The End of an Era

So, if the first half of my trip back to Africa stretched my bow beyond what I thought capable, the second half relaxed the bow and allowed me to reflect on the places my arrow had flown and hit over the last 7+ years as a missionary. Going back was of course "the same, just different".

It was the same in the way that the people and places were familiar. There were cows in the road. I was able to "hoot" my horn (you don't "honk" in Africa). I was able to return to being comfortable driving on the left side of the road and to stop when the "robot" (stop light) turned red. I was able to enjoy butternut and feta cheese and "beet root" (I was corrected twice for referring to it as only "beets"). It was different in that my "grace" was gone and it was no longer where I belong.

Let me explain. Something I learned as a missionary is that if you don't answer a call on your life you will be miserable because something will always be "missing". But when God calls you to do something, He gives you the grace to do it. It is that grace that helps you to overcome cultural differences, environmental differences and a supernatural peace about the distance from the family and friends you love. That doesn't mean being a missionary or doing anything God calls you to do is easy, it just means you have the grace to endure it with a sense that you are exactly where you are suppose to be.  Even as seen below as I joined my Nelspruit church cell group dinner and we had to eat by candlelight because of "load shedding" (rotating electricity outages) during our scheduled event.

My lack of "grace" for Africa didn't mean I was miserable being back... hardly. It was more a sense that my unexpected life as a missionary in Africa had come to an end. When God called me, being a missionary was no where on my radar but at the same time, once I was in the "field" I never expected not to still be one. This trip allowed me to reflect and fully grasp that the era had come to an end.  I'm sure, like you, we try to live a Christian life that reflects Him. We don't always succeed and we rarely realize what impact we have had but over time we hopefully can look back and see that we are reflecting Him better than we use to. This half of my trip was realizing the lessons God had taught me, mainly that what is the light of His kingdom is relationships more than my actions.  I was fortunate to be able to see that my relationships impacted not only me in a positive way but also helped others draw closer to God. I have to say I grew leaps and bounds in being relational while I lived in Africa. The culture puts much more emphasis on relationships than anything else. It takes precedence over time and/or even financial constraints!!! I'm speaking beyond family and sometimes includes complete strangers.  
"Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”
John 13:35 
Sometimes I wonder if this one truth is why He had me in Africa. (Actually it is probably one of many reasons God needed me to leave my old life so I could focus on Him.) While I was in Swaziland and South Africa I might not have been able to see everyone I wanted but I had the peace that I saw the ones that were meant for me to hug in person. Regardless of physical touch there are people and memories from my "era" that have impacted me and touched my life. People and memories that drew me closer to God, showed me His love, confirmed His presence in the hard and unexplainable times, taught me to trust more, love deeper and obey Him above all else. The physical "era"of being a missionary in Africa might have finished (which also means another "era" is beginning), but I thank God for all of you that I had the privilege of doing "life" with and the ripples of change and inspiration you have been in my life will continue to enable me to minister to others.
(The pictures posted below are not all or just the "important" people but a handful of the ones that I had the presence of mind to remember to take. LOL!)

I am so grateful that God loved me enough to call me to serve in Africa and impact me beyond what I could ever imagine.

"Now glory be to God! By His mighty power at work within us, He is able to accomplish infinitely more than we would ever dare to ask or hope." Ephesians 3:20 

Stretching the Bow

Sorry for the delay in updating you on my trip back to Africa. It was amazing in different ways than ever before. Today I am processing on how the first part and reason for my trip stretched me beyond what I was capable of.

Let me back up to January 2014. I lived in Nelspruit and had just separated from Children's Cup and was feeling lost. I went to a small church  there that was more charismatic than I am accustomed to but I enjoyed the service. After that service an American missionary had a "word" for me. At some later point in time I will go into more detail of her prophesy but the one part God reminded me of this past week was that He was pulling back the bow and I was the arrow. Thus the title of this blog.

A little more history is that last year, my son Michael and daughter-in-law Stephanie felt the Lord asking them to be the leaders (directors) for a YWAM (Youth With A Mission) DTS (Discipleship Training School). It is a 6 month program for young adults. The first 3 months consists of classroom work, learning who God is, the foundations of being His disciple and learning to draw into a close relationship with Him as well as local outreach and campus work duties. The second half of the school is going out on a missionary journey to usually, for this base, an Asian or African country.

Michael and Stephanie felt led to ask me if I would teach for a week of DTS about "Hearing the Voice of God". Even though I am not a scholar and have never really taught anything, I felt the Lord saying to do it. When they asked it was almost a year down the road and I was living in northern South Africa (they were in southern South Africa). Fast forward through God calling me back to the U.S. and a flurry of processing the emotions and logistics for reentry and even more insecurity about my ability to teach. Talk yes, but teach......oh my! I was constantly battling "worry" and "fear" and a sense of being overwhelmed but I still felt I was suppose to try.

Our ladies group (GIRL Time) at my church picked Priscilla Shirer "Discerning the Voice of God" as our first bible study this spring. (God so good!) This study helped me not only look at someone teaching along the same topic.  And yes I was able to use some of her thought processes and quotes from her study in my teaching. But I still had not wrapped my head around "how" to teach it all when I left for Africa. I had lots of notes and material from several sources as well as my life experience and I had started a visual presentation on Keynote (PowerPoint equivalent) but not gotten pass the first day. I kept taking deep breaths. I wasn't trying to not be prepared but I was actually lost at how to prepare. I felt way out of my league.

I had teased Michael that he invited his mom to CapeTown in the worst month of the year there... the middle of rainy, cold winter. He just laughed and said to pray for summer weather then. Honestly, I didn't really pray about it because I felt praying about how I was going to teach was the more immediate need. But God knows how to speak to our soul in a way we will hear. He loved on me by stopping the rain the day I landed and bringing the sun to shine for most all the time of my trip!!! Stop, take a moment right now and reflect on what God has brought across your path that is special to you! (A pretty flower, a cool breeze, a hug, a smile, a verse in the Bible, a song or just something that speaks to you.) God is ever present in your life and He loves each of us! This was the view from my room on base showing the beautiful day the Lord had made!

Back to my trip, by arriving on Thursday before my week of teaching, I was able to sit in on the Friday class of the speaker the week before me. This time of year DTS tends to be a smaller and more intimate group of young adults. There were students from Canada, Egypt, South Korea, Zimbabwe and different nationalities from South Africa. English was not the first language of most of them, so they relied heavily on notes they could use for review. My notes were not in an ordered manner and since I had never taught before, they were definitely not typed up to hand out. I decided then that my slide presentation needed to be complete so we could convert them to a PDF for notes. I used preparing my slides to help me organize my thoughts. My first day of slides went quick. (Did I mention I was to teach 3 hours a day for 5 days??!!!). Monday night I stayed up until 2 am "preparing" and woke up tired and with a migraine. Tues, broke me. I finally let it go and said "God I've been trying to do it too much of this in my own strength. You have got to show up and direct me and I need to let You." That day I took a nap first and then plugged away knowing that regardless of where I was, I would stop in time to go to bed and it would be what it was. I could tweak it a bit before class the next morning but God had to make it, through my imperfection, what they needed to hear. It was still an exhausting amount of work all week but God showed up and I had material for the whole week that seemed to be what the students could use and apply. I was blessed by encouragement from the staff and at the end of the week received a card from the students and staff that showed God had planted some seeds in several of them to hear Him better and to recognize and attack strongholds that had been holding them back! I was thrilled that God chose to use me this way and that I made it through the whole week!

  

Ah! But God wasn't done stretching me that week. Thursday night was base worship and guess who was asked to speak? Base worship goes beyond the DTS group to groups visiting on base and the community and staff that live around the base. Now I am far from shy and can do announcements with fun and enthusiasm (I can laugh at myself if I mess up). But having to speak for God or rather let God speak through me is intimidating and a role I would hate to mess up. It overwhelmed me to think of what to speak about even though this was just a 20-30 minute time frame (compared to the hours I was teaching). I prayed to God but my answer was "don't plan and let Me speak". ???? How could I stand up there without a plan? God replied, "tell your story" (this is safe ground for you, you know your life) but "don't plan on what part and I will direct the direction you go". This was another form of stretching me and of me letting go of control. Well, despite my nervousness and hot flashes (did I mention I started having 'power surges' when I landed in Africa?), it went well, nothing earth shattering for me but not a disaster either. I guess I expected to feel a more supernatural event or current flowing through me. Afterwards, several people told me that there were parts of my testimony that spoke into their lives.  The next day I was told that a team who was visiting could not stop talking about my talk that night. They related strongly to several parts of my story and specifically to a part that I would never have included and in fact was thinking while I was talking of why I went there. Duh! God!!! He knew what they needed to hear and led me to share how He had worked in my life in a similar situation. No fireworks, just God being God and using one person to be the instrument for Him to speak to another. Crazyily awesome!!!!

Thank you for reading my lengthy blog. I could have given you the nice wrapped up version but I felt it important to bring you through the process with me. That stretching is a struggle. I have mixed feelings about the whole time in CapeTown. I have a feeling of awe and amazement of how God brought it together. I loved seeing Him do what I thought was impossible. I love becoming at least a temporary mama to the students and miss getting to see how they continue to blossom over their 6 month journey. But I also would not volunteer to do it again unless I felt specifically told by God to do it. In my weakness I could see His strength, wisdom and blessing. But it was hard, exhausting and uncomfortable journey. Was the stretching because "teaching" is in my future or was it to "teach" me to let go and let God point my arrow? He knows the angle and distance and bullseye it needs to hit. Or maybe both? Time will tell.

Coming soon is the second half of my trip to Africa, visiting the people and places where I use to minister.