Siobahnne here. I have to say, I’m excited to share about the ways that this trip to South Africa is changing my life. We’ve already finished 2 training days and our first social and January is encroaching on the horizon! Every time I meet with these amazing people, as a group or one on one, I learn more about our Heavenly Father.
God is so much bigger than we are. He is infinitely smarter, more creative and more caring than we can comprehend. And yet sometimes the hardest thing to do, is trust that He, in his omniscience, really does have everything taken care of.
About a month and a half ago, myself and 10 other people all got a phone call inviting us to join the Rock Harbor Mission Team, and to go to South Africa. The opportunity arose, the community responded and out of all the applicants we were the ones chosen to go. A team of people, mostly strangers, pulled together for a common cause: serving God and his people.
After the phone call, on my way into work for the night, I was floating on a cloud. My heart had attached itself to the South Africa cause the moment I heard of it. There has been so much going on in the last year, so many different personal trials, and so much of God’s faithfulness, that when I got the phone call it was like all these little puzzle pieces fitting together. This is what God had been building me up for: he had been building me in spirit, in knowledge and in heart one step at a time to send me out into the world.
It felt so right. So much of my life has been in chaos, but I found myself in absolute peace about being sent across the ocean with a group of people I had yet to meet.
So many people joke that they fear giving themselves 100 percent to the Lord because He might ask them to go to Africa; I gave myself to God and prayed He’d send me to the ends of the earth for Him.
I didn’t really start to feel nervous until that first meeting. I’m not always very good with meeting new people. I tend to get nervous, and the larger the group, the more I’ll sweat it out. People take work and sometime I’d much rather just bury myself in a pile of broken equipment I can fix. This is something God has really been working on in me. He’s walked me into opportunity after opportunity to deal with these types of situations and it was slowly getting easier. It wasn’t until this first meeting though that a revelation really began to hit me.
There are no strangers in God’s family. Maybe a few wacky relatives we’ve yet to meet, but no strangers. Walking into the room with the team, I was awash with the same sense of peace that settled my nerves the first time I met my life group: that sense that God had it all in hand.
The Africa leaders prayed for us, much as Jesus prayed for the Apostles. They prayed for a team of people to come together to serve, and we were the answer to that prayer. The people in this room weren’t just random people, but fellow brothers and sisters.
Even then, a part of me wondered how I fit into it all. There were so many things presented to us to worry about: the money, the immunizations, the paperwork, the time off, or the things that could happen while there. Instead, I fell prey to worrying that I couldn’t possibly fit in this group of awesome people. I can be a bit of an oddball, and after years of not ever fitting in everywhere, it still amazes me how much acceptance and love I’ve found in the community of Rock Harbor.
This was one of those moments where I needed to be reminded that just because it doesn’t make sense now, doesn’t mean it isn’t part of God’s bigger picture. So I took it to prayer and prayed to trust God to be in control and to know that there was a reason I’m supposed to be there.
Every time we’ve met as a team since, I’ve been blessed with insight as to how this team came together. We’re a unique group of people: teachers, coaches, business folks, fashion folks, and entertainment people to name a few. Outside of this cause, we may have never met, let alone ever have become friends, but God brought us together because as a team we have the ability to serve.
We met for our first “Social Event” this past Friday, and it was so much fun! Monica and Wood graciously hosted it at their house with their adorable dog there to greet us(and entertain us, especially Claire). Baby Brandon quickly went down to sleep, and soon it was just the team. We shared delicious foods, chatted and bonded, and shared defining moments that further opened my eyes to God’s greater purpose. While on the surface I may never have found anything in common with these people, as I dig deeper and get to know them, I find common threads among us that are slowly being woven together to create the bigger picture. I’ve been finding an amazing sense of joy in seeing how the team will fit together, and in seeing how I fit in with the team.
One of the things we talked about that Friday was an ability to trust in God. Many of our defining moments recounted events in which we learned that God is faithful. Many of us are in transitional periods of our lives. This is one of those God things. We come together, trusting God to light the way and lead us to South Africa.
I look forward to further training, serve days and socials. I look forward to seeing how God weaves our teams tapestry, our threads intertwining and blending. We may not understand it all yet, we may not know quite what God has called us out for, but every time we place our trust in him, the bigger picture becomes a little bit clearer.
My prayer for our team is this:
I pray for strength, for health and for heart.
I pray for wisdom, compassion and trust.
I pray for closeness.
I pray for purpose.
I pray that we continue to grow together and raise each other up to the Lord.
May we be a source of support and comfort to each other and the people we are going to serve.
May we rest assured that God is faithful and loving and does not lead us to be lost.
I thank God for this opportunity to grow, to get to know more of this amazing Godly family, and to see him at work in other parts of the world.
I thank God for his love, for his truth, and for his light. I thank Him for every member of the team and what we have to learn from each other.
This time before our trip can be one of great vulnerability. I pray we stand strong against the enemy and find peace in the Lord.
How lucky are we to serve our amazing Lord? Sometimes, the best place to be is at our Lords feet, not quite knowing what is going to happen, but willing to put our faith in Him to make sense of it all.
God Bless!
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