I'm heading Home

I've been silent for a long time... and as always it isn't that I haven't been praying, processing, and learning... if anything its that I've been so overwhelmed by everything the Lord's been teaching me, every challenge life has thrown at me that the prospect of converting all of those internal thoughts into something to be comprehended and shared has been a little daunting. I thought a huge door to be "normal" and have a career had landed in my lap- that door slammed shut. I thought I should pursue a big girl job- no door opened... I considered an aggressive stateside paid ministry position- and realized that the need is not the call. Being faced with practical, impractical, and crazy options one thing kept resounding in my heart. Africa.

I ran into a wall when I returned in may. People have asked why I still feel like I'm in transition... that's because until I started seriously pursuing going back to Africa I lacked purpose and motivation... I never really found my "place" here.... a recent status I posted on facebook conveys my heart quite well:

"It's the sloppy wet kisses baby Moses gave without cease, Sembeo's ear to ear grin when she wrote her name for the first time, reading the beautiful selfless responses those children had in devotions, hearing their lovely voices singing with mine, arms growing tired carrying babies, never having a free hand because someone was always holding it, laying hands on, loving, and praying for the sick in Tanzania, knowing I would lay down my life for the beautiful people i'd met and fallen in love with, waking up every morning knowing i was exactly where I was meant to be-doing what i was wired to do, and the tears mama shed the day I left... The way I haven't truly felt alive since my return to the states until I started talking about going back to Africa and the fact that I didn't just leave a piece of my heart there- I only brought a fragment back. These are the reasons why I miss you Africa. I don't know how long it will take me, but I'm coming home."

Today I got word of official acceptance by Ripe for the Harvest of my missionary status. Pretty soon this will become a living, breathing reality. In the next few weeks I'll begin the process of raising support- both financially and in prayer, writing a budget plan, and developing my goals/vision. It's daunting, overwhelming, and beautiful. Initially I anticipated spending the first year in Kenya where the project I'd be working with is far more established and I'm comfortable, however after prayer and talking with a pastor I worked with in Tanzania I'm seriously considering going straight there. It will be a far greater challenge- in a lot of ways I'll have to build something from scratch, however anyone who has been following my crazy life for the last few years knows that I planned to move to Tanzania to work with the Maasai Tribe and AIDS orphans- years later all of the puzzle pieces are coming together for me to do just that. God's timing is so perfectly unfathomable... and He does fulfill His plan, purpose, and promises over our lives. 

I let go of the plastic pearls- and what he had in store is so much better.