Greetings from Gainesville! The lovely ladies of team Swazi and I are packing our bags and are joyfully preparing to fly to Africa tomorrow evening. We have spent the last five days living in a chicken coop for people, worshiping with open hands, hearing sessions on practical missions skills, laughing, crying, and rejoicing for the winding paths that brought each of us here. We already feel at home together, but this family vacation is just beginning.
Our first night in Georgia was an unexpected adventure and unbelievable blessing, brought to us in the form of a safe house in the streets of downtown Atlanta. In small groups, we roamed for blocks, asking the Lord to guide our feet and our encounters. My teammates Dauna and Alison and I stood on the street corner and looked diagonally across at a man with a grocery sack and an umbrella, leaning up against a silver fire hydrant. We walked across and awkwardly introduced ourselves to Louis, a lonely man living somewhere in the city, only finding fellowship with those he met on the streets as he roamed in search of companionship. “Well, what do you want to know?” He asked us. I was taken aback by his question and the wisdom that followed, as he demonstrated a true transparency that is rarely found in my peers, much less in strangers. Most notably, he told us that he wanted to go to Africa. In response to why, he said he just wanted to, “Touch the soil. Breathe the air. Once you feel that dirt in your hands and fill your lungs with that spirit and that history, you’ll never be the same.”
Amen! We are not leaving our friends, family, home, school, responsibilities, activities, jobs, everything to return home in November as the same people we are today. If I wanted to stay the same, I would have continued to do the same, live the same, act the same, speak the same, just wallow in my same-ness. I am here to die to my self, to let my old self lay to rest and to clothe myself with the newness that comes with His grace and love. 2 Corinthians 5:17-18 says, “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation, everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.”
New. We came to be made new. I came to be made new. New soul, new mind, new spirit, new passion. One night as we worshiped, I felt an overwhelming message of value and of worth. The Lord was saying, Emma, you are valuable, perfect in my sight, exactly as I created you to be, put on your new self, own the creation you are in me. Isn’t that insane? God has created each of us exactly as He intended. The way we each look, speak, act, walk, laugh, cry, love, exactly as the creator of the entire universe intended. He has crafted us to be a perfect fit for the goals He will accomplish through us. The Lord who sent his son as a sacrifice for me finds me captivating and beautiful and gives me newness each morning.
Swaziland needs to hear that truth spoken over them. The women need to be called beautiful, the children need to be shown love, the sick need to be given new health, the poor in spirit need to be brought back to life. My team needs to be reassured of their beauty, to be covered with love, to be beaming with health, and to be given new life in the spirit. The people of Swaziland will not be the same, my team will not be the same, I will not be the same.
“Once you feel that dirt in your hands and fill your lungs with that spirit, you’ll never be the same.”
I cannot wait to touch the soil.
