God has really rocked my world this week and it all started with an orange Fanta soda. I know, I know, how is that possible? Let me tell you.

When I came to Swaziland and to DTS I had all sorts of ideas about what I wanted to do with my life. My heart aches for those in need and for those who are without hope. I thought DTS would show me exactly how I should be serving those people. But the deeper I got in DTS the more confused I got about it. I thought I wanted to work directly with kids, but in being around kids a lot I have learned that is definitely not my gifting. Plus, I “learned” that I was not a visionary because I had no clue about how to make all the stuff I had in my head come to pass. All the doors I thought would open seemed to be closing and I have spent the past 15 weeks confused at what I am supposed to be doing. Then a series of things happened building up to a point that everything would be unleashed…with an orange Fanta.

A few weeks ago, I had a breakdown with God. I felt like He was failing me because I was trusting Him for things and I didn’t see Him coming through on the things I was trusting Him for. I know, I know God’s timing is different from our timing. But the theme for me on this DTS has been breaking through the faith barrier that I seem to have with God on many things. So I spent an afternoon crying, throwing rocks at Him, telling Him what I thought of Him, yet somehow knowing that He was holding me throughout it and knowing that no matter how many times I felt like He wasn’t coming through that I would continue to step out in faith. It was quite a paradox of feelings that I was having. I had a breakthrough that day and thought that I was at a place where I had laid a lot of things down. But I realized with the orange Fanta that while I had laid them down, I was still looking at them lying there.

About a week ago I started reading Wild at Heart. This was inspired by a friend reading part of Captivating to me and me deciding I really needed to re-read the 1st half of that book and force myself through the 2nd half. And I’ve always wanted to read Wild at Heart to understand how to support and understand the men in my life. So I read it, chewed on the meat and spit out the bones. But one part of it really stuck out to me. Something I had never heard before. John Eldridge was actually quoting someone else, but I will paraphrase. Stop asking what the world needs and find out what makes you come alive because what this world needs is people who are alive. Duh, Michelle. I started trying to figure out what makes me come alive. But I had no idea what that was anymore. I had no clue what I wanted to do to serve God. I learned that it is apparently orange Fanta that makes me come alive.

Our last week of outreach was spent in da bush evangelizing, playing basketball and net ball with kids and doing a little work with a church. It was supposed to be really hot in da bush, but instead it was cold and drizzly most of the time. We couldn’t evangelize while it is drizzly because we would get too wet and people won’t sit outside with us. So when the weather was bad we would have to sit inside our rooms. This was actually quite delightful to me because after 12 weeks of classes and 9 weeks of outreach, I’m pretty spent as we all are. One day our evangelism kept getting pushed back in the day because of the weather. I was praying for more rain because I really just wanted to rest and because evangelism is not my favorite thing in the world to do. Also, on this day another girl and I had volunteered to make lunch for everyone and when people seemed less than grateful I was grumbling pretty badly to myself. I felt under appreciated and was being drug out to do something I didn’t want to do. I was in a pretty lousy mood. I really needed an orange Fanta.

The weather cleared up and we went into town to evangelize at the shops. My partner and I went to a couple shops, talked with people and encouraged them. We went to an auto parts store talked with the guy for a while and prayed with him and his work mate. Then something I did not expect to happen happened. The guy reaches in his pocket, pulls out 10 rand (South African/Swazi money) and tells my partner and I to go get a soda for ourselves. My initial reaction was to say, “oh no, that’s ok” because I know how valuable 10 rand is here. It’s a liter of milk. It’s a container of peanut butter. It’s a loaf of bread and a jar of jam. In American dollars it’s about $1.50, but here, it’s much more and most people don’t have a lot to spare. But I know enough about the culture to know it would have been very rude for us to not accept. So I picked up the money expressing our gratitude. Then my partner and I walked over to the butcher shop to get our drinks. I got my orange Fanta and we stood outside drinking our soda talking about how amazed we were that this guy wanted to buy us soda. We stood there thinking about how amazing God is in His provision. I felt so blessed and so incredibly humbled. And I could not stop thinking about it. It was the most delicious orange Fanta I had ever tasted.

When we got back to the place we were staying I put on my iPod and listened to some music while I was talking with God about how amazing this experience was. I journaled about it, read Colossians 3:23-24 (Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving) to remind myself of why I was doing outreach. I also read Psalm 78 because I had literally “randomly” opened my Bible to that chapter about 12 times in the past week. I had tried reading it before this day, but something always kept me from it. I realized that I was just like the Israelites that would turn away from God no matter how many wonders He showed them. They still never gave Him all of themselves. He guided them through the desert, He gave them water from a rock, Heaven rained down manna and meat. But those miraculous things were not enough to win their faithfulness and trust. I asked His forgiveness for grumbling so much about doing evangelism and for not really trusting Him no matter how many times He had proved Himself faithful to me. He brought me back to the place where I told Him that no matter the cost I would do whatever He wanted me to do. But I told Him He had to make it so clear to me because I was clueless. I laid several things down to Him. I laid them down and have walked away from them putting my full trust in Him that He knows better than I do. I gave control back to Him; control that I have fought Him for so many times. And then the most amazing things started happening. While I was sitting there asking for God’s forgiveness for grumbling and complaining about serving Him and about feeling under appreciated He said to me in the most gentle, loving way imaginable, “Michelle, I am grateful. I appreciate what you do.” [cue tears, humility and need to recite Col 3:23-24 to myself every day]. Can you believe that we have a God that tells us that He appreciates what we do for Him? After this time with God I went to the Word to read and to spend time in my renewed relationship with my Love. A relationship renewed by and orange Fanta.

You know, God’s timing amazes me. Sometimes it’s quick, sometimes it feels like FOREVER, but it is always the right timing (I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard this said and it sounds so cliché, but I think it is finally sinking in). As I was reading, I read 1 Peter 4:10, “Each one should us whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms.” So wait God, you are telling me that I don’t have to evangelize since that’s not my gifting? You are saying I don’t have to work with kids since that is not my gifting, even though it’s what tugs at my heart? Ok God, then what is it that makes me come alive? And in God’s perfect timing, in walks Paul (my American counterpart, hiking buddy and good friend who is gracious enough to listen a lot of Michelle’s thought processes and rambling). Paul asked me how my day was going and I told him it was amazing. He asked for more information and I shared with him all the thoughts that had been going through my head. Then he asked me, “so what makes you come alive?” I had talked with him before about how I love to just bless people, to shower them and pamper them. When he asked me what made me come alive, this is the first thing that came to my head. I told him that the thing that makes me come alive is seeing people smile. He said, “ok, what does that look like as a ministry?” Then the thoughts came flooding in. God started giving my grand visions of what my ministry will be. He started putting all the pieces together. He brought up things that I hadn’t thought of in months and reminded me of thoughts and conversations I’ve had.

1. Several months ago my pastor was talking and something he said made me think, “we are just distribution centers for God’s love”. God pours into us and we are not meant to keep it. We are meant to give it to others.
2. I have been working in non-profit accounting for 10 years. I have good knowledge of the inner workings of a non-profit organization. I have the skills and can gain enough knowledge to run my own organization.
3. I have heard and talked about how the American church needs to be shaken up because it is sleeping. On this DTS Paul and I have talked about how it’s not dead because if it was, there would not be so many Americans that are alive in Christ.
4. I love to bless people. I love doing things for people. I love to see people’s needs met and I love to see them spoiled.
5. People want to help other people, but they don’t always know what they can do.
6. The church is at it’s best when it is a “blessing machine” (Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell).

All of this culminated together to bring a vision to my mind. I am supposed to connect people who have needs with people who can meet those needs and I will connect people who want to bless others with those who could really use a blessing. It will start out small as me going to the churches to bless people (I think I will start with the oft forgotten pastor’s wives) then it will become one church’s members helping another church’s members. But God has told me it can grow outside the church and even to a national level. Non-Christians will see the Church making a difference. I have no idea how it will all work out, but I am trusting God for that. This is His vision, His dream. I am just one of the tools He will use. I am still praying about this and letting God work out the details, but I know it is something I will start working on after the holidays. I already feel like God has started the paving of the path. It is a road that I am excited to walk down with Him. I know that if this is truly His path for me, it will grow in a way that I can’t imagine. Who knew that an orange Fanta could have such an impact on one’s life?

NAM

The past couple of days have been travel days, which means not knowing what day of the week it is or where we are. We spent the past couple of weeks in Windhoek, Namibia working with an organization called Beautiful Kidz (BKZ). It’s a private Christian preschool for kids who live in poverty and who have lost their parents. They also host a youth group and a kids club every week, giving the message of the love of Jesus to kids from 7-19. The people at BKZ work so hard for the kids. The days start at 7:20 am and end anywhere from 3:30 pm to 6:00 pm. And some days there aren’t any breaks. Somehow they keep the kids of all ages engaged and striving to strengthen their relationship with God.

The amazing thing about this preschool is that the fees for sending a kid to school is $48 Namibian per year. That is the equivalent of $7 USD. $7 to send a kid to a preschool for a year. $7 that gets them 4 meals per day for a year. Meals that they often times don’t get at home. $7 a year gets them a foundation of believing in Jesus. That’s 2 drinks at Starbucks. That’s less than what most people pay when they go out for one meal. The school has 80 kids, which makes it $560 per year for all the kids. I am blown away by this. That is so little money considering the work that BKZ does. And they employ several Namibians, which is great that they are also providing work for people that really need it. They have also started a needlework program where women from the community hand embroider placemats, aprons, potholders, etc. and sell them. This is an incredible organization that is really giving back to the community they are in.

Windhoek is a beautiful city, one that I will miss very much. We stayed in the outskirts, so there was a ton of walking and hiking to be had. It was sunny, hot and dry most of the time. When it rained there were incredible thunderstorms. You haven’t truly experienced a thunderstorm until you’ve experienced them in Southern Africa. I’ve been privy to experience thunderstorms in 4 Southern African countries and each time I am blown away by how powerful and majestic our God is. The thunder and lightening are an amazing display of how grand He is. I will never get tired of them. Although they are a bit painful when in Swaziland because the power goes out every time it rains. The last time the power went out it was out for about 36 hours.

I head home in a little under 3 weeks. I am looking forward to familiar surroundings and familiar people. But it will be incredibly weird to stop being around people that I have been living with for the past 4 months. I’ve seen most of these people every day for that time. How weird to have them suddenly not a part of my life anymore. I can’t imagine what that will be like and I am sure it will take some time to adjust. But I long to see those that I left at home and long to finally meet the nephew that came into this world a couple weeks after I left. I long to not be on bus rides that take 24 hours. I long to cook whatever I want to cook and eat what I want to eat, not what’s on the menu. And I long for clarity of what the next step in my journey with God will entail.