TITC (This is Training Camp)

“How beautiful upon the mountain are the feet of him who
brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who
publishes salvation, who says to Zion ‘Your God reigns.’ The voice of your
watchmen – they lift up their voice; together they sing for joy; for eye to eye
they see the return of the Lord to Zion. Break forth together into singing you
waste places of Jerusalem for the Lord has comforted His people; He has
redeemed Jerusalem. The Lord has bared His holy arm before the eyes of all the
nations, and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.”
(Isaiah 52:7-10) Amen.

I arrived in Atlanta, Georgia 4 days ago … admittedly
terrified. This was the first day of the most adventurous, craziest and most
anticipated summer of my life. I would spend 4 days at Toccoa Falls being
trained to go share the love of God with the people of Kenya, Uganda and
Tanzania for the next 7 weeks. But suddenly, upon arrival at the airport, I no
longer had any memory of what I could have possibly been thinking when I signed
up for this. First off, while I absolutely love the people in my life, meeting
them has always intimidated me; for the first time I would not know anyone
around me and would have very little communication with people who were
familiar to me. Secondly, I questioned why I was under the impression I could
“rough it” in Africa for 2 months … I didn’t own a tent before this trip! Much
less have I used one in an unfamiliar land on the other side of the ocean! And
thirdly, and perhaps that which was having the biggest impact on my spirit, I
just didn’t feel ready for this spiritually. I knew I had a lot to work out, a
lot of lies I was still believing, I was often very wary to even trust God with
my nervousness. Why would He come to my aid and comfort me when I wasn’t even
following Him perfectly?

Still, I’ve always loved and had a heart for Africa; since I
was a child all I wanted to do was hug orphans and give them something to eat.
I wanted to go to Africa, pray over the sick and see them healed; I wanted to
love and encourage and tell people about hope and Jesus … but I still faced the
above challenges. What I really wanted to do was skip training camp, go to
Africa, start doing what I really had a heart for. Maybe God would meet me
there. But God, in His perfect character, meets you where you’re at. 🙂

God has done more than I can really describe in the past few
days, and I think a lot of why I can’t describe it is because, for once, it’s
more in my spirit than my head. (Which is awesome!) But needless to say He has taken control and
comforted me in all of this. He first introduced me to my team who (in
alignment with what all their Facebook profiles indicate, haha) are awesome! They’ve
all been some of the most caring, encouraging and fired up people I’ve ever
met. Additionally, we all seem to have the same feeling that our team meshes perfectly (hand picked by God 🙂 ). Secondly, God had spoken to me about “roughing it;” really, He just
brought me back to the heart He’s given me for this place. He’s reminded me
that yes, things will be substantially less comfortable where I’m going. But in
2 months I will come home to a bed and air conditioning; those I minister to
won’t, and those are the people Jesus loves. Finally God addressed my fears
about where I was in Him, and that’s been awesome!  He has repeatedly reminded me that (1) He
loves me wherever I’m at and He’s planned for me to be right here right now
with Him and (2) God uses us in our weakness, and thus He purposefully did not
send me here “strong and capable.” I need to realize I don’t have anything to
offer the people of Africa; but He, through me, has everything to offer them.
It’s been a great training camp and I am grateful that they hold us in the U.S.
for a few more days. And this is just training camp. Tomorrow we leave for
AFRICA! And my team and I, by God’s grace will go out in the spirit of Isaiah
52:7-10, wait expectantly for what God will do with us and East Africa in the
next 7 weeks! Please keep us in your prayers!