Some things God has taught me here

The first ever All-DRC family conference is now underway and so far is going great!  We left Saturday and had an overnight layover in Nairobi.  We stayed at the Mayfied Guesthouse, which is run by the Africa Inland Mission.  There I enjoyed the best hot shower I have had in a very long time.  Water pressure makes ALL the difference!  The climate here is cooler, so I can honestly say that the only bad part of our stay at Mayfield was that the toilet seats were cold, painfully and shockingly cold.  Toilet seats aside, I would recommend Mayfield to anyone.

Several of the team from the east side of DRC were also at the Mayfield so our flight to Malindi on Sunday morning was almost entirely made up of MAF families.

We are less than 24 hours into the actual conference, but we are already incredibly glad we came and grateful for this experience.  It’s difficult to describe, but the release of stress and tension that we weren’t even always aware we were carrying has been almost tangible.

This morning our family had breakfast with Greg Prickett.  Greg is the missions pastor of Rose Drive Friends Church and leads the team that is doing our conference for us.  Greg asked us what God has taught us in our nearly two years here.  At first I had trouble answering but as the morning progressed, I chewed on that question and a few things came to mind that God has shown me since our family came to the Congo:

wall near our room at the conference

1. How “soft” I am.  I am a bigger pansy than even I thought.  But at the same time He has shown me that when I am not strong enough – His strength is made perfect in me.

2. I thought as a single income family that home schooled and lived without debt that we knew what it meant to make sacrifices.  Then I came here and He asked me to give up other things that I had taken for granted: my rights as a citizen (I am a guest here and have no rights.), convenience, steady elcectricity, clean and ample water, choices, access to news as it happens, frequent communication with family in the states, security, etc.  And I realize now that there are plenty of others who sacrifice much, much more.


3. I thought I trusted God – until I had to trust Him for more than I ever had before and the possibility of living in my own strength became less and less.

4. Realizing that I cannot live here in my own strength, let alone be involved in ministry work here, has made Phil. 4:13 mean more to me than it ever did before.  I can do all things through Christ, and nothing without Him.

5. People look at the outward appearance, and God looks at the heart.  There are two Congos.  The Congo we see when we only look at the surface, and the Congo we see when we look at the hurting and lost hearts of the people.

6. It’s not about me.  The more I focus my attention outside of myself, the easier I have found it to be content.  When I focus on myself, I open the doors to selfishness and discontentment.

7. My team needs me, and I need them. We are each other's family here.  They've extended a lot of grace to me as I adjusted to being here and they are priceless!