Hi friends...

Thank you all for walking with me through this journey for the past few months. Even though I have been back from Africa for almost 3 months, it has taken me that long to process everything that happened. So, here is Out of Africa #3:

I went to Africa with a lot of expectations. Even though people told me not to, I had already come up with ideas of what I was going to do, what I was going to love and how God would change my life. I thought, "how can I come back from a trip like this and NOT have my life changed? My life better be radically different." I was focusing more on the experience of a mission trip than on allowing God to do whatever he wanted to do with me. During my first week there, I started to get frustrated. I was playing with kids, helping in an orphanage, spending time with the local people...all things I loved, and yet my heart wasn't in it. My expectations had become my focus.

While in Africa, I read "The Weight of Glory" by C.S. Lewis. In it, Lewis explains how we desire good things like beauty or knowledge or love, but we can easily begin to glorify these things instead of the Creator who gave us these things. I realized that I had begun to worship the experience of a life-changing event instead of the God who wanted to change my life. At the end of my first week, I gave up. Several people gave me these encouraging words: "Alair, just show up." All I had to do was to show up every day and allow the Lord to use me. Once I did this, everything began to change. I found a heart for Africa in the places I never expected...like teaching in the schools or painting a local church. Once I gave up my expectations, I was free to experience God's heart for Africa and his children there.

After returning home, I really struggled with how to live out my life, now that it really had been radically changed. My only comfort came from the same principle I had lived by in Africa: Just show up. I know that, every day, I am called to be present to people, to love those around me, and to make myself available to the Lord. My heart is still in Africa and I would go back in a heartbeat; however, for right now, I am called to show up here. That is my encouragement to you. God has a purpose for you, and he has given you gifts and abilities to minister to others, so simply show up and see what he will do.

and for next time... a little about the amazing community I experienced there...

much love... alair