Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Jambo!

Thank you for your prayers everyone! We as well as our luggage have arrived safely in Kenya! All of us agree it hasn't quite hit as that we are here, maybe its the jetlag combined with over 30 hours of travel, but we are so excited to be seeing the places God will have us over the next 7 weeks. The family we are staying with is incredibly welcoming and friendly, and greeted us with some very yummy chai this morning. This week we would love prayer to get acclimated quickly, that we would bond with the children, and for God's mercy and protection of our health. God bless!

Sunday, June 28, 2009

Today is the Day!

So its 8:45 on this typical sunday morning, and I still feel as if I am simply going to head to church, then maybe out to lunch with friends before heading for work. So basically it has yet to hit me that at 4:30 this afternoon we will be taking off from the San Francisco Airport on our way to...Africa. I wonder if it will hit me when we are taking off or if I will be there a whole week before really coming into the reality of it all. Anyway I am still unsure of how often I will be able to update this but will let you all know asap.

For a quick financial update we are now only $500 short and are all able to go on the trip. Praise the Lord! Please pray today and tomorrow that none of our baggage will be lost or damage, for smooth travels, and that God would use us even in the lives of those we meet in airports and on the planes!
Sister in Christ,
Charlotte

Saturday, June 20, 2009

The Countdown Begins...

We leave in just about one week so as we seek to make all the final preparations we greatly appreciate your prayers! Here are some specific ways you can be praying for our team over the next few days...



  • As a team we are short about $1,700. God's provision has been astounding thus far, please pray we raise the remaining as soon as possible.
  • We will be starting our malaria pills this week and the side effects could be a bit unpleasent please pray that said side effects would not become an issue.
  • Pray that God would move mightly in this next week to empty us of ourselves so that we may go into the trip filled with the Holy Spirit and be unifed as a team in Him.
  • As always prayer for traveling mercies are greatly appreciated

As a side note this is my (Charlotte) first time out of the country and first lengthy missions trip, that being said I would gladly welcome any words of advice and tips when it comes to packing and traveling :)

Friday, June 19, 2009

Whispers

The sun’s brilliant colors engulfed the mountainous sky as dusk set in on her drive home from another long day at school. The unexpected but welcomed beauty outside quieted her thoughts as they turned towards praise to the creator of both her heart and the sunset, “Lord, thank you for the sunset, thank you for its display of your majesty, I can’t imagine a more beautiful sky.” She drove silently with only the sound of her prayers interrupted by a whisper in her heart, “Africa has beautiful sunsets…” Her eyebrows furrowed as if squinting to hear it again and turned her gaze towards the hills and sunset with searching eyes. “Africa,” her heart leaped up into her throat and she shook her head as if to make the words would fall right out of ears onto the floor. But the sound was not heard by her ears, but rather felt by her soul, her heart. For the second time it came, “Africa.” Finally she spoke aloud, “Africa? God? What about it? I can’t go there, I don’t want to go there,” and again she retreated to her thoughts “I must be going crazy, I just made that up, it was a long day. Me a missionary?” she laughed to herself. “ That’s ridiculous, I could never…” “Africa,” Her chest began to pound again “A-F-R-I-C-A” it was being carved into her heart.
Frantically she turned up her radio attempting to drown out the call she knew she had heard. She drove faster, desperate to get home and shut herself up in her room. She raced into the house, shut the door behind her and sought distraction in phone calls no one would answers, tv shows she couldn’t focus on, and radio stations that sang nothing but static. An hour passed and still her heart had not stopped beating to the drums of the far off continent.

She tore through a journal, her pen furiously staining line after line with tormenting denial, “no no no, not me, you’ve got it wrong, I heard you wrong…” she wrote again and again till her hand refused to write and pushed her to her knees. There by her bedside she knelt, on an ordinary evening, beige carpet underfoot, God’s voice overhead.

There fear began its negotiations as tears welled up behind closed eyes, “Ok Lord, if you want me to go on a trip I’ll go.”
Silence.

“I’ll go wherever you want as long as its short term, I can do short term right?”

Silence.

For what seemed like hours she argued with the unrelenting silence. Her hands began to tremble as the words rushed through her veins, “that’s not what I asked of you.”
“Oh but God, can’t you tell me when, at least tell me where, how long, why must I go, send someone who wants it, my heart is here in America, I’ll serve full time here” she cried out once more.

Would you die for me?”
She knew her answer, “yes.”
Then live for me.”
Silence.
Then it came, each salty drop of water spelling out her surrender, “Wherever you want me, whenever you want me, however long…I will go.”
Peace and a holy fear flooded the soul behind her awestruck eyes, while her small hands remained clasped as joyful praise found her on her knees.
Again she whispered “I will go.”


This conversation between my heart and God’s took place in october of 2005. My memory is obvioulsy prone to imperfection but the echoes of what God showed me that night still remain clear and so this story is just that, an echoe of the moment God began to point my heart to the nations. This summer my where is Kenya and my when is now.

Isaiah 6:8 “Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me!"

May my heart continually sing “here I am, send me.”