Small Victories

Before beginning this journey, I envisioned myself writing blog posts constantly, filled with amazing stories from ministry, inspiring everyone at home to be missional and to leave their comfort zone to seek what the Lord has for them in other countries. It was a lofty expectation, but from reading others posts before me it didn’t seem too far off from realistic.

Now, after a week full of breakthroughs with kids in ministry, awesome God given moments, great times with my team, and African adventures I find myself here, writing a blog, realizing that we have less than three weeks left in Zambia and this is only my second post.

First, let me say that this week was incredible for many reasons and completely worthy of sharing. The week began on Monday with awesome moments with the middle school aged boys that my teammate, Kate and I have been working with. On Tuesday, our team leader, Kristen elaborately surprised us with Debrief at a beautiful hostel in Livingstone, where we were able to seek the Lord as a team and refocus our hearts towards the time we have left here in Zambia. This was a sweet time of God revealing Himself and the beauty of His presence in the most charming of ways. The next couple days of ministry were so fruitful in their own ways, making further progress with the boys we are patiently working with. On Saturday God showed off as my whole team was able to go on a safari in Botswana. Now that I have driven up so casually right next to a parade of elephants, I feel as though I have truly witnessed a special and unique picture of the Creator’s majesty.

These have been unforgettable days, and I am so grateful for a week like this one, where God’s love for us and hand in our lives was so evident; however, there were so many weeks before this where life in Livingstone, Zambia felt ordinary and sometimes without purpose. These are the weeks I didn’t blog about because at the time it was too hard to explain the ways God showed up. But the thing is, He really did.

Second, ministry is not always how we picture it.

Sometimes, ministry is trying to bond with middle school aged boys who are not talkers, so diving into whatever they are doing at the time – this could mean playing futbol with them no matter how much we stink at it, or, as it was on Monday, pulling trees up from the ground and throwing them into the river. Kate and I still have no clue why all of these young guys were pulling trees and chucking them in the river, but we joined in because it means something to them when we get on their level and love them where they are. That day was one of my favorites with the boys because they became so comfortable with us.

After that day, one of the guys (Joseph, age 14) who we had been praying for God to soften his heart and open up to us finally decided to. He gave us each a note colored with crayon and wrote precious, childlike things in them. If you met this kid you would be shocked that he not only wrote us a note, but decorated it with crayon. He showed vulnerability that day that is so rare for his age, and felt comfortable enough to not feel like he had to pretend to be grown up.

This may not seem like a major victory, but to us it was HUGE.

Ministry is a whole lot of patience, frustration, beauty and waiting on small victories. The small ones are most often the big ones we take for granted because we cannot yet see the whole picture – the picture God sees. When God views us he gets an omniscient, omnipresent view of everything. He knows how giving a smile to someone we don’t know, holding the hand of a child we haven’t seen before, or pulling up trees with a bunch of teenagers impacted their lives. The difficult part of this is realizing that we may never see all of the fruit of our labor on this earth, but the precious thing is that we don’t have to because it’s not our labor, but the Lord’s. We can have full faith that God is doing a work through us that we aren’t even aware of, and that we are vessels to bring the kingdom if we surrender even the small victories to Him.

Third and finally, I am anticipating how difficult it will be to recap this summer in a few words to those who ask “How was your trip?!” I really have no idea what I will say that does each day justice. How will I begin to explain the importance of a five minute conversation I had with a taxi driver or a night eating off-brand Nutella and laughing with my teammates?

This is why going is so important. I simply cannot sum up a summer in Africa. Here is where I encourage you to follow whatever leading you may have on your life. Whatever God calls you to will be unique to your life and to the people He uses you to impact. God wants to use you because He is delighted when you seek His kingdom, whether that means personally going or sending people out.

With what little time we have left in Zambia, I realize that time is precious. Please be praying that we would truly seek the Kingdom in our conversations and actions as we prepare to go back to the US. We are so excited to see our loved ones, but we want to remain present where we are in this time.