Shortly after meeting for a couple months I decided to go on a mission trip to Kenya, Africa for 5 weeks. Although I missed the girls, I had an incredible time and knew those 5 weeks were not the last of me going to Africa. But, little did I know it would affect our small group in such a big way...
When I got back the girls asked if we could go to Africa as a small group. I told them it would be awesome if we could get to do that someday (thinking, "yeah right, how will we pull that off? It would cost 20 grand to do that!") and then said, "Maybe when you graduate we can look into it."
Anyways, a year and half went by and we started thinking and talking about it again. We realized how much money it would take for us to go and how much we would have to rely on the Lord to provide. So, the girls, their parents, my co-leader, and I, fearfully said, "we trust you Lord, send us to Tanzania so we can be your hands and feet."
We knew we were committed, but we also knew we had a lot of work to do. We had to put our thinking caps on- we thought of multiple ways we could raise money... We sold t-shirts, hosted a "Wild Game Dinner", raked hundreds of bags of leaves, cleaned an office, wrote letters to ones that we felt would support us, and we prayed. We waited and prayed and trusted.
As this process of raising money to go to Tanzania went along there were times of fear, joy, hard work, untrusting hearts, trusting hearts, and stretched lives. There were times when we weren't sure if we were going to get full support and there were times when we were so blessed by all the generous hearts around us- And then, it happened. More than enough money was given to this team to go love on the people of Tanzania, Africa!
God is good. He is faithful. God deserves all glory and honor for this trip and the process to get there. He is and will be working in the lives of our team, the lives of the people who gave to this trip, and the lives of the Tanzanians. He is Jehovah Jireh and will always provide.
Thank you to all who gave and thank you Jesus for allowing us to be your hands and feet in Tanzania.
The girls going to Tanzania are: Megan Crum, Abby King, Avery Hufft, Shelby Boaz, Mollie Stansbury, Katie Wise, Frances Brower, Ruthie Brower, and myself. We are beyond excited and pray that the Lord will open our eyes, help us listen, and use us to His desire.
*P.S. Another incredible aspect of God's provision is that He has also provided more generous people who gave money for the first 5 girls on that list above, plus Kristin Fitzgerald, Ruthie & myself to go to Guatemala on the youth group mission trip over Spring Break. He is good.
