As this incredible journey is coming to a close, I want to reflect over a few of my journal entrees from this past month. God has taught me so much and I truly feel like I’ve grown closer to Him. This is a little bit personal, but I’ve thought and prayed about it and I feel like God wants me to share it with you. I’ve narrowed it down to 13 and no one is more important than the other, but these were definitely the most practiced. Trust – As a girl who enjoys planning out my schedule so I can expect what my day will be like, this trip has been difficult for me. We...

One of the many repeated questions for this trip is “why are you here?”–why have you chosen to spend four weeks of your summer in a forgotten country called Swaziland? My short answer is “because God told me too.” Although that is true, there is so much more to it. It was so clear to me that God wanted me on this trip. I had such peace about the decision I made last September to go on a four week mission trip to Swaziland. We are commanded to love our neighbors and to put them before ourselves. I have been blessed so so much. I have a great family, home,...

  Life in Africa is amazing. I’ve seen and experienced so many new things. More importantly, God has taught me so much. Ministry has been great. Most of our time in ministry has been helping in a preschool and really just pouring into the kids at Ntabas Care Point. We’ve also done some things I wasn’t expecting to do in Swazi. We were able to go on a home visit one day to a little old lady in the community. I was expecting to spend time with her and share the gospel, but we ended up moving ant infested wood to a fire pit and sweeping the ground with branches (yes,...

   The day God showed me how dirty I really am. I cried and I loved. The day started when we got to a care point and our contact asked for 4 volunteers to help sort shoes in a storage tank. I ended up doing it and it was miserably beautiful. We all were continually sneezing, but we got to sort out shoes that would be distributed to the kids the rest of my team was playing with. Totally worth even minute of discomfort. After that we went another care point. This was so incredible! I got off the bus and was immediately being bombarded with little arms begging to be held. My heart...

I am the luckiest girl in the world. I haven’t showered in three days. My arms are sore from picking up preschoolers for six hours a day. My lip was bitten by an ant a few hours ago. My legs are sore from walking to church and back today. I have a lot of empty Coke bottles next to my bed. There’s a rooster outside my window that has a freaking lot to say. It’s quite cold in the house right now. I’m very, very tired… And I am the luckiest girl in the world. I’m in Africa. I have children to love, girls to pour into, and serious worship to be focusing on. I...

“We love because he first loved us.” 1 John? ?4?:?19? NIV It was our first day of going out to serve in the care points and my heart was full of excitement and expectancy for what the Lord was planning to do. I had no idea what to expect and I loved that! All I knew was God was going to work, and he did. The minute we arrived at the carepoint we were immediately welcomed by adorable children with loving arms. These bright eyed kids were enamored with the fact that these white people had come to love on them. The minute we stepped off the bus every child in sight ran and jumped...