Full Circle

The Warm Heart of Africa...

Leaving from Kenya to go to Malawi to now Zambia, was a journey of going through the past to the present, and then seeing the future.

Malawi is truly the warm heart of Africa. The people are gentle, welcoming, and the very atmosphere of the country has actual warmth that fills your heart. Entering the country felt like breathing fresh air. Malawi, at its foundation, is a Christian nation with the majority of its population attending a church each Sunday. I love Malawi very much but my heart aches for this country. This structure of religion has invaded the land and the intimate relationship that was once there has faded away. Malawi is now so extremely over evangelized that it has become something “to do” instead of someone to be and a person to be with. Malawi is being called by God to come back to their first love but now is distracted by works for “God” and how many numbers they can “save”. How can we ever say we are “saved” when we are bound by doing things for God and not being with God? How can we try to “save” people or convince them to be “saved” when we ourselves are bound by religion? Young kids right now are sitting in their Christian school learning and memorizing their memory verses, yet are sitting there hurting, they don’t know who they are, may be depressed or thinking they are worthless, and have no purpose. How do I know this? Because that was me! It doesn’t matter how many people you lead to Jesus, how long you read your bible each day or pray, or how many things you do for Jesus. Malawi, God is calling you... He is longing for you to stop striving and to rest once again in His love, that you knew long ago. He aches to see you free from poverty, emotional pain, disease, and this mindset of works. Malawi, arise from your ashes, be free, and let go of religion. Be the warm heart of God in Africa that you are called to be.

Five years ago I met Jesus on a mountain top in Malawi. He showed me He loved me, he healed me, and freed me from depression and suicide. The past five years I have struggled a lot and hurt a lot, but God has healed and freed me. Now as I walk back into this country where my love for Jesus and Africa began, I see I have gone in a full circle. As I exited the country once again, I saw me leaving behind my old self once and for all, leaving behind the past, and I saw that I really am not the same person I used to be, five years ago. I can look at the past and finally and fully say goodbye, see the present and who I am now, and continue on in the future, living the purpose God has called me to live.

As we stayed in Malawi I got to speak at a Christian school of mostly Americans to the very age group, when I had struggled the most. I got to speak at a place where so much of my past was and speak of the freedom I have gained in the very place my journey of freedom began. I am really not the same person I used to be, WOW! How amazing it truly is to see that so clearly. God even used the fact that I grew up in a Christian school and used it for good. He does work all things out for our good, EVERYTHING.

Malawi has been an incredible journey for me, a time of closer and sealing the past, a time of seeing who I am now, and a time of seeing what I am called to now and in the future. As we finished our last week there we spent time with a Malawian family who works for an organization that is trying to give pastors a means of finances to do ministry, just as Paul was a tent maker and apostle. We heard so many stories of them trying to make the organization work and it failing over and over again. The organization is still not what they hope to be. They continue to try and fail and then try again. Yet every time they fail, God brings them to a deeper place of intimacy and gives them the means to rise again. In life we continually try and fail until we are at the place we are meant to be, where we can flourish. So many Christians are trying and failing and will always. In religion we try and fail and don’t have the means to continue to try, but in a relationship we try and fail but have the means to try again and again and get back up... until we flourish in what we are called to.

We are now in Zambia on the last month of this life changing journey, the past is now sealed and gone and it’s time to continue on. Be blessed family!

“But now O Lord, you are our Father; We are the clay and You are our potter; And all we are the work of Your hand.”