God's Faithfulness

Yes, it’s been for freaking ever since I’ve blogged. Sorry. And as a warning, this is long.

It’s always crazy to see how the Lord works and how faithful He is when He doesn’t tell you the whole story, but tells you that it’s going to be okay. I’ve learned that with every obstacle in my life, but I always seem to forget. However, God has a funny way of reminding me when I need it most.

Case in point, this past Christmas… I got some crazy news from some random guy that my mom was his birthmother. Seems like some wild plot from a Lifetime movie, am I right? I thought it was a complete joke or scam. But I couldn’t help but realize how much he looked like my mom, and me, for that matter. The only thing to do was talk to my mom. Sounds easy, right? Wrong. It is for me at least. I don’t do confrontation. It’s the one thing I cannot handle. I was absolutely scared to death. I kept fighting with God, wondering why it had to be me and why I had to be the one responsible with this news. I didn’t understand; I didn’t think I could take it. I know that everything the Lord does is good, but I was still scared to death. What if my dad didn’t know and it somehow split up my family? Several thoughts came to mind, but I had to keep reminding myself that God is good. Always good.

I found an awesome devotional in my new awesome Bible, and it had the perfect passage that gave my heart hope. It said, “There will be times in life when we can’t see the trail. Times when we get sidetracked by a big bump in the road. But we can rest assured that in those times, God will always takes us by our sweaty palms and lead us safely on.” I didn’t see the trail. I didn’t understand what the heck God was doing, but I had to trust that He would take my sweaty palms and lead me the safest way. I knew I couldn’t just ignore my possible half brother, and I would have to talk to my mom. I knew that was where God was leading me. And I knew that He would be faithful.

I can’t tell you how many times I reminded myself of that when I was getting ready to confront my mom. It took at least a week since I had to talk to my mom alone because I wasn’t sure if my dad knew, and that proved harder than I thought. The night I was going to talk to her fell through because she got home from work early. Finally I was able to talk to her like a week later. I thought I was going to throw up all day long. My body obviously doesn’t handle nerves well. She came in my room and sat on my bed because I texted her while she was at work that I needed to talk to her about something. I tell her the story of how JP contacted me and how he said she was his birthmother. She didn’t say anything and finally said she wondered if that day would ever come. It was official, I have a half brother. Then I saw how faithful God was, yet again. She was completely honest with me and said that the baby’s father didn’t want to have anything to do with it, and she thought the baby could have a better life with someone else rather than a single mother working at Kroger. Not only that, but she said that she told my dad before they got married. So, he already knew and accepted it and our family wasn’t going to fall apart. God is good.

Through them getting to communicate as well as me communicating with JP and his adopted mom, I saw how incredible God is and how amazing it was to play a part in their “reunion.” My mom was free. She had been carrying this around as a secret, and she was finally able to be free with everyone. She had wondered for 27 years whether she had done the right thing and if the baby she had carried for 9 months and given birth to was okay. Now she knew he had flourished in a loving home. JP was free as well. He had always known that he was adopted because his parents had been open with him, so he had wondered for 27 years if he was just some mistake and had been a burden to someone. There was a piece of his heart missing. Now he knows that he wasn’t just some bad mistake, that my mom had loved him enough to try and make the best decision for his own good. His heart is whole and he’s been smiling more now than he ever has been. Because God used me, my mom is free and JP doesn’t have a gaping hole in his heart anymore. Are there any more blessings God could have showered on us? Yes, yes there were. Turns out JP’s mother wasn’t able to have children, and three adoptions had already fallen through. They didn’t think they were going to have kids. But then she received a son, the greatest gift in the world. My mom changed her life forever. I don’t think the kid could have gotten a better mother. She brought him up in a loving, Christian home, and she would do anything for him. She sent my mom a loving letter and told her what a priceless gift she had given her. My mom knew that she had made the right decision, and realized what an unbelievable impact on others that decision had made. God is good. God is faithful.

And it doesn’t end there. For 27 years, JP had the dream of meeting his birthmother. A dream he probably thought would never come true. A week ago, that dream did come true. He met his birthmother. And I met my half brother. After lots of tears from his mother, my mother, and everyone else, our family has grown. Not many people get a new family for Christmas. We did :)

My path might have been difficult, but God led me safely on. He was faithful. He allowed little ol’ me to help change the lives of so many people, my mom and new brother being two of them. I can’t tell you how bad I didn’t want to listen to God and wanted to take the easy way out. Think if I had. Think of all these blessings we would have missed out on. God knows what He’s doing. God is always good. He is always faithful.

This one's for you, Becca....

This is why I love fall in Dahlonega, and I told you I'd take pictures for you :)

Contentment

Ah, contentment. Something the Lord has been trying to drill into my head ever since I've been back from Africa, and only very recently have I let it sink in. When I got back I was depressed, sad, angry, and just did not want to be here. I think deep down, I wanted to feel that way. I wanted to come back changed, and maybe that meant being depressed if I wasn't in Africa. I think somehow I thought that if I tried to be content here, I'd go right back to the person I used to be, unchanged, and this summer wouldn't have made a difference in my life and how I live it.
I kept thinking about joy and how so many Africans had it despite their circumstances. I mean heck, I even blogged about it. I LOVED that they had so much joy when they had nothing. They found joy in their circumstances, yet I couldn't turn that around and look at it in my own life.
Maybe my circumstances weren't what I hoped they were. I was sad b/c I missed Africa and the people that I grew to love there. I wanted to be back there holding those children, spending time with our translators, and having a blast with my team. It's also so easy to forget your problems in Africa. We were thousands of miles away from our problems. Being here, we have to face them. Even though I may not have wanted to be here, why couldn't I find joy here? I think I was just too stubborn to see the joys in life here. I didn't want to be joyful. Deep down, I wanted to mope around and not be happy. And the devil used every opportunity he could to keep me there. It took some great friends who never gave up on me and gave me the kick in the butt I needed to get me to snap out of it. In all that mess, I lost focus on God and my relationship with Him, and I hurt people close to me that I lo.
When these realizations hit me, I knew something had to change. I wanted to change. And God really changed my heart in so many ways. I'm content with being here, in America. I'm joyful here. I worked at my daycare the other day and at recess I sat on the playground where the kids were playing. Anthony, who happens to be black, was apparently tired and decided to sit with me. Then he layed his head in my lap. It brought me back to Africa (not just cause he's black) because kids would always just sit with me or lay on me. It's one thing I missed most. And in that moment, with Anthony laying on me, I knew I was in fact content here. I even knew that if I was to never make it back to Africa, never see my kids again, I'd be okay. I had a peace about it. God blessed me with an incredible experience that I'm thankful for, not something that leads me to be discontent with where He has me right now. I'm not just content here, I'm joyful as well, and I want to be here.

June 12th

When insomnia kicks in, sometimes I decide to write. I know it's been awhile, but I'm writing now :). And since it's late (after 4am) I'm just going to copy some out of my journal. It was the end of our first week in Nsoko... "Today our task was manual labor. Half of the group went to Manzini (city about an hour and a half from Nsoko) to stay at the white house (the house owned by AIM) and half stayed here to work on building a house and doing stuff for Pastor Gift. Anna, Zech, and I helped Pastor Gift with some concrete stuff that lasted around noon (We made a cover for his septic tank, and put some concrete next to some water spickets). Later, we were talking to Nelly, Thandie's sister (Thandie was our translator) and decided to go on a walk. I stupidly wore my Old Navy shower shoes and they absolutely killed my feet. I have really painful blisters from the strap between my toes and also close to the heels of my feet. They were full of dirt and just painful. The walk was great besides the pain, but the whole time I had to think about how I'm blessed to have shoes and that many of them, especially the children, don't. I have no room to complain when they have so much less that I do. Then, later, I walked barefoot (seeing how I couldn't wear my shoes b/c of the blisters) to the fire pit with a little girl. I didn't know there were prickly thorns EVERYWHERE on the ground and they hurt SO bad. Once I got out there, I had to come right back (and you might be thinking, "what was the point of going out there then? well, I'm asking myself the same thing) and there was no way around it. The girl I was with didn't have shoes, and I could tell the thorns hurt her just as badly, so I carried her on my back which added to the pain b/c of the extra weight. While I walked back, I kept thinking that Christ suffered so much for us, the VERY least I could do was take a little pain and not complain if it meant this little girl wouldn't be in pain."
And the next day, I had to hike a mountain. Sound painful? Indeed it was. But God taught me a whole through my pain and many illnesses, and I wouldn't take them back for anything. God broke me. Physically. He physically broke me so that I could relate to the Swazis in ways that my teammates maybe weren't able to relate to them. I knew what kind of pain was caused from not wearing shoes. I became so much more aware of whether a child had on shoes and if their feet were in any pain. So many times I carried a kid on my back even if it wasn't comfortable after awhile b/c I knew they would have to walk barefoot otherwise. I just couldn't put them down. And I think I had a cold or some sort of sickness 85% of the time I was there. Not all that fun, but God was able to let me relate to them. So many of them were sick. Dying even. It made me thankful for my life and that I did merely just have a cold when the majority of the people we came across who were coughing or had cold-symptoms probably had TB. Being in Africa and seeing the pain and the sickness and the death makes you so much more thankful just for life. I'll never take my life for granted again. God moves even in sickness, even in pain.

Isabel's story

Remember Bongiwe, the girl that slept on me the first full night we were in Nsoko? Here's a different person's perspective on it. Isabel was Gift's assistant. She works with AIM and had been in Nsoko months before we got there. Here's her story...

Last night there was a knock on the door from the Real Life leader here. He said, "there are kids that haven't gone home and now they are sleeping...what should I do?" So he took them home. Then this morning they were already back so early. When asked about their mother, "She never came home last night. She was out drinking all night," and the father recently died from AIDS. These girls are so young. One is only 9 and she is taking care of her 2-year-old sister. They hadn't eaten since lunch provided from the carepoint yesterday at 1. It was now Sunday at 10 am. Pastor Gift's wife, Philile, made a big bowl of porridge for them to eat. I sat and made sure the baby got to eat and that the dog didn't take her food away. The other children that were around finished eating and went off to play at the other end of the property, leaving this two-year-old to finish eating all alone. I sat with her as she slowly brought the oversized spoon to her little mouth and licked off all of the porridge from it. After she had eaten all her stomach could take, she sat playing with a little twig from the ground. She was leaning on my leg and was looking so tired. I spoke to her in what little Siswati I know, but still nothing was said from her. Eventually she was in my lap, laying there as this tiny person that deserves so much more than she is receiving at "home". She fell asleep in my arms. This tiny little girl. As I was holding her my heart broke. The tears wouldn't stop coming. My already stuffed up nose was gathering more snot, but I just didn't care. What if this was my daughter, my sister, my niece? There are so many thoughts that run through my head. I want to fix this situation but what would that look like? What do you do? What can I do? And I still have no answer. The only thing I know to do is to love this tiny person that God has created. To be Jesus with skin on.

It was so weird seeing this blog tonight, and being able to read about Bongiwe's homelife. Her mother's wasting money on alcohol, father's dead, and she's left taking care of her siblings. I remember someone getting upset with all the injustice that we were seeing and one of the leaders said, "It's just the situation they're in." She said it like it wasn't a big deal. Well, yes, it is the situation they're in but it's not fair when we have so much and they have so little. It's not Bongiwe's fault that her mother does drugs and that she's not able to eat days at a time. I wish I could make a difference in her life. I want to go back so bad to make a difference. To show her more of God's love, more of the unconditional love that she doesn't find at home. My heart is completely broken for her. I feel helpless here. I wish I could do more.

Where do I go from here?

Throughout high school I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life. God had blessed me with a talent, and I wanted to use it and make a career out of it. I decided I was going to illustrate children's books... sounds pretty awesome, huh?
God first started pulling me in another direction when I started working at a daycare. Those kids melted my heart... well some of them anyway. I started questioning my future. What the heck am I supposed to do with my life? I considered changing majors, being a teacher, going into children's ministry... something. I realized that I hate doing art if I'm getting paid for it, and if it became a job I knew I'd come to despise it. I realized I didn't have a passion for it; I was just good at it and enjoyed it.
So, what to do? I just continued on the art path. And to tell you the truth, I think it was because I knew it would be easier. Yeah, I know. Then I signed up to go to Africa. Started questioning whether I could be a missionary. I thought there was no way that would happen, so pushed it out of mind. Then I went to Africa. It stole my heart. Then I had to leave. I can't tell you how much I didn't want to. I knew I could have moved there and been perfectly happy. When I got back, I was a wreck. I wanted to go back so bad. I felt God calling me to live there. Maybe not in Nsoko, but somewhere in Africa. Then after a while I started questioning that. I still missed Africa just as much, but knew I'd miss my friends and family if I moved halfway across the world for at least a year.
What to do? Then I started thinking about maybe doing graphic design stuff at a church and going on their missions. Sounds pretty cool, right? These past few weeks, I've missed Africa so much. It's been intensely tugging on my heart. I feel like I can't be happy unless I'm there. With His children in Africa. 2 months is just not enough. Everything in me wants to hop on a plane and take a visit to Nsoko. Even if I had more than $7 in the bank, this is just not feasable. At this point, I want to live in Africa. Maybe for a year. Maybe for 2. Maybe for even more longterm. But I don't know. I don't know what God has in store for my life. I can't keep choosing the easy way. Africa certainly is not the easy way. Getting my parents' approval is just one of many obstacles. But God is bigger than obstacles.
I miss Africa. God's put that country on my heart so intensely that I can't see myself doing any other thing with my life. Yet, I'm still confused, and I'm still lost.

I Need Africa More than Africa Needs Me

So, you know that video on the Mocha Club website called "I Need Africa More than Africa Needs Me"? If not, watch it here. It describes exactly the way I feel about Africa and the impact it made on me.
When I signed up for the trip I had this notion in my head that these people needed me. I've seen the poverty commercials on television... there's so much heartache, right? So much disease? So much pain? So much hurting? Of course they need me. Of course they need my team. Of course they need our help. And even as the trip drew nearer, I continued to have these thoughts in my mind. We were going to do so much for them. These children don't have parents. They depend on other kids to survive. They need our love. They need our help. All I was thinking was, "How can I help? How can I make a difference?" I thought I was needed. These people have nothing, right? They fight just to fill their bellies once a day. They need my help, right? I have so much I can offer. I come from America for crying out loud. We have more things than we know what to do with. They need me.
Being there for two months, my whole perception was flipped upside down. I need them more than they need me. Much, much more. The joy these people had was incredible. They literally have nothing, yet they have so much joy, so much faith, and so much that they're thankful for. "I bought into the lie that circumstance defines happiness," but it does not. Like I said, these people have nothing, their circumstances are unimaginable. You'd think there'd be no happiness, no joy, no laughter, no smiles. All I saw in Africa were smiling faces, all I heard was laughter. It was incredible. Their faith was incredible. One lady we met on a home visit couldn't get out of bed and she'd been having migraines for months. She was in incredible pain, but I was blown away by the faith she had. She had so much to complain about, so much pain, yet she was rejoicing and praising her Father for the life she'd been given. And she had faith that He would heal her, and if not, it was okay, because there's be no suffering in Heaven. Would you be content and okay with having a migraine every day for the rest of your life? I know I wouldn't. But she was.
They showed us more love than we could have ever shown them. They changed my life. I realized I was the one that needed them. They showed me so much about how my joy should not depend on my circumstances. And I have not been living that out very well. I'm completely broke, and even though they showed me so much about that not mattering, I've been completely stressed and not finding any joy anything because of my circumstances. Who cares if I have no money? Who cares if I can't eat Chickfila whenever I have a craving? Who cares if my bill payments are a little late? They don't have food, yet they find joy in life. They don't let their circumstances determine their joy. They are full of smiling faces even though they are in the depths of poverty. I've been stressed over not having enough money for rent and bills and dues and groceries and I'm pretty sure it's been hard for me to crack a smile. But why? I should find joy in life. I should find joy in the little things God brings me. I want every single thing I saw in Africa to penetrate my heart so that I practice what I've been taught. I don't want my joy to be determined by the "next thing" I need or want. I want to be content and find joy in the circumstances that I'm in.

I need Africa. I was changed. They may need our help, but as for me, I need Africa more than Africa needs me.