Honey, we’re home. After driving to the Atlanta airport, waiting for 6 hours, flying for 17 hours,
driving for 1 hour, sleeping in Johannesburg for 4 hours, driving for 6 hours, going through 2 border checks, going grocery shopping, converting money, and driving another hour, we have made it to the homestead.Swazi isn’t like any stereotypical description of Africa, it’s mountainous, green, full of smiles, old dogs, chickens, blossoms, tin outhouses, and laughter. It’s everything I could ever want in a home. My team and I share a big hut with 7 sets of bunk beds, shower in a bucket with a coffee cup, eat meals cooked over a gas stove, live life by the light of a head lamp, sing songs and tell stories until the late hour of 8pm, and generally feast on the joy that we have for finally being in our home. All of that being said, we will move to Nsoko in a month, and find new things to love about our lives once we arrive. Ministry details are still a bit shady, but it sounds like our time will be divided between the Hope House, a care center where people can die from AIDS with dignity and peace, care points, where children go to be fed and cared for, and a purse-making womens’ co-op. We begin our work tomorrow, and our hearts are eager to begin pouring out the love we’ve drawn from each other, our friends and family, training camp, and the Lord.
Thus far, a huge change in my heart has been made apparent. As I’m sure you know, I am a go-go-go person. I find joy in scheduling, being over-committed, and never resting. I am a crazy person. I don’t like the unknown, the unplanned, the unfilled. In the last semester, the Lord has taken ahold of that desire to do more and be more, and has poured patience and peace in to the place where the driving to-do list once rested. This trip, thus far, has been about resting, listening, waiting, adjusting and being free. Normally, I would be going crazy right now, wanting to know the schedule for the next week, cramming in more ministry and never sleeping, but by God’s grace, that desire to be busy has been stripped from me. The cavity where that desire once rested has given room for the Spirit to move, for decisions to be made based on His authority, for comfort to be found in Him alone, and to feel the freedom of no longer being a slave to activity. There is beauty in the simplicity of this African life. Free people free people, and I am here to free people. The Lord has been at work in my heart, preparing a path for me to live simply and easily, resting in His provision for all of us.
“For the Lord will comfort Zion; He will comfort all her waste places, and will make her desert like the garden of the Lord; joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the voice of song.”
Isaiah 53:3
Comfort, provision, joy, gladness, thanksgiving and song are all working in harmony to keep us at peace and ready to do His work.
