Friends,       My last night in Africa I prayed “God whatever it is you have for me is what I want. Whatever you need me to sacrifice I’ll sacrifice. I just need you to open the doors and know that I’ll walk through.” That bold prayer was answered just shortly after I got home.        I inquired with AIM about spending a few weeks doing relief work down in Haiti. The next day I got a phone call asking me if I had any interest in leading short term missions trips all summer. Before I could even ask God if this is what He...

                            When I wrote “It hurts to say good bye” I really thought that would be my last blog about my precious time in Swaziland. I had already left the beautiful country and my Swazi friends and would shortly be back in America. Those were my closing thoughts, my closing emotions and what I thought was me closing that chapter of my life. Unbeknownst to me I hadn’t yet learned everything that I was supposed to...

    It hurts to say good bye. It hurts to see your face for the last time. Will we ever see each other again or only at night in our dreams? Was this our last good bye or do we still have hellos ahead of us. No matter what, I will never forget your smile. I will never forget the tears we shared. I will never forget your love. I will never forget the way you made me feel. I came here to minister to you, yet you were the one ministering to me. You taught me how to be selfless. You taught me how to genuinely care and most importantly you showed me how to love. You showed me how to...

               This past week has been filled with many goodbyes. Everyday brings new reminders of things that I am going to have to leave behind when I return home. I am going to have to leave people I’ve grown to love, ministries where I’ve worked and a community that I’ve lived in. Although I’m sad to say goodbye to these things, something cool that I have learned is that no matter how much I leave behind there will always be the things I’ve learned, experienced, and will remember that I...

Well, here it is; my last blog whilst here in Swaziland. I never felt like I would ever be at this point, although I’m glad that I am. It’s been great here but I know that the Lord has a lot in store for me back home. I will miss many of the people here, most notably our friends Bheki, Lelo, and Musa. I could talk about Bheki’s smile, Musa’s laugh, and Lelo’s smooth style for hours, but I’m trying to wrap things up and I don’t want to be too wordy, if that’s possible. It seemed that Bheki and Musa were over every night for dinner, and of...

          Over the past week and a half I have tried to figure out how to emotionally detach myself from everything I have come to know and love here in Swaziland. The things I have experienced during my three months here will now always be a part of who I am, a part of my story, but it is time to go home and start the next chapter of my life.             During the past three months the Lord has taken me through some healing from things in my past that have left wounds, and I...