Africa Part 2: Where my Heart is.

{Via} {Via}

Side note: I am raising funds for Influence through Paypal on my sidebar & through my Etsy store. 

Please prayerfully consider supporting me on this journey.

When I arrived in Africa, our group had a briefing on safety while in Kenya and Tanzania.

I remember feeling as though I wanted to turn around and go right back home to my comfortable house, AC and lack of snakes. Right there and then I was completely out of my comfort zone.

God was already at work though.

He had provided a way for me to come on this trip and blown my mind and how He had orchestrated those events. Read HERE.

So despite feeling incredibly nervous, I knew the Lord had wanted me there for some reason and felt super excited about what He was going to do while we were there.

I wrote a lot in my journal while on this trip, the first night I wrote about Psalm 121 and turning to the Lord when storms hit in life. A lot about knowing God can do impossible things after seeing Him provide a way for me to be in Africa.

I learned a lot over the next few days about relying on God and not myself in a variety of different situations.

As much as I had gone to Africa to serve God's people, I felt like it was actually me who was changed the most on this trip. 

He brought me to be a part of a bunch of work which was already going on in a village nested on the shores of Lake Victoria. 

We freshened up after arriving at our 'home' and headed off into the bush where we met the community we would be serving and spending our time with. 

My love for children has grown immensely since that trip.

I always had a joy whenever I spent time teaching Sunday school at my church or babysat for family friends. But my love and passion for children grew after I went away for college.

Looking back at the photos from this trip, I was not the one in the group who immediately felt comfortable around these kids. Honestly, I think I was afraid they wouldn't like me.

Then after we had been working on a project at a widow's home all day, we arrived back at the church in the village where all the kids were waiting for us.

I didn't need to approach them, because as soon as I smiled and tried to talk to one of them, I found myself surrounded by smiles. Children wanting to be held, hugged and even though I couldn't speak their language, they didn't mind one big.

A smile crosses every language barrier.

Before I knew what was happening, several girls had me sitting on the ground and were braiding my hair.

I can't even describe how much joy was passed between myself and these girls.

I remembering feeling at the end of our trip that I could live in that village forever, that I wanted to know those girls and those kids. To play with them and love on them. 

I never knew most of their names, but I remember them. 

After these sweet girls had braided my hair, we sat around together laughing and playing on the church steps. One of the younger girls in the group came up to me and sat in my lap.

I was so happy that she felt comfortable enough to just sit there.

Then she fell asleep.

Oh my goodness, I think my heart could not have been fuller.

I remember going to Tanzania to build a water tank for a widow in the village and to share Christ with the people there.

But now looking back, my heart is totally in the little time we spent with the children there.

I remember feeling confused that I didn't know why the Lord had called me to Africa.

I stood overlooking the beautiful scenery one day and prayed asking the Lord why I was there.

I felt less useful as a leader on that trip than I had while in India a few weeks before.

One of the leaders who runs a center in the village talked to me about this and told me that perhaps the Lord had taken me there for a specific purpose, but I wouldn't know what it was until I was older.

Now I feel he was perhaps right on.

The past month or so I have felt such a heart for Africa.

Is it even possible to feel that way about a place I have been to once?

To be praying about adopting a child from there?

To feel myself literally breaking because I want so badly to go to a country and love the children there who are hungry and dying?

I have yet to understand where this is all going...

But I'm excited.

I can't wait to see what the Lord's plans are.

'For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

“He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

{Matthew 25:42-45}

There were so many other things I could have shared with you guys about this trip.

But I focused on where my heart is currently.

With the kids I met in Tanzania.

Much Love,

L

P.S. Look out for a new African bag in my Etsy store...coming soon.

When God Provided: Africa Part 1

{Via} {Via}

Side note: I am raising funds for Influence through Paypal on my sidebar & through my Etsy store. 

Please prayerfully consider supporting me on this journey.

I have been thinking a lot lately about the Influence conference. I am trying so hard to trust the Lord with opening the door for me to go. I want to grow in learning how to make the most of the Influence the Lord has give me to share His love, the ways He has been at work in my life.

To share Him.

Some days I fully trust Him.

Others are harder.

When those moments come, I have found it encouraging to look back at times when God provided. 

Times where is was above and beyond my wildest expectations.

Africa has been on my heart a lot lately. I feel the Lord stirring my heart for that land again.

So allow me to share with you and journey the Lord took me on back in 2006, I wrote about some of the ongoing effects of that trip here. This was a journey which blew my mind about how sovereign the Lord is. How He is more than able to provide, when there seem to be so many obstacles in the way.

A story about how I found myself in Africa without knowing I would be there till six days before.

I had just finished a challenging year working for the first time, for an internet based company. Alongside this job I also worked part time as an intern with our church's youth group. I was pushed and stretched throughout many challenges that year.

My 19th birthday came and went toward the end of the academic year, I shared it with so many precious friends and several younger girls I had been able to invest time in that year.

I was also attracted to a godly young man from our church. He was the worship leader at our youth meetings, a surfer, and quickly became my best friend.

You know the type.

At the end of the year we had been challenged by his parents to let go of our friendship, as we were both very young and heading in very different life directions. To surrender the whole situation to Christ and trust Him with our hearts.

He left for the states about 2 weeks after that conversation to go to college.

I had no idea if I would ever see him again.

I was getting ready to head off to college myself in England. Then my family announced they too were England-bound. An unexpected change of plan. There would be no returning trips to see them during vacation-time. No trips back to the land where my friends now were and where I felt there was a link to this guy who had left.

I began to fall apart. 

Early that year in January I had planned to go on a mission trip with our church for 2 weeks to India. So a few weeks after my best friend left, I headed out to India.

I felt the Lord speaking to me throughout that trip, showing me His presence, comfort and love in ways I had never experienced before.

I became quite close to the older girls who were leaders on the trip. One in particular shared my struggles with my singleness and heart brokenness over the lost friendship.

As our time was coming to a quick end, they started talking about their upcoming trip to Tanzania. There were two trips organised that summer and they were all going on both trips. All the leaders had raised support months in advance to be able to afford both these trips.

Then one of them asked me why I wasn't going to Africa.

I probably mumbled something about not having the money. Then I was frustrated that I wouldn't get to go to a place that had intrigued me for a long time. Over something like money. Then I felt a nudge.

What a silly reason to not go and do something so life-changing.

I felt the Lord challenge me about whether I thought He could provide.

I secretly felt it was hopeless, there was only six days between landing and leaving for Africa.

But I chose to trust. Thinking I had nothing to lose.

I talked to my parents almost immediately after returning, convinced they would say no. I had already been gone for two weeks. I asked their permission to head out if I could get the support, flight and visas in time.

They said yes.

I was stunned.

I then called the region coordinator of the organisation about the trip. I explained how I felt the God had challenged me to go and I had some of the money in a savings account (money I had earned from my job to go toward college). He told me he would make some calls and see what he could do. But he made no promises, except to call me back asap with an answer.

I waited all day.

By the end of the day I had pretty much lost all hope. I felt so silly for thinking that something that big could just happen.

Then the phone rang.

The organisation running the trip had agreed to fund 2/3rds of the cost for me to go. He had taken so long calling me back as he had been talking to the airline booking my ticket.

Within 24hrs I had my support.

Then I needed visas. I was told to get to the Kenyan and Tanzanian embassies asap. Both of these were located in the capital city of the country we lived in. Which was several hours away. I called one of my friends who lived there, one of the team leaders from India. She invited me to come and stay with her and then head to the embassies with her the following day while she returned to pick up passports which had been there for about 4 months waiting approval for visas.

My heart sank.

My mother, being the incredibly supportive parent she is, drove me to the capital city and agreed to come back and get me when I had my visas.

The following day I entered the Kenyan embassy and explained my urgent need for a visa, that I was due to fly in about 3 days time.

He stamped my passport and I had my visa in about 5 mins total.

(My friend also collected all the visas they needed there too)

We headed across town to the Tanzanian embassy. We met the region coordinator there as he had come to appeal for the remaining passports they needed for those already scheduled months ago to go on the trip.

I was so nervous.

Once again I approached the window and explained my urgent need for a visa, that I was due to fly in 3 days time. They took my passport and told me to wait. About 40 mins passed. I thought for sure this was where this mind-blowing series of provision was going to come to a swift end. 

A lady then came out and handed a stack of passports to the region coordinator, mine included.

He handed it to me, I opened it and I saw a visa for Tanzania.

I could have cried.

My mom was able to come and get me that evening. I spent a total of 24hrs in the capital city and left with both visas and not a single glitch. I then spent the remaining two days gathering items I needed for the trip (like long skirts) and found myself boarding a plane bound for Kenya only days later.

If God is able to take a broken, doubting, selfish young girl like me and open doors providing in a way like that...why is He not able to do it for you too? Are you also waiting on the Lord for provision for something? Know that He has provided in the past.....He will provide again. 

Its always a wonderful reminder when I am discouraged about the Influence conference.

More to come on the actual trip while in Africa.

Much Love,

L

Allowing God to Satisfy.

When I was thirteen, I couldn't wait to be kissed. 

It sounded so exciting and so grown up.

Not to mention that everyone else in middle school had started pairing off into relationships, well as much as those were 'relationships.' 

Suddenly who was kissing who became a really hot topic among the girls I was friends with. 

I was really frustrated with the fact that no boy was interested in me enough to want to kiss me back then. 

When I was sixteen, the feelings of wanting to be kissed intensified. 

I began to question whether I was normal or desirable because no boy had even tried to get close to me romantically. I watched friends all around me enter into what seemed (at the time) such beautiful romantic relationships. I thought if I finally had a guy who liked me back, I would be normal and complete. Then there would be someone who was exclusively mine.

We are totally made with this desire for companionship.

A desire to be known by another romantically and intimately.

I struggled in high school with feeling lonely and hopeless. I was single but it certainly wasn't by choice back then.

I had accepted Christ as my Savior at a young age, 

and even rededicated my life back to him at thirteen. 

I was still growing in my relationship with the Lord, but I had yet to grasp an important concept. 

The problem was I was looking for identity and fulfillment in all the wrong places.

My soul felt lonely and I had thought that a relationship with a guy my own age would fill that hole. I thought that a special relationship was what I needed to complete that loneliness and emptiness deep within me. 

Then I wouldn't feel those negative feelings anymore, I would fit in with all the other girls my age.

Truth is I did need a relationship, just not the kind I thought.

I needed my completeness to come from the Only One who would ever be able to give it to me.

Jesus.

Only He loves perfectly.

'No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 

For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, 

nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, 

nor anything else in all creation, 

will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.'

Romans 8:37-39 

'In this the love of God was made manifest among us, 

that God sent his only Son into the world, 

so that we might live through him. 

In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us 

and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 

Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.'

1 John 4:9-11 

Only He never fails me.

See entire of Psalm 136 here.

'Even youths grow tired and weary,

    and young men stumble and fall; 

but those who hope in the Lord

    will renew their strength. 

They will soar on wings like eagles; 

    they will run and not grow weary,

    they will walk and not be faint.'

{Isaiah 40:31-31}

Only He is with me always me.

'Where can I go from your Spirit?

    Where can I flee from your presence?

If I go up to the heavens, you are there;

    if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

If I rise on the wings of the dawn,

    if I settle on the far side of the sea,

even there your hand will guide me, 

    your right hand will hold me fast.

If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me

    and the light become night around me,”

even the darkness will not be dark to you;

    the night will shine like the day,

    for darkness is as light to you.'

{Psalm 139:7-12} 

As I grew older, I understood these beautiful truths more and more. The more I learnt these, the more He began to satisfy me. I came to realize that I am only complete when I seek Jesus to fill me and satisfy.

This is truth regardless of a relationship with a significant other.

Graciously the Lord began to teach these truths to me toward the end of my high school years.

Those days of loneliness served a wonderful purpose of turning me to the one who then captured my heart forever.

He began to show me in my senior year of high school and the year that followed, that He is the one I need to run to, no-one else.

Believe me when I tell you girls, I tried to look elsewhere for a long time.

I tried going to a guy I liked, I tried looking to my friends for comfort and fulfillment, I tried running to my parents for the love and affection I was craving, I tried in the relationship with my sister. 

Slowly God stripped all of those relationships away as I transitioned from living at home to living in a different city, a different country and went to college.

The summer of 2006 He truly got through to me, that He alone had to satisfy.

He paved a way for me to go on two different mission trips that summer and revealed his love to me in more ways than I can even remember.

He placed new people in my life who truly encouraged me and pointed me to Christ.

He started the process of learning (and sometimes relearning) that He is enough.

A lesson that is far from over.

He was enough when I felt I had lost my best friend for good after I moved back to England.

He was enough when I struggled and felt depressed because the pain from having my whole life changed was unbearable.

He was enough when I found myself in India unsure of the purpose of my presence.

He was enough when I felt Him call me on a trip to Africa which was due to depart in six days.

He was enough when I felt I would never find godly friends at college.

He was enough when my finances became a sudden mess, and financial support I thought I would receive fell through.

And when I thought through it all that I would never again be happy, He was enough.

He began to satisfy me fully.

To help me see that no other relationship in my life would ever be able to make me feel the way He could.

He filled that feeling of loneliness completely.

He filled the feelings of emptiness.

I see now as a married woman that this was an incredibly valuable lesson.

Loving my husband is only possible because of Christ's Love for me. As precious as my God-given marriage relationship is, I am never satisfied completely except through Jesus.

That significant person given to you will never satisfy you the way Jesus can.

They aren't supposed to.

Relationships in my life go so much smoother when my relationship with Jesus is being given the attention and intimacy it needs. When I am investing my time and energy into getting to know my prince, I don't look to my husband or friends for completeness.

When I do seek that love from others....they fail me.

Because they aren't able to love me the way He does.

Just as I can't perfectly love them in return.

I'm so glad now that Jesus broke my heart during those single years.

Because He pieced it back together and revealed to me my utter dependence on Him.

There is no perfect husband.

No perfect fiance.

No perfect boyfriend.

No perfect date.

Except for the one who creates them.

And he loves you.

Imagine that.

Much Love,

L