Have you ever prayed repetitively for God to give you an answer, a sign, anything? Have you often found the response to be..well nothing at all? Welcome to the lives of Team Swaziland. Over the past month we have devoted several mornings and afternoons for praying for god to give us a ministry or people or a job to do while we are here in Timbutini. Our answers, well a good amount of nothing. This past saturday we were supposed to have a BBQ and swimming at Mark, our host’s house. They had to cancel and we were all pretty bummed. As we sat in our “kitchen” and talked as a group we decided God ultimately had bigger plans for us that day. And did He ever. At first there was a good amount of awkward silence until people starting voicing their frustrations about God begin silent and not giving us direction. Suddenly for the first time the team really got real. We talked about how silence is not hearing God but doing the next reasonable step. We were able to encourage one another that God may seem silent, but he is constantly moving, working, and filling our lives. Then people on the team were pushed and stretched and forced to spill all the anxieties, fears, anger, and isolations they were feeling. God was in the room stirring and allowing people to be released from their burdens. Not only that, but God was so present in my words. I’m not usually one with the most wise and profound words but God just filled me so much and allowed me to speak such encouraging things to my team. I”m not saying this to brag, I’m saying this to prove how God can use the most ordinary people to speak HIS powerful and perfect words. Then this Sunday at church our pastor spoke about Acts 1:4. Jesus was just resurrected and has just come back and appeared to his apostles. He says to them, “Do not leave Jerusalem, until the Father sends you the gift he promised, as i told you before.” Before this verse meant nothing to me. But this african woman kept shouting CONTINUE TO WAIT! STAY IN JERUSALEM. In my head i’m thinking okay lady i get it, but he was talking to the apostles. Then she grew silent and said…JESUS is our jerusalem. Lightbulb-i get it. We are to STAY in jesus to ABIDE in Jesus to WAIT PATIENTLY on Jesus in all circumstances. Even this morning (october 11) i woke around 6am so excited to read my devotions out of My Utmost For His Highest. I really have never had an excitement like that for reading it before. The title, “God’s Silence-Then What.” It never ceases to amaze me with the Lord’s timing and how he always knows just what you need to hear. It talked about God’s silence being answers. That God will give you the very things you ask for, if you can patiently go on without them-without an audible answer for them right away. That silence is the most intimate blessing because it allows us to be brought into the mainstream of HIS purposes-not our own. It said how silence is wonderful because it rocks us, and causes us to be still and perfectly confident that “I know God has heard me.” Wow. Nothing like God needing to hit you over the head to finally get it. But I do. The silence I’ve been getting not just with things pertaining to this trip, but big life choices I have to make when I get home suddenly seems to make so much more sense. God wants me, and all of us, to be people that stay..who sit..who wait patiently in front of the Lord. We need to be people that stay in Jerusalem-people who abide in Jesus even amidst the silence. Yes silence is messy, frustrating, painful, and long. But it is a BLESSING. It is an ANSWER. It is a form of sheer intimacy and faith in Christ. May we sit in silence assured that our God hears us, He listens, He answers. So yes, I’m bound to face even more frustrations, silence, homesickness, and discouragements during my final months here..but i’ve made a choice. ‘I’m staying in Jerusalem.’ I will be a person who stays and waits. Because I know that even in my silence I can abide in Christ because he will abide in me. There is fruit in waiting for the Lord, so let us be people who wait where Jesus has told us to stay- and that place is IN HIM. 
