life I want to be able to see HIS fingerprints all over it, not my own.

Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not on your own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Proverbs 3:5-6

Home

I'm home from Africa. Leaving was one of the hardest things I've ever done. I fell in love with it and would have stayed longer had I been able to. The day we left broke my heart. It was so hard to say goodbye to all of the amazing people that I met while I was there. Driving to the airport and looking out the window of the car at my last glimpses of Mozambique was a strange feeling. After spending a month there, walking and living along side them, laughing with them, dancing with them, crying with them, singing with them, praying with them, and even mourning with them, I was going home. It was hard to think that as I passed by their little huts and homes, and watched from a car window as they walked along the muddy streets, that this would go on. That life for them would continue and I would go home. To my family, my mother my father, and my siblings. All healthy, happy, and alive. To my home, where my bedroom alone could fit their whole house. To school, to finish up my junior year.. I met 34 year old who were in 10th grade.. who worked to feed 4 kids and then rode a bike for an hour to go to school till 11:30 at night. In some ways it just seems so unfair. It's easy to feel guilty about how much I've taken for granted in the past.

Africa taught me a lot, and one of those things was that we can be so ungrateful for what we have. Spending time with people that have so little makes you start thinking and viewing things differently. When we landed in South Africa I cried to see the fancy airport and the stores, all filled with stuff that seemed so unnecessary. When I walked in my house and saw the beautiful flowers my family had bought me my first thought was that so many of the girls I had met probably never had anyone buy them flowers. Or when I heard my little brother and sister fighting in the car I couldn't help but think how ridicules they were being to make a big deal out of something so small. I feel as though I see the world through a new lens now and I'm thankful for it. I have a new perspective. I realize how much I have to be thankful for and how much I have to give to those who don't. It showed me how selfish I can be with what is not my own to begin with. It also showed me that joy doesn't have to be determined by our circumstances, and what it looked like to truly have nothing but your faith in Jesus getting you through. My trip may be over, but in a way I think a lot has just begun. I want to share what I saw with others and I want to go back. One thing that several of the people I met, Nelsa, Maria, Fernando, Afonzo, Rosi, Simone, Vicente, Ercilio.. to name a few, told us was to remember them when we went home. I smile when I think of that. I don't think that I could ever forget them.