December 29, 2020

I’m in Africa. Like what. I literally have to keep reminding myself of that. And it’s not so much of a reminder but more of a telling, like I can’t get the idea through my head. We’re staying at Twin Palms Baptist Church which is more like a living community than just a church you might think of. Within the area, along with the church, there are houses, gardens, a large circular road (which we like to walk along), a fellowship hall, dorm style rooms, bathrooms, and a kitchen. Families live in the houses around and their children like to come out and hang with us.

Yesterday was our first evening here, and they came out and sang us different Jesus songs and showed us the motions that they had learned in church. It was so pure and they were so bold; we loved it almost as much as they did haha. Actually, right now, I’m watching four girls braid Abigail’s hair and three other young boys are standing around watching. They literally flock to her.

I read Matthew 10-12 this morning, and before I started reading I prayed that God would show me why I am here. As hard as I am trying to get myself to realize I’m in Africa, still more I am trying to understand what my purpose of being here is. I have no doubt this is exactly where I need to be, but why is the question that has yet to be answered. And I wouldn’t say that I am necessarily in a rush to figure it out, but I’m definitely curious and would like to know sooner than later. And, if at the very least, I don’t figure it out while I’m here, I hope to be able to see some of the fruit from this trip through the people I interact with. I have no idea what these next two weeks hold, but oh boy you had bet I’m curious.

Matthew 10 was a cool read this morning. It is about Jesus calling his disciples and instructing them on the way they should go, and it felt super applicable as you can imagine. Subheading after subheading led to a new teaching that added to my understanding of evangelizing and how we are to be, along with those that we interact with: Persecution Will Come, Have No Fear, Not Peace but a Sword, Rewards. My prayer is that I am able to remember these and share them with others.

(fast-forward to midnight:30)

            Initially I thought that I was done writing, but so much has happened today that I need to share (also there are only two guy showers so I gotta wait lol). So, we just received our mission assignments for tomorrow and my team is going to be working with an amazing Zambian man named Vosco. He runs an organization called “Footprints” which, in summary, is street-kids ministry. Basically, “Footprints” rescues children living on the street and shares the gospel with them. Kids can be on the street for many reasons, but we have been told that we are going to be walking into a very dark, very hard situation. It’s going to be very emotionally exhausting, and sharing the gospel is not going to necessarily be a cakewalk. More on that tomorrow.

            But we also had an amazing worship night tonight. We’ve worshipped both nights we’ve been in Zambia, so I hope it’s a trend, but tonight was so powerful. We left a lot of room for the Holy Spirit to move and people shared incredible stories, testimonies, struggles, and encouragements. When you surrender your worship, heart, mind, body, and soul to the Lord, He works through people unlike many other situations I have been a part of or witnessed. Person after person, unprompted or planned, came to the front of the room and shared something that they felt like needed to be shared. We had multiple praises of miraculous healing from team members, a testimony and a full-surrender to the Lord, encouragements given to other team members that were still unknown to the speakers, and intentional and powerful hand-laying on a member who is currently dealing with a lot of physical pain. I really enjoyed the unstructured but uplifting and powerful time that we spent with the Lord, sitting in awe of who he is and what he has done for us. God is so big and so strong. He is a way maker. Surrender your life to him and do not turn back. Burn those boats as Drew said, but I am sure you’ll hear that sermon from him yourself. He’s pretty cool – big stuff to come from that guy.

            A little bit more about just my time and what’s been up! I made a friend. His name is Alex. I ran with him on my shoulders for literally hours today and that boy was screeeaammminnngg ahahahha it was so cute. We had a worship sesh earlier in the morning, about the time I was writing the first part of this recap, and that was absolutely incredible. We had no agenda today other than to hang out, bond, and love on each other, and we did some pretty fun stuff. So, we sat outside, played some banger songs, worshipped, played with the children (they love using our cameras and our phones especially Hungry Shark on Ella’s phone), and had PB&J’s for lunch. Literally the most nostalgic day. Then we went out for a killer game of kickball where I kicked a home-run (what else did you expect) and our team won.

We then welcomed our ministry partners into the fellowship hall and we listened to their testimonies for maybe three hours, and I loved every second of it. They are the people who we will be connecting with in order to serve in Lusaka, and they will be helping us prepare the best we can to go out into the communities to evangelize. Then we had supper and had a speed round of making PB&J’s for tomorrow’s lunch (my team won again). Is the enneagram 3 (the achiever) coming out in me yet? And that led us to worship tonight.

It’s already past 1 a.m. and ya boy has to be up in six hours, so I’m going to put my computer away and see if a shower is available haha. If you do anything at all today, make sure you praise God.