First, now that we have been here for five months, the newness and novelty of being “a missionary in Africa” has completely worn off. There are very few times that I just stop and think to myself, “Wow! I’m in Africa right now telling people about Jesus! I can’t believe this is my life!” While those moments happened quite often earlier on, life in Africa has become normal now. It’s not a bad thing, but the emotions have certainly worn off. One of the things God has been teaching me through this is that emotions CAN’T carry the ministry. When I rely on emotions or how I feel to get me through the day, I won’t last long. Sure, that can sustain me for a while, but eventually I need to simply be sourced in God and His truths, not what I feel.

Second, I am unsure about the future. God hasn’t spoken many specifics about the next season of my life. Because of this, I’ve found myself worrying about the future. It’s uncertain, so I obsess over it. Jesus gives us a great way to combat this in Matthew 6:25-34. He tells us not to worry about the future because God already knows all of our needs and LOVES to provide for us. This is easy to agree with in my mind, but practically living it out is incredibly difficult. A few days ago while I was worrying about what I would do when I got home, God spoke to me. He reminded me how I took a leap of faith in trusting Him when I decided to move to Africa for eight months. That’s crazy. That takes faith. He then asked me why I was able to trust Him then, but it is so hard for me to trust Him to direct me when I go back home. Shouldn’t that take even less faith? That hit me pretty hard. I trusted Him enough to direct and provide for me in Africa but not back home? This new perspective has certainly helped me stay focused on the present.

I only noticed a few weeks ago that I had caught Destination Disease already. While it is definitely responsible to plan for the future, there is danger in obsessing over it. Since then, I have been developing a new perspective. I’ve been here for 157 days. I have 87 days left. Until then, rather than limp through the days focusing on the future, I want to make the most of every single day I have left. I have 87 days. That’s 87 days in Africa, away from so many distractions and temptations that I face daily in the States. That’s 87 days spent in the most intentional community that I have ever been a part of, where everyone is interested in seeing each other grow as much as possible. I will never be in this same situation again and I don’t want to waste the time I’ve been graciously given by worrying and obsessing over the future. I want every one of these last 87 days to matter.

-Jon

Good morning,

Hope is the thing that makes our life glisten. But if our hope is in the future we will never stay where we presently are and we will never find ourselves walking in the best God has for us. But when we have hope for the future it teaches us to abide and trust in the goodness of God in every present minute.

Jesus, help me to trust you. Help me to put my hope in You alone. When my soul is cast down and at turmoil within me, I again will choose to put my hope in you. Your word says, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life” (Proverbs 13:12). As long as I put my hope in the future my hope will always be deferred and disappointed therefore I will choose to put my hope in You.

The blood of Jesus (His grace) is the only thing that leads us into hope: “through Him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Romans 5:2-5).

“Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience” (Romans 8:24b-25). Patience accompanies hope. Why? Patience is built through suffering and endurance.

My future glistens with hope because my hope is in His goodness.

The Bible never talks about arriving but it always shows us how to live presently abandoned to Jesus. If our hope is in the future, we will always be looking to arrive and hope will always be deferred.

Father I place my hope in your goodness today. Thank you that when I place my hope in you, you breathe your breath of life over me and I can then believe in hope for your promises. Thank you that in this place I cannot be put to shame or disappointed. Thank You that you say, blessed is he whose help is in the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God. Why? Because you never fail, you are good. For your goodness is great and so is your beauty. You never change. You are the same yesterday, today and forever. You are consistent. Your glory is your nature. You are unfailingly good. Your heart never changes towards me. You are a covenant maker and a faithful covenant keeper.

“The most wonderful thing that we will ever do with our life is to trust it to the nature of God. To put it into the hands of the God who totally loves us and is deeply committed to us, and delights in helping us. It is the most happiest feeling to trust the best, the most honorable, the most powerful, the most integreous, the most committed and faithful covenant maker who is also the most decent person who ever lived: Jesus. Being completely reliant on his character and integrity is the source of our great happiness” (Graham Cooke).

The only way we will walk in our destiny is if we are secure in the nature of God.

-Emily Stallard

As I’ve gone from glory to glory in nature, I’ve come up confused and frustrated trying to ponder these incapacitating feelings that everything around me seems infinitely too vast to take in. Then, some revelation hit me as we were making our way back to Kampala.

When you witness the beauty, majesty, and glory in nature that surpasses your understanding, you witness a small imprint and expression of the holiness of God. It attests to He who sits enthroned in Heaven, a simple, yet profound reality. Scientists can go on describing it but cannot explain it. Perhaps these are some of their frustrations with God that for something so elegant, complex, and magnificent to be explained away as being the imperfect reflection of a holy Creator seems far too simple. The majestic beauty that we see on earth is but a small reflection and production of He whom there is only one word to describe as holy.

The more I dwelled on this and realized His holiness, it struck a deeper fear of God in me, and I resounded with joy at the majesty and glory of my Creator. The one who fashioned the mountains and all of creation by himself without any aid from a man desires to partner with us in the spread of his kingdom, of which there is no end, to the edges of the world. He is self-sufficient in all things yet loves us to partner with him.

Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? 

Who is like you, majestic in holiness,

awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?

                                                          –Exodus 15:11

- Nathan Zlomke

The night before our first day of the Gulu-push I was under some spiritual attack and had a very unsettling dream (I am not often prone to dreaming at all). I awoke startled and asked a teammate to pray. She then prayed for me, I felt peace and after some time, fell back asleep. I awoke in the morning, immediately found my Bible and journal and made my way inside to the main building to be filled with the hope and peace that the Father had for me that morning.

After a team meeting that morning, my team and I headed out. My teammate, Elizabeth and I found ourselves standing in a pool of mud huts. Elizabeth asked, “who do you think we should talk to?” Seeing a woman sitting outside a hut, I replied, “how about we go and talk to that girl in the pink shirt.” We walked up to her and introduced ourselves. Very quickly I learned two things: her name was Tracy and she had lost her brother three days before. Her brother liked to take the alcohol and one day Tracy walked into their home and found him lying there, dying. We told Tracy why we were here and when she heard a slight piece of hope her heart was desperate for, she invited us to her home.

When we arrived in her home we sat down on the grass mats next to her mattress on the floor. And for me, this wasn’t just another illustration of the bridge diagram to simply tell her how to get to the other side to be with God. Yes, that is exciting and very powerful but there was more, I was feeling the heart of Jesus. My heart was moved. Her heart seemed as dark and helpless as the dream I had the night before. I shared the love of Jesus with her out of a place of deep compassion within me, and explained how He didn’t just come to take our sins away but that He came to take our pain and our sorrows and to really give us life and a new hope. Tracy accepted Jesus into her life.

There was something new in her heart, she could feel it, and she knew hope was rising.

After Tracy received Jesus into her heart she told us something else that happened three days earlier. Tracy made a vow the same day her brother died to follow Satan or Jesus, whichever one came to her first. All I can say is that the Father is faithful and His pursuit is stronger than death. We serve a God that is mighty to save and He is worth every second of it no matter where we are in life.

Tracy then led us to her best friend’s house, explaining that she was the same as her and that she also needed this hope. Tracy shared what had happened to her, how she had met Hope. Her best friend, Irene, also accepted Jesus that day. Irene’s brother then joined us and he also accepted Jesus. Hope was rising.

The next week my teammates and I headed out on the dusty roads again for our outreach to Lira. Halfway through my time there I received a phone call:

“Hello?”

“Hi this is Tracy. I just wanted to call you and tell you that I lost another brother. We were taking him to the hospital and he died along the way.”

“Tracy I am so sorry.”

“It’s ok, please pray for me.”

I proceeded to pray with her on the phone and promised to see her when I returned. I hung up the phone and thought to myself, “there was something about this conversation.” I couldn’t put my finger on for a while, but then I realized there was hope in her voice. In the midst of the pain she knew Jesus was there, crying with her and that He would never leave her, ever. Hope will always be rising.

-Derek Callaway

What do a tutu, sunhat and bongos have in common?

They’ve been packed in my luggage, you see! In another Graham Cooke teaching we listened to recently (I promise we hear teachings from others – but as timing would have it, I’m always the one who winds up sharing with you the words of that cheeky British man), a concept of luggage was presented. He asked a brilliant question, if you are headed on vacation, do you pack based on where you are or where you’re going? Do you or someone you love pack your bags, or do you go ahead and let a stranger or enemy pack your bag for you?

Hello! You certainly pack based on where you’re going (or if needed you have your spouse or parent pack for you).

With this logic, you can imagine my astonishment at the realization that I’ve been packing backwards! And at times – I’ve hardly been packing at all.

It’s almost as if packed for this trip with Seattle in mind rather than Uganda. A comical notion to say the least! Why pack – or build into my identity – items or characteristics that are suited for then rather than making room for what I’ll need soon?

I think I’ll shed my rainboots (necessary as they were for my recent years in the great Northwest) and dedicate the space they occupied to a tutu. Rainboots anticipate dreary weather capable of ruining the cutest of flats. Tutus anticipate beautiful melodies prime for dancing and plies.

The hooded jacket that used to keep my straightened hair from curling under the moisture can probably be ditched, too. I think instead I’ll take advantage of a sunhat that boasts of upcoming adventure. The former symbolizes closed and confined, while the latter beams wild and free.

Then there’s the near-necessity for all who utilize the Seattle Metro: the iPod. Small as it is, I think in passing that along to someone who needs it for their current season, I might be able to open up some space for some mini bongos. You see, I’ve become unhealthily accustomed to only moving to and repeating the melodies of others. God has some melodies He wants me to lead out on sometimes. Bongos are much more apt for that sort of thing.

Symbolism aside, God wants to fill our hearts and minds with just what we need for our current season, as well as the seasons and journeys to come. In my former days, I often packed based on past fears, insecurities and problems. I held onto the bad things from before rather than anticipating the good things to come. In fact, many times I even let the enemy pack large, bulky and problematic items that only hindered my upcoming adventures. Silly me. All the while the Holy Spirit has been hoping I’d take His advice and pack in anticipation of what’s to come. He sees where I am going and who I am to become. What about that old phrase, Father knows best? He takes care of me well and doesn’t want me to miss out. He doesn’t want you to miss out either.

I want to extend the invitation to you: Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are excitedly awaiting you to join the packing extravaganza. Dare to dream about what’s to come, and step into who and what the Father has for you, perfectly prepared thanks to He who sees you.

-Sadie Galbreath