First South Africa Update- traveling

January 27, 2015 | 3:30pm (Indiana time) 

I sit in the window seat, watching a water drop slowly quiver its way to the top of the window. Glancing down, I see snow-dusted fields, the last that I will see of them until at least August. The thin but transparent cloud cover adds to the illusion that everything on the ground is one shade or another of white. If you're wondering if this whole moving to Africa thing feels real yet, the answer is most definitely not. I didn't even cry my eyes out at the airport, because after all, it is only a see you later. I am still at a loss for words. Is this really happening? 

As I was reading my Bible earlier this week, God gave me Song of Solomon 2:10-13 which says: 

"My beloved spoke and said to me, 'Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, come with me. See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come, the cooing of doves is heard in our land. The fig tree forms its early fruit; the blossoming vines spread their fragrance. Arise, come, my darling; my beautiful one, come with me.'" 

I feel God calling me away for this season of my life. For so long I have felt the desire to do something MORE with my life, and the day has finally come. I know He's going to teach me some powerful lessons and grow me more than ever before. I am going to need Him more desperately, more often, and in more tangible ways. He's going to strip me of any need outside of my need for Him. None of this is going to be easy. I want to thank everyone for their continued prayers and thoughts and messages; this is going to be crazy in the best way possible. I can finally say it for real: IM GOING ON AN ADVENTURE!!! 

January 27, 2015 | 11:35pm (Indiana time) 

I've been on the second plane for a little more than 5 hours now. Carly's and my plane was late leaving, so it arrived about 20 minutes later than expected. We only had an hour and a half layover in Washington, D.C., and the delay cut it down to about and hour and ten minutes. We ended up having to take a shuttle and two trains to our terminal, and by the time we got to our gate it was about 5:10 (our flight left at 5:40). As we approached the gate, it looked strangely empty. I heard Carly next to me say, "Oh, are they boarding already?" Turns out, we were the very last ones on the plane. I'm sure we would have been fine if we had taken a little longer, because the plane left on time half an hour later. All of my fellow interns (except for one, who is a returning 2nd year intern) are on this flight with me and it has been absolutely amazing finally meeting them for real. It is such a strange and wonderful thing to recognize people you've never actually met before, but for whom you have been praying and who have been praying for you! We all immediately clicked, and I'm already looking forward to spending the next year with them. 

Now I'm sitting here on the plane, all the lights turned out and most everyone asleep. I can't sleep. My eyes burn from tiredness and I'm exhausted, but the adrenaline still hasn't stopped. Everything is still so surreal, and I'm sure it will be for a while. I really want to sleep, but here I sit, writing this instead. I'm torn between the desires to eat a mountain of food and to run a couple laps. My legs are sore. 

That's about it right now. We still have a little more than an hour until the plane lands, and even then, we will only be landed for an hour. We won't even get off the plane. Then we will take off again and have another 8 1/2 hours of flight. 

January 28, 2015 | 8:15am Indiana time, 3:15pm SA time

I finally was able to go to sleep sometime between 3 and 4am Indiana time, and I got a solid two hours at least, judging by the number of Lord of the Rings soundtracks I got through. We now have about 2 and a half hours left on the plane! It's strange, because all the shutters on the plane are pulled down so people can sleep, so it's really dark in here, but it's daylight outside. My internal clock isn't sure what to think right now. Is it 8am or 3pm??? In about 20 minutes the crew will serve us lunch, the third meal since we've been on the plane. 

His ability, not mine

My little Graham is here to visit one last time before I go to Africa! I think he was every bit as excited to come as we all were to have him. Like most almost-four-year-olds, he constantly wants to be played with. I'm pretty sure I heard the words, "Hey Faith, wanna play cars with me?" at least 10 times yesterday. And I don't mind at all! I want to spend every possible moment with him while he's here.

At one point yesterday when we were playing, we started to toss a ball back and forth. It made me laugh, because every time he threw it, he threw it high and hard, and I had to stretch up and do my best to catch the ball, but when I "threw" it back to him, he would cup his little hands together and I would gently toss it so it would land right in his hands. Even though I gave him high fives and told him what an awesome job he did, I laughed because of how much the game depended entirely on my ability to catch and throw well, not his. 

It immediately brought to mind my relationship with Christ. I don't think we will ever know, at least until eternity, how much everything in which we succeeded or did well in life depended entirely on God's ability, and not ours. I get so caught up in trying to do my best for Him, trying never to Him down, when all along, everything is in His hands. It's based on His ability, not mine.
I'm not trying to underestimate or undervalue striving to please God, but in the end, we're not perfect, and we won't be until He comes again and sets everything right. In the meantime, relax. He's got this. You can (figuratively) throw the ball as high and hard as possible, and He will catch it and gently toss it back to you.

10,000 reasons

After about 5 months, I'm back to blogging. I felt like I needed a break to step back and let myself learn and grow without constantly trying to put everything into words. But now I'm back just in time for Africa, and I'm looking forward to using this blog to write about what God teaches me while I'm there. 

My friend Natalie just came and visited for a week, and while she was here, she showed me her Joy Notebook, in which she recorded at least 3 things a day that brought her joy. It made me remember a book that I started in 2013. I called it my 10,000 reasons notebook, and in it I wrote things I came across during my day for which I can praise God in an effort to one day get to 10,000 reasons to praise God. I kinda forgot about it and stopped doing it in April, but Natalie inspired me to start it back up, so on the 12th I began writing things I could praise God for throughout the day. Let me tell you, if you ever need a joy boost, do this! My reasons have varied from tiny mundane pleasures like a cup of hot tea with milk and sugar to huge blessings, like God's unfailing love or a specific incident of His provision. When I begin to see again that everything, every little minute thing is a gift from God as He romances me, my joy skyrockets. In just 3 days, I have become extremely attached to my little notebook, and I carry it everywhere. It is impossible to be sad while reading it. 

I know one day, probably 10 years from now, when I get to 10,000, the song by Matt Redman will have so much more meaning as I hold my little notebooks full of tangible, experienced reasons to praise Him. And I'll never want to stop. 

God is not delusional.

God is not delusional. Quite the revelation, right? But really, why am I telling you this? Well, I was driving alone in the car yesterday and worshipping very loudly (I'm sure I was quite a sight to behold) when I had this revelation. Now obviously I didn't consciously think that God is delusional, but I realized that when I consider that fact that we are blameless before God, I considered it like He's somehow seeing us wrong. Like, "Isn't it so great how God sees us as sinless when really we're all disgustingly drenched in it?" 

But I realize that we don't wear a mask before Him. He isn't seeing a false representation of who we are, He's seeing the real thing. I think this belief that God isn't seeing the real me actually causes me to shy away from Him in guilt and shame because if I believe He's seeing something false, I become fearful that He'll see the real me. But I can rejoice! Because it is I, not He, who sees a false representation. I have been made blameless by Jesus's death on the cross. God is not delusional. 

God is good

Today I was scrolling through facebook and saw someone's post about something awesome that had happened in their life. The post started out with the phrase, "God is good!" and they went on to explain what had happened. As I read this, I was taken back to my trip to Mexico in 2012. I remember that in the midst of the cold, wet, cold, long (or so it seemed), cold, trip, when I got an unexpectedly hot shower (I was expecting it to be cold), the words "Thank you, Jesus!" came out of my mouth more times than I could count. He then showed me that even though it's fine and good to praise Him when our hearts are overflowing with praise and thankfulness, but it is just as good and He is just as worthy when something not-so-great is happening. 

So as I sat here on Facebook pondering it all, God challenged me to start saying, "God is good," in times one might not normally think to. Of course, this doesn't have to be something reserved for times of extreme calamity, but it could be the little times, like when you're running late and you hit a red light. Or when you just finished cleaning and someone wrecks the house. God deserves our praise even when we are frustrated, upset, and flustered. 

Equally effective

Does God ever teach you through your own prayers? I was praying for a friend who's on a mission trip this morning when I prayed something for their team that was not from me! I stopped and pondered what I had just prayed, amazed! This was a revelation! 

I was praying for effectiveness in ministry, and praying against discouragement, should their natural eyes not see what progress they were making. My team in Australia struggled with this, as we had no salvations during our trip. The majority of our ministry was conversations about God and who He was, planting seeds in the college students of Brisbane. But it came to me to pray that they would know that the seed planters are just as effective as the harvesters. When I prayed it, I stopped to think about what I had just said. The seed planters are just as effective as the harvesters. I think a lot of times when we talk about planting a seed in a person, we basically think of it as a nice way of saying, "You didn't do all that much," or, "You didn't make any progress with that person, but someone else might later." 

Just think about a farm. Since I live in Indiana, I'm thinking of corn. Imagine two different farmers are working a single plot of land. One's job is to plant the seed, and the other harvests it at the end of the season. Let's say the first farmer observes other farmers planting seed, and, seeing no difference in the ground after the farmers plant their seed, decides not to plant any seed at all, saying to himself, "This is a waste of time. I'll just relax and let the other farmer harvest later." 

Why doesn't this scenario work? Because there HAS to be seed. The seed is that of which the harvest is composed! And the thing about the two farmers is this: if they both do their job, they are equally effective. If one skips out on his job, it is just as devestating to the crop as if the other did. 

To Know Him is to love Him

As I was worshipping one night at camp this past week, I looked around and contemplated the beauty of God as the noise of a hundred people praying for each other and worshipping filled my ears. Seeing everyone experience God so beautifully, my heart ached as I wondered how every year, I watch most of the kids go home and go back to living exactly how they had been before. The services are so life-changing, it causes some confusion as to how and the world anyone can experience this, go home, and act like it never happened. 

God revealed this to me: To know God is to love Him. He Himself is love. So if you know Him, you will love Him. You will love Him passionately because of who He is, and you now know who He is. Out of that love then springs obedience, because when you love someone, it is your greatest desire to live a life that pleases them. Then the obedience is not forced, but done with a willing and joyful heart, because you are pleasing the One you love. The ultimate problem here is not the lack of obedience. The greatest need is not to free people of bondage and addictions (though that is vital) or to teach them what things are sin and preach against them (although this must be done). The ultimate problem is that people are not seeking God. In Matthew 7:7, Jesus promises that he who seeks will find. When we find God, we will begin to know Him. When we know Him, we will love Him. When we love Him, we will obey Him. This is vital, because if we only pray for freedom of bondage and addictions, they may get free, but if they don't seek God and know Him, they will return to their bondage or find a new one. If we only preach against sin and teach what is sin, they will learn, but they will have no motivation to follow through, or will try in their own strength, fail, and give up.

We need to teach them how to seek God on their own, and when they find Him, they will start following Him. If we do this from a young age, we could watch and see even the need for freedom from bondage and addictions drop as the youth prevent the bondage from even happening by following Jesus.