lessons learned.

Camp LIFE 2012 is officially over... what the heck? I have no idea where the time went, this summer has seriously flown by! God truly did some incredible things, and I’m so blessed to have experienced and have been a part of what he’s done. He’s stretched me, taught me, grown me, and humbled me in more ways than one. Here are a couple quick things He’s shown me over the past couple of months.

Loving orphans isn’t always easy.
I’ve said how these kids are so eager to be loved and ready to be held, but doing those things 24/7 isn’t human nature. As humans, it’s difficult to be sweet to a kid who you just saw shove another kid to the ground. It’s difficult to uninhibitedly wrap your arms around a kid who just peed on himself or has snot smeared all over his face. It’s difficult to be patient with the little boys who ask for you to give them your watch 50 times in a row, and then grab for it aggressively despite being told ‘no’ already. Like I said, it’s not human nature, but it’s God’s nature. Thank goodness that our God and Father is always patient, always loving, always forgiving. I love these orphans, but I struggled a fair number of times to love them as freely and as hard as God does. I had to call on the Lord for HIS patience and HIS selflessness more than once. It’s not easy, but the Bible says that doing Kingdom work rarely is. However, loving the fatherless with the love of the Father is the most rewarding work I have ever been a part of, and I have felt so blessed to have been called to Zambia to do it.

Without Him, we fail.
Now this is definitely a lesson that I’ve had to learn before, but somehow I forget it and He continues to impress this into my life. Working on summer staff isn’t just coming to Zambia to play with little kids for 2 months straight, it’s essentially doing the grunt work that full-time staff doesn’t have time to do. It’s delivering milk and juice to Americans at 11 at night, it’s organizing donated clothes and toothbrushes and school supplies by the suitcase full, it’s waking up really early and going to bed really late. I feel like God has generally given me a patient spirit, and I love serving others, but I realized that those things don’t last long when the Lord isn’t the source. It was really hard to find time to be in the Word every day with the insane schedules that we had (and the fact that we have hardly any privacy), so for a while, I put my quiet times on the backburner. It was in that span of time that I realized how ugly my heart is when it’s not being filled with Him. I failed when I tried to rely on my human dosage of patience and service, and I ran out of both very quickly. I poured out more than I was being filled up, so I literally was unable to give anything that was glorifying to Him. I am a failure when I’m not relying on or being filled up by Him, but I love that. I love that we as humans NEED Him in such a way that He is the only one that deserves the glory for the good in our lives. He knows how much we need Him, and He is delighted when we come to Him and rely on Him on the daily. Hard lesson to learn (relearn), but so valuable.

He CAN move mountains, and He WANTS to.
In America, we tend to put God in a box. We doubt His power and might, so we don’t ask for things that require that. We ask for things that we THINK He can do because we don’t want to be disappointed if He chooses not to provide the big results. When we need big things to happen, we try to make them happen by our own means before turning to Him first... our faith is so small that it is probably insulting to God how little we trust Him. The people of Zambia own have so little resources that they HAVE to turn to God and ask him to move mountains in their lives, they literally have nothing else to turn to. But God doesn’t disappoint them. He LOVES that they have the faith to ask HIM to move those mountains, and He is so able. He wants us to get on our knees and pray those prayers because He wants to ANSWER those prayers in big ways! Time and time again, we have kids come to camp saying that men rape them in the middle of the night or their auntie beats them for coming to camp each day. That’s why the first lesson that Greer preaches is about how to have the power of the Word in your life: hear the Word, understand the Word, believe the Word, and SPEAK the Word. We tell them to shout in faith “in the name of Jesus Christ” to stop the beatings mid-blow or the paralyze the men that approach in the night, and we tell them that God will hear their prayer and protect them. And even if we Americans don’t necessarily believe those things deep down in our hearts, the kids do and they come to camp the next day after having tried it out. And it works. The God of the Universe has the power to do whatever He wants; and as our Father, He wants and DOES move mountains for the good of His sons and daughters. So here’s my question for you... these orphans who have known who Jesus is for one day can trust the Lord to move mountains, but do you? Try it out and pray without limits.

Long post again, sorry! I just wanted to share how good our God is and what major lessons He’s been laying on my heart here in Zambia! What can you be praying for now? Well thanks for asking! Please be praying for my last few days here and for my trip home! I’m traveling through London alone and during the Olympics (not leaving the airport though duhhh), so prayers for a safe journey and that I make my connecting flight!

Blessings from Africa!