On the eve of a new adventure I try and ready my heart for what is ahead. It’s now 12 years since I first stepped foot on African soil; young, single and full of passion with my new-found faith. I eagerly wanted to know Christ amidst the poor and suffering, to follow His footsteps and learn His Ways.
My memories of that first African trip were marked with so much joy as I built new friends and realized just how big my faith family was. The Zimbabwean people taught me to laugh in a new way. They loved dancing and weddings and any opportunity to celebrate life.
But it was also my entry into a new season of knowing Jesus – Jesus and His broken body on this planet. Orphaned children with HIV. Lepers who had been ostracized. Parents who could not feed their children. In my face.
I came home to Australia after that first African trip broken myself, confused about the world that I lived in, the injustice, the pain and all the things I couldn’t fix. I desperately wanted others in my home country to see what I had seen. Or at least I wanted them to know about this ‘other world’ that I had witnessed. I wanted to share their stories.
Stories link people from different parts of the world and remind us that we are actually part of the same world. Stories can help us to draw near and feel a bonded to on another.
They help us to journey together as fellow human beings. They help us to celebrate each other’s unique story of love and longings and beauty and brokenness.
For ultimately God is weaving each of our stories together in His Big story of redemption.
Now, a few days out from leaving Australian soil for African soil with my husband and 2 children, I want to have a place to share stories.
Stories about my family, about those who we are serving, about God’s Big story in our little stories. As I write I envisage myself sitting with a hot mug of chai and sharing with you.
Will you laugh, weep, rejoice and pray with me?
As you read and enter into these stories, may you not only journey with our family back to African soil but have opportunity trust more confidently in the Lord Jesus and His love for us all.
Grace and peace
Hope
Hallelujah in the Mountains 