the time is growing nearer to the day we will board a plane as a team and commence on what i'm sure will be a life-changing experience and beautiful journey the Lord has prepared for us.
in exactly one month from tomorrow, a group of 12 of us will be traveling to toangama, a little village on the coast of tanzania. there, we will provide manual labor to construct a school/church building for the community, along with bringing raised funds for the addition of a new well for clean water. ultimately, our prayer is that we will be able to reflect the compassionate and loving nature of Jesus Christ by alleviating the suffering of those impacted by unsafe drinking water.
more specifically, my prayer is that every single person going, especially myself, remembers the ultimate sacrifice of our loving savior who died on a tree for every one of us; the sinners of the world. for we will be sleeping on thorny sand and bathing in the ocean by bucket. our restroom will consist of a hole in the ground. temperatures of above 90 degrees is the condition of the environment, along with mosquitoes and other threatening creatures that may be hazardous to our health. i pray that disease and illness stays far from us, and that if we do encounter it, our heavenly father would reach down to his children and heal whomever we are praying for. along with sacrifices we'll be making while there, personally, i have and will continue to struggle financially and my bank account has never looked so barren. while there are few different and even painful reasons for this, i still believe that the Lord is teaching me something. all my treasures are His. my prayer is that i am reminded of this every time i write a check and that even though it may look like i have little... i am very blessed and very rich. my suffering and sacrifice is nothing like that of Christ's... and what's mine will always go to the furthering of His kingdom. i pray that.
i also pray that once we arrive, our hearts are burdened ten fold, and we are able to experience a life-changing and humbling divine moment that will pave the way for the entire time we're there. my hope is that by continuing to seek the Lord in this foreign land, we will grow closer to Him as his followers and gain wisdom through Him and the people he places in our lives and situations He gives us while there.
in this up-coming month and start of a new year, i'm almost positive that my life will look like a roller-coaster. i picture a huge target on my back and i can only imagine all the evil ways the enemy has planned to come into my life and take advantage of the changes that are going on. while taking this next semester off of school, i hope to really concentrate on what God has willed for my life. i just want to listen and be patient and faithful. i am weak, very weak. this has been proved to me more than ever during these last 6 months. this last semester was horrible for me. i'm not even sure sometimes if i should have stuck it out like i did. nevertheless, here i am, at what seems like a fresh start... wow, what a cheese ball sentence. but, it's true.
God is good in all seasons, this is and has become very apparent to me. with all of my breath, with this heart in my chest, my desire is to be prepared for what is coming next in my life. i believe my life will be ever changed because of africa and i cannot wait to see the ways in which God is moving there! i continue to ask that my heart be made ready for what i will see and do there. i also hope and pray that everything said and done will be to the glory of our heavenly father.
it's not about me. it is not about me.
4 comments:
I'll be praying for you, Jenna!
thanks maren, you're such a wonderful friend :)
Jenna,
I found this and it helps me in knowing that you are doing what you feel God is leading you to do. I will always question, worry, wonder, love, admire, and love you.
Missionaries are bravely and knowingly leaving “safety” for a cause they believe is great enough to warrant the risk: to make Christ known in places where he is not. They are on a mission because they believe that Jesus is going to change the world and they want to be part of that. Seeing the gospel seep into every crevice of their life exposes the emptiness of the idols in our own. Is Jesus changing us, do we expect him to be changing our world, and are we joining him in doing that?
Praying for missionaries challenges our own gravitation toward the comfortable and familiar.
As we familiarize ourselves with the sacri-ficial lifestyle and missional mindset of our missionaries, we are challenged to take risks and make sacrifices in our own lives, for the sake of making our good God known and glorified.
As for the safety of our missionaries, it’s good to want them to be able to do their work well, and without impediment. But if we thought God’s chief concern was to keep them safe, then we would simply have them stay home. And that’s just the beauty of getting swept up into the Great Story. We are called into the sacrificial pattern of our hero, filled with love spilling over from Love Himself. In C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Lucy asks about Aslan (the Christ figure), “is he safe?” Mr. Beaver answers, “Safe? Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good.”
thanks for the comment mom. it's scary sometimes, but prayer helps. i know the Lord has beautiful things in store for me. i know He's got so much to teach me and i can't wait for what i'm going to learn there. :)
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