I need Africa more than Africa needs me

So I found this video last week sometime and I just can’t stop watching it. This video hits really close to home for me and honestly makes me want to pack up right now and move over there. Like the video says Africa does need our partnerships and our relationships. After going to Kenya with 410 Bridge this summer I realized that that is true and the people of Africa do need our help. But I also realized that on my end of the relationship I need Africa too. Every time I saw people dancing and singing and I saw their smiling faces and heard their laughter it made me think about my attitude. If I was forced to live in the situations they live in everyday I can almost guarantee that I would not handle it with as much happiness and joy as they do. The people in Africa taught me how to love unconditionally and find joy in horrible situations. I went over to Africa thinking that I was bringing something to the people their but I left being the one who received so much.



aids. starvation. child soldiers. genocide. orphans.

These are the images that come to mind when i think of Africa.
How can I help? How can I make a difference?
I think, "I am needed here...they have so little and i have so much."
Often there is a level of suffering here that is unimaginable, but it's hard to reconcile the challenges many Africans face with the joy I see in the people.
The images spilling out of my television showed only misery, and I was fooled.
I bought into the lie that circumstances define happiness.
In places where despair should thrive, I find adults dancing and singing.
Children playing soccer with a ball tied of trash.
Relationships provide faith and joy.
My new reality...
my joy should have no regard for my circumstances.
I want what I have learned to trickle down from my head into my heart.
I no longer want to need the "next thing" to have joy.
Africa does need our efforts and partnership, but for me...

I need Africa more than Africa needs me.

Because it is Africa that has taught me that possessions in my hands will never be as valuable as peace in my heart.

https://www.mochaclub.org/mochaclub/welcome

The link above is the link to Mocha Club's website. It has more information about the organization and what they are doing. You can join mocha club and you can also get the t-shirt that you see in the video on the their website.

Missions...

I totally should be heading to bed right now but I have a really busy week ahead of me and don’t know when the next chance will be for me to blog. So I might be a little more tired than usual tomorrow but at least I will have gotten these thoughts out of my head and easier to process later on. Who needs sleep anyway…right?

So tonight our church had a concert to benefit International Justice Mission called Blackout Injustice. The Justin Cofield Band played and as a group we were able to raise $3,500 enough to free 7 people from slavery. AWESOME!!! Towards the end of the concert Justin was giving some background on the next song they were going to play and what he said got me thinking. He was talking about a mission trip he and his wife took to East Asia. He said on the plane ride home he was thinking about how he had flown all that way to minister and tell other people about God, but that he had never even done that with his neighbor. His neighbor, someone not miles and miles away from him but a few steps next door, had never heard about Christ. He went on to say that that’s when he realized that the word mission doesn’t just mean going around the world to share Christ with others. It also means showing Christ to people that you see every day, whether that person is your neighbor, your boss, your friend at school, or your family member.

That is what got me thinking. How much time do I spend telling my neighbors about God? I know that I have a passion for what God is doing around the world through organizations like 410 Bridge and IJM, especially in Kenya. I also know that it is my dream to spend time living in Africa showing people there God’s unconditional love. But knowing that this is what I want to do has led to frustration because the timing for that to happen is most definitely a few years down the road. I have spent time worried that somewhere in the next few years of college that my passion and drive to make my dream a reality will not be as important to me as it is now. I fear that I will allow things to get in the way and convince myself that things are just not going to work out.

So I have prayed and asked God to give me a peace to know that if the dreams I have are in his plan that he will work them out. But I have still struggled with what that means for me right now…today. So what Justin said really felt like God showing me what I needed to do. My passion for missions can stay important to me because I can use them right here in the Lake Jackson and next year at college. I can look forward to what God has in store for me to do in Kenya and around the world. But in the mean time I can do what I love doing and show God’s love to the people I come in contact with every day. I need to take the focus off of myself, my plans, and my worries and love everyone unconditionally, whether they live in China, Africa, India or right here in Texas. That in itself is missions and is what God calls every single one of us to do.

All That I Can Do

Ok so my prediction of me not being able to post so much has been right so far. But we are coming up on the holidays and I hoping to have more time to sit down and devote more time to blogging. And trust me if time allows blogging will most definitely be happening. I have so many thoughts floating around in my head these days…more than usual which is pretty unbelievable :)

Anyway I have been going through this period of sort of questioning God about the things that are going and are fixing to be going on in my life. I know my family and I are embarking on this period of change. I have this overwhelming feeling that I somehow am flying into adulthood way to fast. And yes this is totally going to be an “I told you so moment” but now that I am gaining that freedom that I have always wanted it freaks me out :) I can honestly say that I never would have seen Singapore in the plans for my family. Don’t get me wrong I am more than excited about what my family has been given the opportunity to do. But then other times I realize that my family is going to be thousands of miles away not easily accessible and I’m starting college.

I’m not sure how I’m going to adjust, but on the other hand I know I don’t really have choice. My family is moving soon whether I want them to or not. I am graduating high school in a few weeks whether I’m ready or not. I have to go to college and survive on my own…whether I want to or not. So these days my prayers seem to be overwhelmingly devoted to asking God to help me be content and okay with where I am going to be pretty soon. I don’t want to spend the next few years of my life dwelling on how my life is moving and changing faster than I was ready for. I don’t just want to survive life, I want to live every second of everyday and know that God knows exactly why I am where I am. I want God to show me how to love the things he has allowed my family and me to do…even if I never saw them as a part of my plans.

No, I’m not sure how I am going to handle my family moving…I hate goodbyes even for short periods of time. I don’t know how long it is going to take me to get used to all of this. I don’t know how I’m going to like being a “big girl”. But one thing I do know and the one thing that gives me comfort is God. I know that he will be the one I can cling to and trust to help me find the good in situations I don’t understand.

During all of my hours of thinking, praying, and thinking some more :) I have found the chorus to Bethany Dillon’s song All That I Can Do playing in my head over and over…

All that I can do is hold onto you
And follow where you lead
Where you're leading me
All that I can do is hold onto you
And let you bring me through
It's all that I can do

So I feel like I’ve kind of rambled on but here is the cliff notes version of this blog. I am feeling worried and nervous about what is going on in my life. But somewhere in the midst of that there is peace. God never fails and he is all I need. And with that promise I can allow myself to be excited and sit back and enjoy this ride.

We'll See How This Goes

So let me start this blog off by saying I am a thinker. I think way too much, all the time, and about things that a lot of times don’t really matter. So I decided to start this blog because I needed a place other than my brain to put my thoughts. My brain seems to overflow quite frequently and I kind of hope that this will be a place to unload, and to document what is going on in my head and in my world.

Before I start this all off though let me say just a couple of things so we both know how this is going to go down…

1) I AM NOT a writer, when I have thoughts bouncing around in my head the process of making them make sense to other people is sometimes close to impossible. Honestly I don’t think people understand me when I am talking half the time so I don’t promise that my writing will always be much better :)

2) I AM on the other hand a procrastinator so I am not promising that posting on here is going to be very frequent. Life and all that it entails is über busy right now and I have a feeling that blogging is not going to make it to the top of the priority list on most days.

Alright so now that those have been documented I’m going to give this blogging thing a whack and we’ll see how it goes…