What They Don’t Tell You About Mission Trips

I took a 2-hour flight from Lusaka to Johannesburg, 11-hour flight to London, and then hopped on a 9-hour flight that finally carried me home to the great state of Georgia about a week ago. I wobbled and swayed under the weight of too many bags (see if you can find all 5 in the picture) as I stumbled out of the Hartsfield-Jackson baggage claim. I was greeted with warm embraces and the familiar humidity of the South, and I was happy to be home. I had missed my family, I had missed my boyfriend, and I had missed my town. I was ready for familiar food and my own comfy bed. But I would soon come to realize that spending 6 weeks in a foreign culture has some strange effects on your former understanding of “familiar.”

The first wave of shock came when I stepped through the church doors Sunday morning. I entered into our air-conditioned building with its big comfy chairs and walls with sleek paint jobs. Sultry waves of smoke contrasted the psychedelic spectrum of lights flooding through the darkness. I took my typical place with my family in a balcony aisle, and felt my chest harden with a growing sense of alienation.

My palms began to sweat; panic. I felt closed-off, separated. I peeked around and saw people politely standing, singing praises to God, a melody of voices filling the atmosphere. “My chains are gone, I’ve been set free…” but as I watched the familiar people, and heard the familiar tune, confusion nevertheless, chocked me.

Freedom? Freedom… I remember what freedom looks like. My heart swam back through the sleepy days and the long plane rides, back to the Zambian outback on similar Sunday mornings. People were dancing and swaying and singing in my mind. I could see their smiling faces and hear their rich laughter and feel the weightlessness of their praise. Yes, I remember worship in Zambia. And I felt a heaviness seep over my heart. And that’s when the tears started.

Loving voices soon surrounded me. “How was your trip? I bet it was an amazing experience! What was the best part?” And even as I stood there trying to speak, I was utterly speechless. I tried to fill my mouth with words, but all that came was an overwhelming feeling of loss. How can I explain it to you? “I… it……… was an incredible experience,” was all that would pitifully tumble out. I would go off about the sightseeing or the New Day kids and how brilliant they were. I tried to give reassuring facial expressions, and everyone would always give an empathetic smile, and I would struggle to turn the conversation back around on them. No one ever really noticed. But as they launched off on everything they’d been doing that summer, I felt like I was watching a TV screen in front of me. I didn’t feel present, and the truth was, I wasn’t. I was slowly coming to realize a pretty sizeable chunk of my heart was still racing around the plains of Africa. How do you explain that to people? How can I make you understand everything that happened in that place? How can I tell you about holding those beautiful children in my arms or what it felt like to worship in another language or to see the grace of God spill out in torrents over people I’ll never see again in my life? How are there words for things like that?

Thus the feeling of panic. Thus the feeling of displacement.

I struggled through conversations in and out of that first day. I finally got home, and slowly climbed the stairs to my room. I pulled open my creaky closet door, melted down to a fetal position under my hundreds of shirts and pants and dresses and skirts, and wept. And wept.

You’ve probably heard of reverse culture shock. I had once or twice. But it still didn’t make sense. I felt like a perfect stranger in a place I had called home for almost 22 years. I wasn’t prepared for the bewilderment. I wasn’t ready for the shock of American culture. Everything was the same, so what had changed?

The problem wasn’t that my little hometown had changed, but that I had. I sat there in my closet that day, staring up at all my clothes. It was utterly overwhelming. Back in Zambia, I was accustomed to wearing the same two skirts and the same athletic pants every single day. And compared to most Zambian women, even that was an abundance of clothing. And the truth was, it wasn’t hard. I loved it. I don’t need all the clothes I have in America. And forget clothing: my room is LITTERED with things I don’t need. Mostly just for comfort. Mostly for security. Mostly because I never knew. I didn’t know.

Here I am a week later, and I’ve come to better terms with the onslaught of feelings. I make conversation about Africa without tearing up, as a matter of fact, I’m speaking to a youth group tomorrow about some of the things I learned while I was over there. But it took some patience to get to this point. And the fact remains that the ugly, panic-inducing, gut-wrenching feeling everyone has coined as “reverse culture shock” actually is a legitimate thing that takes a lot of prayer and intentionality to work through.

I’ve written several pieces that I will post this week attempting to voice some of thoughts for which I couldn’t find words a week ago. They’re about things that I don’t want to forget; things I shouldn’t forget. But for now, the biggest thing that I want to note that has helped me work through the culture shock is knowing that the same faithful God Who called me with a purpose to Zambia is the same God Who called me back to America. If He really is Who I believe Him to be, then regardless of my emotions, I know He hasn’t left me. I know that He has a purpose and a plan for my life. I used to struggle with thinking I would miss that one big purpose, but I’ve come realize our purpose in life isn’t one big event that we’re climbing towards. Our purpose here on earth is to love God and love people while we’re here on this earth. However we can, wherever we can, whatever it costs us personally. When God is the One setting the vision of our hearts, we’re not missing Him. He’s dwelling there with us. This is transcendence, this is peace: I want nothing but Your presence, God. I am filled. Wherever I am.

Traces of Light

“O Lord You have searched me, and You know me… where can I go from Your Spirit? Where can I flee from Your Presence?” (Psalm 139)

I walk down a worn path, hollow grass moving in undulating waves above me. Inverted towers: these walls bow and bend with an awe-filled holiness church steeples could never comprehend. Inhale, breathe out: sticky sweet nostalgia washes me over again. I’ve come again to meet You here, where memory of You remains unspoiled.

You’ve always known me. Father, do you hear me?

I’ve always been fascinated with the presence of beauty in my life. I’ve walked over silent hills soaked with the silvery dew of the morning, and watched the faces of the people I love stain with the richness of summer every single year. I’ve lived, by all appearances, a charmed life. It was deceptively perfect in so many ways.

But there is a loneliness I have carried throughout my story: heaviness I hold onto for my life. It writhes up and comes alive inside of me; a dizzying fractured sickness that leaves me stumbling weakly. I’ve learned to choke the illness down… because I have loved it, and I lived for it. Because the loneliness always led to the longing, and the longing is what kept me alive.

It was something I never learned to talk about: the heaviness I drug around. How do you define the moment you go from normal to panic? When you don’t know why tears fill your eyes at the table, and the containing isn’t helping the coping? Eventually you stop trying to explain it, and just try to get by and live with it. But after years of shrinking, I began suffocating from the things I never said. And people never had adequate words to explain why it was happening to me.

Where were you, God? Did You know? Do You see?

All I have ever wanted was to know joy, and for it to know me. I wanted to be part of it. And I lived for the moments I saw it in my life. Because it wasn’t something I could possess; a thing I could set apart for myself. It came and it went. It would overwhelm me long enough to undo me, and then it was far from me… And I was terrified of the void I felt in its absence.

There was no way to describe the emptiness of that echoing place. There was no way to define the feeling of losing something you never had. Words didn’t work when people asked me what was wrong, and I used pain to still the hurricane heaving between my lungs when I grew older. I write my ending on my body because I can’t stomach new beginnings, but God etches grace across my skin in little traces I try so hard to follow. I don’t understand. And I couldn’t comprehend. He was always there.

He was there: in the corner of my eye, disappearing in soft swells of stardust at night; I heard His thick breath expand through churning ocean waves. I felt Him warm the afternoon sun sinking across my lap. I saw Him in the subtleties of the gardenias, and in the billowing oak trees and little robins that so consistently sang. His immensity was everywhere, and I knew that everything good that ever was extended somehow from Him.

I began to know that I had come to the end of suffering for that great and terrible beauty. I didn’t have to drag my tired body through ashes, begging to be worthy of glory in my life. I opened my terrified mouth, and I exhaled: breathing, sobbing, but still, I began to release the shame and the humiliation, the disappointments and rage from my body. I was certain in that moment that I was and will be fully known. And even I can become something new.

#thisculture

 

Right now, I’m sipping freshly ground, freshly pressed, Zambian coffee from the Choma market while I watch the sun rise and set fire to my safari of a backyard. I stumble out here every morning after I brew my dark roast and dump some fresh milk in for creamer. There’s a cow chilling in the middle of our front yard, and roosters crowing loudly in the back, but needless to say, these are some of the richest mornings I’ve ever had.

I still can’t believe I’m living in Africa. I have loved my time in Zambia. Life is slow here. The hustle and bustle and everyday chaos of America is like a long-forgotten dream ambling down the dirt paths each day. Life is methodic and relational: most of your time is composed of being rather than doing.

When mission teams from America aren’t here, life is pretty simple. I’ve gotten to spend some wonderful time with the kids here at New Day. Most of them are stinkers with personalities way too big for their tiny little bodies. But they are all incredible children, and some of the cutest you’ll ever meet. They all play soccer like champs and quote scripture off like Google.

I definitely had my own ideas about African life before I came to New Day. I envisioned a strict diet of rice and beans, thick poverty, a fantastic tan, and exotic animals littering my living space. There was a little bit of truth seasoned into some of those dreams, but reality here in Zambia turned out to be pretty different.

First of all, unless you are a random villager that has 10 kids and a bad crop that year, you probably are not starving in Zambia. Food means the world to these people. I thought the South ate heavy until I came here. Eating is a HUGE part of their culture. Most everything is made from scratch and is delicious. If you find people eating on the road, you’re supposed to stop and share with them. You don’t go to someone’s house and let them eat one bite of nshima (white mash) if they’re not offering it to you as well. People admire larger people for being “healthy”, and if you do happen to lose weight, you’re more likely to hear comments of sympathy than congratulations. So if you’re looking to get skinny, plan on hitting up that diet before you come to Africa.

Next off: the tan. Oh glorious tanning. It’s my favorite part about summer. I love laying out by the ocean or pool and literally feeling my skin turn brown. Mmmmm. Well, I had to put that glory to rest this summer. It’s winter here in Zambia in June. And it’s getting colder by the day. But even if it was summer, Zambian dress code prohibits clothing that would allow you to achieve any sort of tan. Sleeveless shirts aren’t a big deal: it’s chilly in the mornings and evenings, but sleeveless works for them in the day. But the legs, oh the legs. Ain’t nobody going to be sporting those thighs around if the older villagers can help it. Women have to wear ankle-length skirts called chitangees. Thanks to those lovely skirts, I have the weirdest tan lines on my feet: it’s like a reverse sock tan line. As in, my ankles are the only things on the lower half of my body that have seen the light of day all summer. Mmm. At least they think pale skin is beautiful here, right?

The poverty: it’s worse and better than I thought it would be. As I described in an earlier post, it was overwhelming when we went to the villages in the bush area. Most people have more kids than clothing to go around. So, many of the kids just run around naked and unattended. They learn pretty early on in life to fend for themselves because the parents are out breaking their backs harvesting the food they need to survive from the fields. But here’s what I didn’t expect coming here: unless there is an unusual circumstance (like a bad harvest, orphaned kids, etc.), people have food. They grow it and kill it themselves and know what it takes to survive. They don’t have material wealth: they have hardly any clothes, and their houses are simple stick huts. But they’re not starving. They eat sweet potatoes, sweet beer (mashed up corn and milk), pigeons, peanuts, mangos, bananas, tomatoes, lettuce, eggplant, eggs; the list goes on.

Exotic animals: So, I think I expected to see gazelles grazing in the grass along with giraffes casually standing in the distance close by my house each and every afternoon. And with the thick safari grass we have here, it really feels like we should. But we don’t. The nearest animals like that are all on a nature reserve about 3 hours away near Livingstone. There may not be exotic animals here per se, but we do have cows, chickens, goats, donkeys, dogs, cats, oxen, etc., along with an extravagance of exotic bugs. Ew. If you’re ever taking a trip here, you really need to hit me up and let me give you a pep talk about the spiders before you come. I’m terrified of spiders. But I can truly and honestly say that you can have a perfect symbiotic relationship with them here that’s worth not smacking them off the walls every night. Think about it: no one wants Malaria. Let that soak in a little bit.

There are plenty of other enthralling things about life here in Zambia: far too many to list off in this blog post. But I promise to continue filling you in as more surprises come my way. For now, I’m off to the market with Billie Anne and Blu Tidwell to buy the orphans’ groceries for the week. And let me tell you, buying groceries for 16 hungry kids is a massive job. Wish us luck. Until next time.

She has a Name

You know the story in the Bible about the Samaritan woman Jesus met beside the well in John 4? Long story short, Jesus meets a woman by the town well and tells her that He is offering eternal life in the form of living water. She was a little skeptical, considering Jews and Samaritans meshed like Ke$ha and Frank Sinatra. She had been used and abused: promises were typically scams in her world. What was His agenda? But before she even has time to question His motives, Jesus starts listing off her worst secrets one after the other. It didn’t take long before she bolted back to her own town telling everyone that she had just met the Christ they’d been waiting for.

I met a modern-day Samaritan woman this week, and her name is Rosemary: Rosemary Chembee.

Road leading up to Rosemary’s village.

It was a hot afternoon in the Zambian bush when I met Rosemary. The breeze kicked up thick African dust, and I peaked through squinted eyes at yet another enigmatic village rising up before us. No sooner had we entered the edge of the clearing than a peal of excitement and terror rang out from the center of the space. “Maguwas!” (“white people”) half a dozen children screamed as they darted inside the ambiguous huts dotting the village. The wave of children parted, and a perfect triangle of women sat before us. These were the ones we had come for.

They were expecting us. Sure, proud: they sat sturdy as tree trunks in the blazing sun. They looked more like ancient Amazonian women than common Zambian housewives. Their husband, Cornelius, had accepted Christ as his Savior the day before, and had asked that we come share the Gospel with his wives as well.

Rosemary sat at the point of the triangle, and motioned for our group to take a seat on several hand-carved wooden stools they placed for us. We sat down and casually began to introduce ourselves. It was awkward: they knew there was a reason we had come, and we knew why we had come, but the business of actually bringing it up was still in the works.

As everyone got to know each other, I watched the faces of the women. I love people’s faces. If you look closely, they give away more about a person than they could ever say with their words. The miniscule flashes of emotion; the wrinkle in the nose, a tightened lip, the beautiful way the eyes crease in the corners from a true smile… these are the things that give people away. And as I watched the faces of the women, I saw the patterns emerge.

One of Rosemary’s little girls.

These were not the women of stone we made them out to be. Slight slips of weariness fell through their sturdy façade the longer we sat with them. The crease on Rosemary’s brow, and the way she continuously rubbed her arms, the wide eyes, the way she leaned into her hand: she was nervous, and she was tired. And the heaviness she carried was not the kind that came from working the fields.

That was enough to get me talking. I said, “Your husband heard the Good News yesterday. This is news that will change His life for eternity. Your husband met Jesus Christ yesterday; I have come that you might meet Him as well.”

Now, there are two responses to hearing this kind of news. Some people, like the other two wives, might sit, respectfully and politely listening to what you have to say. They’re listening, but as far as any human eye can see, they’re not digesting what is being said. On the other hand, you have Rosemary, who sat hinged forward on the edge of her seat; eager-eyed, hanging on every word I said like it was the lifeline she’d been waiting for.

I told them the story of the Samaritan woman and explained that Jesus had come to offer water from the well that would never run dry. This “water” was the same eternal life Jesus had come to offer the woman from Samaria.

At the end of my story, I paused, and I tried to embrace the thick silence filling the area. My arms fell in front of me, and I spread my hands towards the women. Though I know my words tumbled out like awkward toddlers’ steps, I could feel something inside of me glowing and alive: something like atmosphere was spilling out of my mouth. These words were alive, and I was not their source. “Jesus Christ came into this world to offer you and me that same living water that He offered that Samaritan woman so many years ago. Because of our sin, we have been separated from God. But we were created to love God and to be with Him, so He sent His perfect Son into the world to live a sinless life for us. He died a horrible death, was buried, and was brought back to life. And He is sitting beside His Father in Heaven, even now. God loves you, and He wants you. He has always wanted you. He is offering you a free gift: this living water. But you must reach out and take it. Your husband, Cornelius, drank of that water yesterday. And God offers you the same gift. But you cannot do this because of your husband. You must make your own choice: you must choose.” And with that, a heavy sigh from Rosemary came barreling out through the silence.

I saw it in her eyes. I saw the release. The weariness and frustration, the anxiety and the fear: finally. She knew it in the depths of her soul. The Redeemer had come for her: and she had waited a lifetime for His arrival. “I want this water,” she said. And so she prayed.

It was a strange feeling, when we stood to leave her. She had no discipleship, no Bible. How was her faith going to survive? I heard God whisper to me, “I will not leave you orphans. I will come for you.” And I knew it was true. I turned and said to her, “You have to understand. Because of what you have done, Jesus Christ is living inside of your heart now. He has said that He will send you a Counselor that will guide you, and speak to you, and teach you how to live as Jesus lived. This is His Holy Spirit that lives inside of you. You have a responsibility. You must share what has been done for you. The people around you; they have to know what Jesus did. They have to know that He lives in you now.” And with that, our time was up.

We began walking down the same dusty path towards the next village, and away from an emotion-filled Rosemary. Tears spilled over my eyes as I prayed for her: “God, you promised you would come for her. Be with her always.”

We pushed on through the day, praying with several other villagers, eventually making our way back to the truck, exhausted. We loaded up as the sun slowly began to sink down over the endless plains. The same prayer had been rolling around my head all day, and I prayed it again as the Zambian bush faded away in that thick wave of dust, “God, You said you’d come for them…”

Rosemary’s children worshiping with us.

Several of Cornellius’ 15 children.

We had driven through the Bush for several miles, weaving our way through the narrow footpaths-turned-roads when a woman came tearing out of the grass towards our car. Low and behold, ROSEMARY came sprinting out from behind—wait for it— the local WELL. She was breathless and sweaty, sucking in air and pointing frantically as she tried to speak. “I have been everywhere!” she said. “I have been telling my neighbors, anyone I could find, all day, what Jesus did for me. I have told them what has happened in me. I have told them that He lives here now.” She took off back into the bush, probably trying to reach another village before the sun set. And our group just sat there: open-mouthed in shock. This woman… was on FIRE and was consuming everything in her path.

Since that day, we have returned to that village multiple times to find the Holy Spirit alive and active in that area. What God did in Rosemary’s heart has spread to many of the local villagers through she and her husband Cornelius’ witnessing. Each time we returned to her village, she would beckon to us, telling us, “Come! There are more villages that need to hear.” She was desperate to share the life she found in her Savior.

Rosemary and me

What would you do if you met a man that offered you water that would never run dry? What would it be like to taste its sweetness? It’s something you don’t recover from. And honestly, you were never meant to.

This is not just another sweet story to make you tear up and then move on with the next thing in your life. When Rosemary went through this, her world turned upside down, and she is never going to recover from what happened that day. The Holy Spirit is alive and present and moving across the globe, and there isn’t time for our fear of awkwardness or discomfort in sharing Him. God has done so much more than save me from Hell after I die. You have to understand, before Jesus came into my life, the darkness, the endless cycle of fear and anxiety, the hopelessness: my life WAS Hell before I knew Him. He literally reached into my heart and took me out of that place through His grace. And Rosemary’s testimony put me on my knees in shame over my silence in America. I can blame it on the culture: most people are hard-hearted and aren’t open to hearing about a man that could name off their sins one by one. But this same man moved in my life, and lives in me, and loves me, and saved me from my myself; and there is an entire world in front of me that needs to know.

I am praying for boldness and humility in myself, and especially the Christians back in America today. I often pray that God will break my heart for what breaks His, but what does it matter if I never tell anyone what happened when He did? Yes, faith without action is dead, but the reason we were created with a voice is to speak. So go! And as you go, tell about what has been done for you. Tell the hairdresser, the man at the office, your children, your father, that friend: there is rest. There is grace. There is hope. You don’t have to drag around the sins of your past, crawling through desert to punish yourself for what has been done. Jesus drug Himself through that misery. All you have to do is accept what He did for you. And believe Him when He says it is finished.

The Secret of God

I stepped out of the jeep today into a scene straight from the Lion King. Thick African plain grass surrounded our little trio of missionaries as we wove our way through the narrow footpaths of the Zambian outback. Billie Anne, our interpreter, Maxwell, and I had driven an hour into the wilderness with a larger group of missionaries, but had split off to hike towards the myriad of indigenous villages in the surrounding area by ourselves.

After miles of walking, we finally approached the first village. My jaw dropped in disbelief as I gawked at the scene in front of me. I had heard about the poverty, but no amount of warning could have prepared me for its harsh reality. This is the kind of thing you should be seeing as an infomercial on TV: not a child staring you in the face: clothed in nothing but the dust of the ground, his own flesh, and bloody cuts covered in flies.

Though it was hard to wrap my mind around the things I saw in front of me, I couldn’t help but stare in fascination at the lifestyle of the people. Though the country’s material deficit is difficult to comprehend from an American standpoint, culturally, Zambian’s hold a vast wealth in their communal interactions and the intentionality of their everyday lifestyle. They are extremely community-oriented typically: social interactions with one another and with strangers are viewed as a priority in most villages. Every time we entered a new village, we were greeted warmly with a firm handshake, a nervous smile, and provided with some form of seating as the locals slowly gathered from all around to speak with us.

Spreading the gospel in Africa is far different than American-style evangelism. Culturally, Zambians are much more open to hearing what you have to say, and are generally eager to know what you believe, why you believe it, and why they should believe it. Rather than dancing around political correctness, or concern of personal offense, conversations instead encompass an innate sense of directness and sincerity that allows both parties to focus on the heart of the matter at hand. This environment encourages a level of honesty and vulnerability that is typically hard to come by in conversations with complete strangers in America. But we had many of these conversations, and I learned much from the short time I spent with the villagers.

One of my favorite conversations was the very first conversation I had with two of the local villagers. Our same trio had been walking down a dusty path, past a field of sunflowers, and on through several fields of maize, when we came upon a small grass shelter with two young women outside of it. One sat, nursing her infant and breaking up thick shucks of maize, while the other worked busily shaving the maize and bagging it near the little stone hearth of the nearby fire.

I was nervous as we walked up, my thoughts racing as I wondered how all of this was going to play out. Billie Anne and I snuck a few anxious glances back and forth as Max introduced us to the women in Tongan, the local language spoken around Mapanza. My eyes nearly popped out of my head 30 seconds later when Max told them point blank that we had come to share the Good News with them. I thought to myself, “Whoaaa buddy. Seriously? It’s not that easy. We were supposed to build up, make it flow, at least sneak up on them a little bit!” But even as these thoughts raced through my head, Max turned to us and asked what we had to say to them.

I awkwardly fumbled through my little worn Bible… “What should I say Lord? Give me words… I don’t know what they need to hear. I don’t even know how to begin.” I was looking for another story I had in mind to share, but my eyes fell across John 3 to the story of Jesus and Nicodemus, and I began to read.

As many of you know, this story relates how Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish council, came to speak with Jesus by night. Without Nicodemus even asking him the question, Jesus knew before he spoke that Nicodemus had come to ask him how he might enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus told him clearly that a man must be born again through the Spirit and water to inherit the eternal life that God offers. Through Max, we discussed this with the women, and asked them if they understood the words of the story. One of the women paused, and slowly looked out over her fields, her eyes roaming the plains: her lower lip stout. She turned back to us with full, heavy eyes, and slowly said in her thick Tonga accent, “These things… are very hard.” Her eyes returned to comb over the fields, searching for answers? No: like Nicodemus, she had a question, but it was a question she didn’t know how to ask.

She soon began to speak, words suddenly pouring from her heart, “I know about God’s Law. I know of the 10 commandments. And this I know: that I sin; I sin.” As we continued to speak with her, she questioned how eternal life could be offered to her when she made mistakes repeatedly in her life. She reasoned, “Jesus would not take me with Him if He were to return to this earth now. There must first be forgiveness. I must first be without sin.”

This woman is getting to the heart of an issue that we all deal with as sinful human beings. It makes sense to us, as it makes sense to the Zambian villagers, that sin requires justification: consequently in the form of judgment from God. But the Good News that we came to share is that God is a merciful God, and He loves forgiveness. Just as we related to the women sitting outside of the hut that day, Isaiah 53 and Romans 3 say that Jesus came as a sacrifice to atone for our sin. Those passages tell us that He didn’t come out of obligation or necessity; He came because He loved. He loved us; He loved those women: even then, even now.

As one of the local villagers would later describe it, there is a secret that flows from the Heart of God, and this secret of God is His grace. Jesus was and is His grace to us. God gave us what we did not deserve. Even while we were still living in our sin, He came for us, and died a horrible death as a sacrifice for us. Because of the blood He shed for us, there is grace for us, and there is forgiveness. Because of the blood that flows from His veins, when we choose to follow Jesus who came as our Savior, forsaking our own ways and following His, we stand forgiven in the eyes of God. Just as 1 John 1:8 says, if we claim to be without sin, we are only deceiving ourselves. But if we confess our sin to our Savior, He is faithful to cleanse us and purify us through God’s grace to make us holy in the sight of our Father.

As our conversation with the women was coming to a close, the woman who had spoken in the beginning paused again, and spoke. She said simply, “These things… they are not hard things.” In the beginning, all this woman could see was a God that towered over her as a judge, weighing her soul on a scale between an eternal reward and her sin. And without His grace, she is right: there is no justification or hope for us because of our sin. But as she heard the message of the gospel, and saw that Jesus Himself was the reality of God’s grace, she began to understand this “secret of God” as the key to her salvation. Eventually, both of the women prayed with us to accept Christ as their Savior, and they chose to follow Him that day.

I am overwhelmed by God’s faithfulness to all of us. Who are we that He hears us when we cry out to Him? Who are we that He should listen to us when we pray? But He did hear us, and He does listen to us. God says that He will move on behalf of those who wait on Him. He heard the longing of our hearts for Him to be glorified through making a way for these people. And He did make a way; and it is because of His grace.

These are NOT hard things: but they are not things that we can do on our own. We can’t even love You, God, unless You help us. We are hopeless without You and your grace. Lord, give us eyes to see and ears to hear and hearts to understand the width and the depth and the height of Your GREAT love for those You created for Yourself.

I am praying that God will continue to overwhelm us and undo us as we spread what He has done throughout the nation of Zambia. Please pray for us: that He would open the hearts of the Zambian people to understand His love and His grace. That He might prepare a way where there is none, and that He would make the words that we speak words from His own heart. We are in love with everything going on around us, and are on our knees in awe of what we believe God is going to do in this place this summer. I am praying that God will give us arms that will be wide open to embrace anything and everything He brings our way the coming days. For now, we are waiting on God’s direction and His timing for where to move next. He is faithful, and we trust Him, that He will do what He has promised. His grace is sufficient; and He is faithful to the very end.

We’re Here!

The first day we flew into Livingstone was overwhelming to say the least. We came in about 3 hours from New Day into an airport that looked more like a giant warehouse than any kind of modern building. We shuffled awkwardly off the plane, and were shocked to see fully armed guards when we walked around the first corner. It was obvious we weren’t in America anymore. But thankfully we had no problems with customs and were pushed right on through the door to meet up with some of the missionary staff from New Day. We hopped on the bus with them and headed toward the orphanage in Mapanza.

It was hard to believe we were in Zambia. We passed through the last town we would see called Choma about an hour out from the orphanage. We began to see clay houses, local women balancing 40 pound jugs of water on their heads, tightly bundled straw fences, and to my amusement, tons and tons and TONS of banana trees and mango trees. People grow them in their garden’s here like we grow tomatoes in America!

Cambree Tidwell, one of the missionary children that attends school at New Day and lives on site with the rest of her family, made the ride even more fun.

Cambree is 7 years old, loves language arts, and is an absolute, wonderful, mess. She sat in the middle of the bus with Billie Anne and me playing games with us and telling us about everything going on back at New Day. At one point Cambree plopped herself down between Billie Anne and me, and told us that she was going to recite Psalm 91 for us, and that she was going to do it in her “Zambian accent.” Guys: I was practically in tears by the time she finished; it was transparent, and it was beautiful. Though she was not aware of it, those words were like a prophecy over what was to come in the next few days at New Day. We had fun leaning out the windows, catching the wind in our hair, and waving excitedly back to the villagers greeting us from the road.

We pulled up to New day right as the sun bled out over the horizon. We were welcomed with a rich, flowing melody (sung in the local Tonga language) from the children and staff as they clapped their hands and welcomed us to their home. We closed the day eating a fantastic meal cooked by the Ester; our wonderful cook who makes the food for all of the volunteers. She gives the American south a run for its money with her very own hand-squeezed lemonade that has to be one of the best drinks I’ve ever tasted. Cambree’s older brother, Caedmon, made us a chocolate cake with cappuccino frosting. Needless to say, I didn’t expect to be this spoiled our first night in Zambia. If I’m certain of one thing, it’s that no one will be starving at New Day during volunteer weeks. Our first night, and the nights following that, felt like communing with family in a cozy atmosphere of love, support, hope, and anticipation for what lay ahead of us. We are excited for all that God is going to do this week. We are ready for some hard-earned sleep, and after that, an entirely new world God has set apart for us this summer.

Zambia or Bust!

First night spent on a plane was a SUCCESS! Billie Anne and I arrived safely in London this morning, and are currently trying to catch up on some sleep during our layover. Things have gone smoothly so far! Security was a breeze, and they even gave us some much-appreciated toothbrushes and toothpaste this morning.

 

We’ve been trying to waste some time in the airport. We noticed there are a ridiculous amount of flamboyant stores here at Heathrow. After muddling around all the extravagance, we’re still not really sure why these stores are located here in the first place. Where am I supposed to fit a new Dolce & Gabbana bag, even if I could afford it after buying my ticket to Africa? Materialism at its finest.

Anyway, we are so ready to hop on our next connection to Johannesburg! It’s an 11-hour flight, but that means we’re 11 hours closer to New Day! Get ready, Zambia! We’re coming for you!

Meanwhile, I’m going to enjoy a dark chocolate bar my mamma packed for a pick-me-up. Did I mention I love her?

 

 

Control Issues & God

I secretly took a quiz online once (the kind you see on BuzzFeed) that claimed it could analyze a woman’s personality type by the shape of her lipstick. I was procrastinating that day (I’m an expert thanks to college), and I decided that any kind of site that could define your personality by the shape of a cosmetic item was definitely worth my time. I was a little shocked, and even slightly resentful about my results. The site said that if your lipstick was narrowed to a sharp point at tip, with hard, angled edges on both sides, it is pretty safe to assume you “liked control” in your life. Here is a little picture of my (well-loved) lipstick:

As much as I hate to admit it, I’m learning I have some control issues in my life. People have always told me I’m a “planner”: I like organizing events, making charts, graphs, lists of times, dates, who, what, when, and HOW are we going to make it to this meeting when we are already 12 minutes– Ok. Fine. I’m a control freak. And I had been freaking out about my summer plans since December.

 When Christmas rolled around, I had had a pretty solid list of options I was ready to dive into for the summer. But at some point between Christmas and Spring Break, those plans went right out the window; along with the little time I had left before summer arrived.

 There was a specific point where I sank down on the floor of my dorm room, listening to the buzz of girls’ muffled voices as they passed my door. My eyes glazed over with tears of frustration as I ran my hands through my hair. I had applied, and emailed, and called, and prayed for summer positions, but my plans weren’t working out. “God, what am I supposed to do? This isn’t how it’s supposed to look.”

 I kept praying. I had my family praying, friends praying: “God, open the door You would have me walk through, and shut all others.” That was a scary prayer to pray, considering I felt like He was only shutting doors at this point in my life. But one day I was walking across campus, and I got a call from my mom.

 “GRACE. An opportunity has opened up…” I wasn’t taking her very seriously at that point. A lot of opportunities had opened up, and most of them had closed soon after. “There is a chance for you to go to Zambia this summer!” She was practically singing; talking so fast I could hardly keep up. “All the details are right! Grace, this might be your chance. Do you want to do this?”

 My heart stopped. I was in disbelief. I have dreamed about going and living an extended time in Africa since I was a child. Was God finally going to make this dream I’d had for so long a reality? THIS summer?

 I said yes. Yes, yes, YES. And the rest is history. I am getting on a plane later today that will take me approximately 8,124 miles to New Day Orphanage in Zambia, where I will be serving for six weeks this summer. I am overwhelmed that God is allowing me to have this incredible adventure, but even more so, I’m undone by His faithfulness, and His goodness in my life. This isn’t how my life is supposed to look. I didn’t deserve to go serve these people this summer; I didn’t deserve this kind of grace in my life.

 I asked God this year, “What am I supposed to do?” And God didn’t answer me outright. He answered me as He answered Job: “Where were YOU when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me, if you understand…” (Job 38:4) And I’ve realized through my experience this spring that I don’t understand; His ways are higher than my ways, and His thoughts are above my own. (Is. 55:8) But I know that my God is great; and my God loves; and my God is GOOD. His questions are more satisfying to my soul than any answer I could have found on this earth. His plans for me are more fulfilling than any that I could have dreamed up on my own.

 I lost control of my plans this summer. And it very well may turn out to be one of the best things that has ever happened to me. I am taking the trip of a lifetime to serve how I have longed to serve for my lifetime. And all of this is because God is in control of my life, and I am not. Hallelujah: there is grace. Even for a control freak.