The great news is . . . We have been approved!!

The even better news is, God is continuing to teach and grow us through this
process.

Surprisingly, the process of approval brought with it it’s own set of
doubts and fears. Once we had the official stamp of approval, we had to
once again examine whether we really were willing to continue moving
forward. Once again we found ourselves in the position of asking God for
more . . . More confirmation, more signs, more encouragement. I am so
thankful that God is patient with our continual need to be reminded of his
plan. We so often live in the moment and not in sight of eternity past and
present in our lives.

Perhaps the reason for this hesitancy, post-approval, is that the people
here really know the work in Bundibugyo, really know Africa. And they are
very realistic about the challenges we will face. They are asking us to go
into Africa for the first year simply to learn and observe, listen and try
to understand both from the team and from the people and from the place.
Actually that was already David’s heart, to be first a learner and then see
if he has something to contribute. Our sense from our short visit and the
strong opinion of the sending staff here is that Africa is completely
complex and never truly understandable. That Africa will take far more than
we can give and offer far more than we know how to accept. That in four to
five years we will begin to understand how much we do not know.

That’s a challenge, I think, because it asks us to be willing not to “make a
difference”, not to bring progress to Africa, not to have an agenda. It
asks us to look past what we think are our great gifts that we have to offer
the people and instead to offer them simply our lives, our love, our hearts
open before them as we live out God’s grace in our lives. To know that our
lives are strikingly dissimilar to theirs, to know that our move will bring
significant hardship, to know that this doesn’t make a lot of earthly sense,
but be willing to go simply to live out grace-filled lives in their
presence. To eat with them and as we do to offer them the bread of eternal
life, simply through our presence. Once again we are being SO stretched.
There are so many reasons that Bundibugyo does not seem like a logical
choice to us, but so many compelling ways that God has matched us to this
place. Again, faith.

This is not the first time over the last several weeks that I have found
myself with the image of Peter, walking on the water to Jesus, in my head.
I feel that I have found myself out in the middle of the water and I am
realizing that it is only faith and the One who I trust in, that holds me
up. And it’s not necessarily an easy realization!! I want to get back in
the boat!! Walking on the water is spectacular but it sure is scary.
Safety, especially when there are children involved, feels so much, well,
safer! When you realize that you have truly abandoned your own
understanding to trust the path He is giving, well, you want to run back to
your own understanding.

As someone prayed over us yesterday, and as C.S. Lewis originally said, “God
is not a safe God but he is a good God.” We are trusting that God. We have
once again asked for his confirmation and He has given it to us; through
friends who prayed and spoke His word into our lives, through the teaching
of a wise and gifted man here at World Harvest (Terry), and most of all
through being reminded of what has happened in the last six months. When we
look at the extraordinary ways that God has brought us to Africa and back,
all of the prayer that He confirmed by opening doors (SO many opened, more
than we dreamed of), never a closed door, more and more of a heart for
Africa and for a sojourners life, an amazingly great connection to the team,
a church that supports us 110%, believer after believer that has prayed for
us and sought God’s will with us and is convinced alongside us, children who
have grown in their faith and joy through the process, our hearts being
stretched in beautiful ways, individuals that we have never met being
changed for eternity. (more on that later).

Once again, He is showing us . . . “My plans for you are good and not evil
plans to prosper you and not to harm you, to give you a future and great
hope.” We lean into His character, the character of a dangerous but very
good God, who loves us beyond our understanding and knows us as his
amazingly special children . . . . and we are satisfied.