Why Africa?

Family and I at SeaTac airport.


I am currently at the small Dulles Airport Starbucks. The time is 8:30 AM DC time and I have until 3:15 PM until I meet up with my fellow Ugandan Studies Program travelers. What do I do for 7 more hours!!!... Actually, what can I do would be the better question. If I had it my way, I would have my private body guard watch my luggage, throw on my running shoes, and take off with my other body guard runners and explore the great outdoors of DC. However, sadly, of all the things my parents helped me with, they forgot to find me body guards: P. So my options decrease to riding the baggage claim belt, walking up and down the airport with a 30 pound bag on my back, and a 50 pound suitcase trailing behind me, pick up my future husband, find some kids to play hide and seek amongst the hundreds of chairs, hop on a random flight, buy some rollerblades and skate up and down the airport, ride the little motor carts, run up the down and down the up escalators….hmm what else…

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I think I might have a mild case of ADD or just addicted to running because after sitting since 6pm yesterday (11 ½ hours) minus the walking between connecting air flights, my body is screaming, run! Move! But I really can’t so I will have to persevere through this suffering :P.

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Really, the reason for this blog while I am waiting to go to Africa, is to write why I am going anyways. I am actually not exactly sure to be honest. My dream to travel to Uganda, Africa specifically started in the 8th grade. At a summer camp, the speaker called up people who felt called to the world. I felt called, and I don’t know when God said Uganda, Africa, but through watching the Invisible Children Documentary, and being drawn to further research on the LRA, I began to only see Africa.

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To say the least, this passion grew, but actually going was put on hold as I was finishing high school and getting through the first part of Community College. Before graduating high school, I had a plan in my head to get my transfer degree, and then do YWAM in Africa. When it came time to follow through with this plan I rigorously began searching through hundreds of different YWAM bases that specifically did their outreach to Africa. However, there was another big option to weigh as well. Further school. Honestly, I hate school. I struggle through it. So it did not look appetizing to me. I had these two decisions weighing on me for awhile during my last couple of months at Everett Community College.

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I prayed and had many frustrating times of asking God what he wanted me to do. I would go back and forth from school…to YWAM. Making a long story a little less long… I stopped being torn by the two and just chose one, YWAM. (Who wouldn’t when the option was up against a big missions trip… your dream…traveling….or back to school?) I pushed away running scholarships, and even my parents influence to finish school. However, it was after I chose, and took a step in the YWAM direction, that God revealed to me where he really wanted me to go. As they say, God can’t drive a parked car. Once I chose YWAM, I don’t know how to explain how, but God stopped me in my tracks, clearly putting a red light up in my heart to where, if I continued through with YWAM, it wouldn’t be the step he had for me.

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After eating a couple slices of humble pie, I can confidently say that switching to school from YWAM had to be God. I wouldn’t have chosen it on my own will. And oh geez as I am sitting in the airport upon boarding my flight to Africa, (what I intentionally wanted to do all a long) I am overwhelmed by the hand of God at work in the change of my plans. If frightens me as to how my life would be different if I didn’t listen to God’s tugging on my heart. I am sure that he would have still been with me through any decision with no doubt… but would it have worked out as well? Countless blessings have flown from switching direction from YWAM to school that I would have never dreamed of. Running xc with a fabulous new supportive team :). Great coaches. Experiencing dorm life, and Oregon and a Christian school in general. Studying Abroad in Africa for 4 months. The school basically paying for my trip. (Its cheaper to study abroad then stay a semester at NCU.) Super supportive parents :). Doing school at same time. And I am sure more then I recognize with my small human brain. And I am not even in Africa yet. :)

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I learned a huge lesson this year from these events. When you can’t figure out what God wants you to do and you don’t feel like God is being clear in a specific direction, just go. Keep moving. Choose one of them. If it’s not his will he will put up a clear red light. Just be open to his redirecting. He knows us fully and loves us fully at the same time, which means he won’t leave us hanging :).

For I know the plans that I have for you, declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.”- Jeremiah 29:11

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I give God all the glory to everything that has gotten to me to here. I am definitely not the brightest (not said in a putdown of self) and if it wasn’t for God I would be doing a whole different thing… struggling with how I was going to raise money for YWAM… and who knows what else. There is no way that I got here on my own is what I am saying.

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I am also especially thankful for my parents. I wouldn’t have been here either without their encouragement to continue school and their devotion to me and each of my siblings. Mom and dad, thank you!! Just to touch base on a few of the things they have helped me with… My dad spent hours upon hours getting this laptop that I am writing this blog on working. My mom busily helped me get paperwork in on time, shopping for the dress code there, skirts and other business like dress wear :P Lots of hugs and kisses. Tears when I left. I love you mom :). I could drown out this blog with everything they have done. They love us lots, and it’s obvious not in just the things they do.

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Friend support. Thank you, thank you, and thank you for all your encouragement and prayers :). And Oregon friend’s who each wrote words of encouragement in a special journal. Dan, your devotional journal you set up for me and other support will carry me through even more! Thank you guys!!

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This blog is long!! I get lost in reading long blogs….so I apologize….I hope future ones aren’t so long. I am not really good at the whole blogging thing…but I have to get good, so any suggestions to writing good blogs would be much appreciated. In the mean time, prayers that I make it through my last 6 hours of waiting until a 13 hour flight would be awesome :).