I’ve finally returned to normal life, or I guess you could say I have since I’m back in the grind of going to work. But I don’t feel like I’ve returned to normal life. I don’t feel like anythings normal here anymore.
I’ve just returned from doing missions work and ministry in the African bush for close to three weeks. I left at the very end of July and flew back into the states on Tuesday of this week.
If I were to describe everything that’s happened in the past few weeks in one word, it would be “awesome”. If I had to describe it in two words it would be “life changing”. I couldn’t have ever imagined or expected how much my life would change just from the time I spent overseas on this trip. I mean I figured things would be different, I just didn’t realize how different.
For real.
First of all I saw some pretty epic things. God moved in some awesome ways, and was with us every step of the way. As a collective group we led over 200 people in the salvation prayer. Amazing. On top of that we had a crazy ton amount of people get healed and delivered from various sicknesses and pains and problems. Like I said, God was with us every step of the way.
The first village that we went to the people had been waiting for two days to hear us speak when we arrived. Two days. And were not talking about them stepping out of their door and walking across the street to hear us speak. Nor are we talking about them getting in their car and driving down the road a few miles to hear us speak. Were talking they walked crazy far distances and WAITED two days for us to speak. That’s intense. That’s like some straight up old testament stuff right there. I could never imagine that people would be that hungry to hear the word (ok maybe I could, but having grown up in America you don’t see that sort of attitude all that often).
We would walk up to huts to minister God’s word, and people would be so happy to hear what we had to say. If they weren’t saved, they would listen to us anyways, and ask us questions. If they were saved, they would be so happy just for us to share a few scriptures with them.
Not a huge sermon. Not some views or thoughts we had. Just a few scriptures from the word of God. We don’t think about just how available the Bible is to us as Americans (I mean I have the Bible app on my iPhone) but we have it pretty well off, let me tell you. A lot of Christians over there can’t read the Bible, not because they don’t want to, but because they don’t have one.
What else? Oh yea, normal life. I spent the time over there walking around the bush, visiting huts and the people that lived in them. Sleeping on the ground in a sleeping bag, and not doing laundry or taking a shower all that often. Not quite how I’ve ever lived in the past. And yet, I miss it. For real, completely and honestly, I miss it. I felt more comfortable there and doing what I did while I was over there than I’ve felt in probably the last two years here in the states. The moment I landed in South Africa I felt home. The moment I arrived at the base camp in Zambia I really felt home.
Flying back was probably one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. I mean I didn’t have much of a choice, seeing as how I didn’t have the money to stay or the means to not leave, but it was still hard. Sitting in the airport in Johannesburg one of my fellow team mates asked me what I was going to do when I got back to the states, and I had no answer. Honestly, I really didn’t know what to say. Up until that point I had thought about how it might be nice to see these people again, or go to this restaurant, or visit some random place. But at that point a lot of those things seemed to drop into the background and not matter as much. What seemed to really matter was how I felt so at home in Africa, felt so at home walking around and doing ministry, so at home doing what I had been doing.
So yea, like I said, coming home was one of the hardest things to do ever. I’m already thinking about how to get back, and when. The organization that I went with (Overland Missions) does a three month Advanced Missions Training program twice a year, and the first one next year is in May. So at this point my eyes are set in that direction. The program lasts a total of three months, but if at all possible I’m going to aim for staying an extra two months and helping out in any way possible.
On top of that I’m hoping to be able to go on our Spanish church’s next missions trip, depending on when that is next year. And then to any other places that the Lord will give me the clearance to go to.
Because really at this point, I figure why not? I’ve spent the past two years not doing really anything. Now let me clarify what that means before people freak out. I mean, I have done things, and they haven’t all been bad things. I’ve had a job that I’ve done well and that I’ve been successful at. I’ve worked in my church and helped with our youth ministry, and I certainly don’t discredit or cast that down as insignificant. But many times I felt as if I was just going through the motions. Just working away each week, paying the same bills over and over, and not really going forward at all.
I know how crazy that probably sounds. I mean, it sounds crazy as I’m TYPING IT. But its so completely true, and I’m amazed that it took me this long just to see it. It’s like I’ve been hiding in a cave for years, and all of a sudden I’ve found an exit and have stepped out, and been hit with this insane light. That’s about the best way I can describe it. And now that I’m looking out over the landscape in front of me, and can see everything out in the distance, I’m looking back at the cave and wondering why I stayed in it for so long.
Once again that’s not to discredit everything from the past few years. Working in our youth ministry has been one of the best things I’ve ever done. The relationships that I made and the people I met, as well as all the experience that I received was life changing and much needed in my life. But after this trip its just like ok, time for the next step.
I can’t really say if I’m planning on doing missions work full time or not. Honestly, I don’t think I could just spit out an answer to that right now. Maybe because I’ve still not even had the chance to fully reflect and digest everything that’s happened to me in the past few weeks. Though I guess from what I’ve just poured out and typed that option definitely seems to be there. What I do know is right now, currently, I want to go back out on the missions field like no tomorrow. I want to go back to Africa like pronto, and then to other places that I’ve never been. I want to step out into the world and just hit it full force, and witness to those people that might only get that one chance to hear the gospel. Not saying that I don’t want to reach people in America, because I do. But I have such a pull for global missions at this point, and after this trip, that its not even funny. And next year, in Africa, is one of the first steps. I’m confident of that.
As far as what my current plans for the next few months, and my long term plans for late into next year are, I have no idea. I mean I have a lot to think about, were to keep working and were to live come the beginning of next year, how to get to were I really feel the Lord directing me, and how to pay for it. What to do during those months in between, and then what to do way past that. There are so many thoughts and ideas and questions hitting my brain that its insane. But the one thing I do know is God has a plan.
I’m completely confident at this point that God has a specific purpose for my life.
It’s taken me a while to get to that realization. That might sound strange to you, but it’s definitely been a journey. I moved to Florida in 2006, three months after I felt the pull to go to a local seminary school out of a church. I knew a total of maybe four or five people, and had no idea what to expect. And from that move I’ve come so much farther than I would have ever expected. To the point of ending up on the other side of the world, preaching to people in Africa. And it was exactly were I needed to be at the exact right time. I was suppose to be in Africa these past few weeks, I knew that for a fact before I left, but now that fact is so real to me, in a way I can’t even describe.
I’m frankly amazed that, regardless of my mistakes or the ways that I’ve missed it, God has stayed with me and led me every step of the way. Even when I was trying to go my own way, and trying to do my own thing, He was still there, every step of the way, coaching me to head in a certain direction. He knew exactly what I needed, and when. He knew exactly what it would take for me to realize and accept certain things, and exactly how to get me there. And though the process has taken a while, probably longer that it should have due to my own stubborn self, I feel like I’m sort of getting the hang of this whole “God has a plan” thing.
In Ephesians 1 it says “Even as [in His love] He chose us [actually picked us out for Himself as His own] in Christ before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy (consecrated and set apart for Him) and blameless in His sight, even above reproach, before Him in love….for we had been foreordained (chosen and appointed beforehand) in accordance with His purpose….”
God basically has and has had a plan for my life from the beginning. I’ve always agreed with that per say, and have even preached it before, but I don’t think I ever quite had the understanding of it up until the end of this trip. The fact that when I was still living in Boone North Carolina, going absolutely no were, God had already planned on me being in Africa ministering to several hundred people years and years later, BLOWS MY MIND. It’s an insane thought to comprehend, that He already had it all planned out, all the connections I would need to get there, all the people I would have to meet, and all the relationships I would have to build. But He didn’t miss a beat, and set everything up perfectly.
I guess I sort of derailed there, from describing my trip, but I needed to get that all out. Africa was great, it was exactly what I needed. Not only did God use me to minister to and preach his word, and to effect peoples lives, but He used those same people, and the countries I visited, to minister to and effect me. I don’t know if I could go back to normal life if I wanted to. Which I don’t. I’m ready to step out and seize the day. To take this life and start doing whatever it is God has planned and is planning for me. Because I’m confident that whatever it is and whatever it entails, it’s loads better than what I could come up with.
So bring it on God. I’m ready.
