Big Anne

The ACTS team that I mentioned before consisted of Stanley, Ros and Simone. But there was one other team member that I have not yet mentioned. Her name is Big Anne, and she is truly a classy lady. Big Anne is Stanley's truck and our transportation for the trip. Big Anne is what would happen if a charter bus and a Mac truck had a baby. Up top she houses tables and seats for over 20 people; below she holds a fully functioning kitchen, storage and camping equipment for over 20 people. She was quite a sight to behold and we had people from Gaborone to Johannesburg craning their necks to check her out.

This is what it looked like to ride in Big Anne.

Big Anne helped us out at VBS. One side of her provided shade and separation for the lesson...

...and the other side provided these handy fold-out shelves for snack time!

On the first day of VBS, we spent the morning inviting kids from our side of the village. We had a small break for lunch, so a few of us made peanut butter and jam sandwiches on the truck. (Apparently, "jelly" is what we call jello, and "jam" is any form of spreadable fruit.)

You can see more of Big Ann and the other overland trucks here. Check 'em out!

Home

I have been home for a week now. And even as I type this I am very much aware that Raleigh is not my home. This earth is not where I was made to live for eternity, and as such I doubt I will ever be truly content, no matter where I may be. On my last day in Africa, I was ready to pack and get on the plane and come "home." I was missing Tim and Sam so much that it hurt. And yet as my feet left the Botswana dirt to board the plane, my heart grew heavy. I fought back tears as our little plane left the ground. I never imagined I would grow to love a people and a place so far removed from my normal life that I would cry over them and miss them so much it hurts. But here I sit in my little house in Raleigh, trying to figure out how to share my journey with family and friends who I love dearly, and without whom I never could have made the journey in the first place. I think it will be hard to explain, just as it would be hard for me to describe what it was like to give birth. But you didn't have to be in the delivery room to know and love the little man who was born that day, and you didn't have to be on the journey with me to understand and love what God did in me and in others along the way. So, how about I start with a map and introductions? I spent my time in two countries with some pretty amazing people, and I would love for you to meet them.

First, the journey route: I traveled from Raleigh to Chicago, then on to London. We spent several hours touring the city before getting back on a plane and flying south for eleven hours to Johannesburg, South Africa. From there we flew to Gaborone, the capital of Botswana. Then, we rode in a large truck for several hours to our destination, Palapye (Puh-lah-pay). Our team spent a week of ministry in the village, then we drove to Warmbaths, South Africa for a few days of fun and adventure. Then we wandered back to Gaborone where we ended our trip and retraced our steps back to Raleigh. Whew!

Now, the people. We took a team of 19 from Raleigh to Africa. We picked up three new team members in Botswana. Stanley, Ros and Simone are with ACTS, a group that facilitates African mission trips so that the teams are free to focus on missions. We met up with Crystal, Emily and Kelly, three IMB missionaries who have been living in Palapye for two years. We were also blessed to serve alongside over 20 young men and women from Palapye, Gaborone and Zimbabwe. These men and women worked with us, translating for us during the week. These are precious men and women of God. Many of them are new Christians, and they were so excited to be spreading the name of Jesus with us. We met them Sunday afternoon, and we became friends immediately.

The second Sunday, as we were saying goodbye to our friends in Palapye, there were plenty of tears to go around. My hope is that I will see them again on this earth, but my assurance is that I will see them again. What a sweet reunion that will be!

Thankfully we did not have to say goodbye to Stanley, Ros and Simone until the end of the trip. Stanley was our faithful driver, and he was so much more. He delivered us safely everywhere we went, and he took great care of us along the way. He shared his heart with us, his love for Jesus and his family. Stanley is from Zimbabwe, and he is a husband a father to a son and a daughter. Stanley had been away from his family for over a month when we met him. I never saw Stanley that he didn't have a smile on his face. He loved to make us laugh, going so far as to don a skirt after George declared that the ladies would go first at meal times.

Ros is also from Zimbabwe. She is a girl who is fiercely proud of her African home. Her family has lived in Zimbabwe for generations, and she has watched her beautiful homeland disintegrate under the rule of a terrible, power-hungry man. And yet her faith in God and her love for His people has never wavered.

Simone is from Texas, and she will be finishing up at A&M in the fall. She has spent her summer with the ACTS team, serving God in different places and with different groups. Simone is not shy about her love for the Lord. She has a servant's heart and a servant's attitude that never waned, even when she got sick towards the end of the first week. I can only imagine what God has planed for His daughter in the days to come.

I will be updating with more stories and pictures in the days to come. Thanks again to all of you who supported me and prayed for me.

I am goin' to Botswana!

A Dream Deferred...

Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.
Psalm 37:4

Over 50 years ago, Langston Hughes asked, "What happens to a dream deferred?" He gave several somewhat undesirable options. I have one to add to his list - sometimes God takes your deferred dream and turns it into a dream you never imagined would come true. And He brings the dream to life in ways you never envisioned.

When I was a little girl, we had a program at church called Mission Friends. Every week we would sit around the little table and learn about missionaries serving God. There were Home Missionaries who were working in North America, and Foreign Missionaries who were serving God in far-away and sometimes very exotic places. I used to sit in that seat and dream of being a missionary. I pictured myself teaching a room full of Chinese children how to speak English and then telling them of the love of Jesus. I realize now that my particular vision as a child was somewhat simplistic, maybe even a little snobby (everyone in the whole world wants to speak English, right?). But the seed had been planted. Also, unbeknown to me, my mom had been praying about the same thing. She felt that I had been called to missions as well, and she had already dedicated my life to God for Him to use however He chose.

But little girls grow up into teenagers who are capable of making their own, and sometimes stupid, decisions. As my love for self grew by leaps and bounds, my heart for others began shrinking. I genuinely loved going to church, but mostly because of the friends (and boys!) that I had there. I was very involved in my youth group, but my involvement with my Creator was extremely shallow- "a mile wide and an inch deep" as some say. College was more of the same, but I did have moments where I longed for something more, something I knew only God could provide. It was during one such moment that God clearly told me I would be going to serve Him in Africa. I prayed about it, and I really felt that I would be going to Kenya. I even sent away for the application packet from the International Mission Board. As I was filling out this application, all of these doubts began to creep into my mind. There were very personal questions on there that I felt ashamed to answer truthfully. So I set aside the application and tried to forget about it. In the meantime, I went back to my old ways of doing things and before long Africa was a distant memory...

Well, it was a distant memory for me, but not for God. You see, we may forget, or not even know, the purpose God has for our lives, but He never forgets. He never forgets! God has done a tremendous amount of work in my life between the end of college and now. Too much to tell here, but know that He was working in my life and in the lives of others to bring about one amazing plan for my life. He brought Tim and me to a church that truly has a heart to "go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation." God also used my bad choices and experiences to bring me into a true relationship with Him, and by doing so He has used all that icky stuff to bring glory to His name. I began working at a local pregnancy resource center where I was part of a team that shared a message of purity and abstinence until marriage with local middle and high school students. And I would think how awesome it would be to take this message to people on a continent that has been absolutely devastated by HIV and AIDS. Well guess what? I am going! Not to Kenya, but to Botswana. This small country just north of South Africa has some of the highest infection rates of HIV and AIDS on the continent of Africa. And I will be presenting with a team to middle and high-school aged kids. We will be sharing the messages of purity and truth, but most importantly we will be sharing love.

I never could have imagined that God would bring this dream to life in such a way. You know that Psalm that says, "Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart." (Psalm 37:4) Well, I think a lot of the time we read that to mean that if we are delighting in God, then He will give us the things that we want. But I believe it means that when we truly find our happiness in God, then He will place dreams and desires and longings in our heart that can only come from Him. Yes, my dream was deferred for quite some time. But it is coming true in God's perfect timing, and I wouldn't want it any other way.


Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
Ephesians 3:20-21