Break my heart for what breaks Yours. This has been a phrase that has bombarded my every thought, prayer, and even found its way onto my funraising t-shirts. However, it has gained a new meaning to me in the past few days while I’ve been in Gainsville, GA for training camp before we leave for Kenya. I’ve actually been prompted to act on this plea. I can’t tell you how uncomfortable and just plain weird the past four days have been, but I wouldn’t change them for the world.
So far on this journey I have found my way through Atlanta to a random address with all of my luggage, spent the night homeless, talked and prayed with people living on the streets, had an amazing dance battle (that we should have won), watched my team grow and unify, helped paint a beautiful mural, became unhindered in my worship, forgiven for my past, and unhindered in my future. My team couldn’t be any more perfect. Its crazy to hear how our stories all fit together so amazingly and we can truly say to each other, “Yeah, I’ve been there.” And even though they make fun of me for my accent and the fact that I love deep-fried anything (and PLEASE if you have a testimony to fried oreos or anything else deliciously deep fried, comment!!!) I love them.
One moment that stuck out to me in particular took place last night. We have had several sessions here about different things we’re going to encounter on the field. The session last night I was kind of nervous about because the title was…. prophecy. I mean, I’m baptist. We just don’t do stuff like that on a normal basis. Its weird. So while Kelly was talking I just had this image of a vivid dream I had in about February or so. In the dream I was just standing in front of a play set watching this kid sit at the top of a yellow slide. He wouldn’t go down the slide, I was just watching him sit there. I thought it was really really weird that I thought of this dream just out of the blue. It was months ago. So, later Kelly told us we were going to “practice.” WHAT?? No way. We were put into groups of 5, closed our eyes, and our leader tapped a person to go into the middle of the circle. Again, weird. We prayed and asked God to speak to us in a bold and powerful way and then just started talking. I was the third person to enter the middle of the circle. All of a sudden I hear Kayla talk about seeing a kid sitting at the top of a slide, not going down but wanting to so bad. Holy moly. You’ve got to be kidding me, right? Later I shared this with Hannah (my team leader) and was so encouraged when she told me that the specific thing she pictured when I told her my story was that I am a leader. I need to lead by example so that others know what to do. Just like the kid on the slide waiting for someone to show him what to do while I was watching, its my turn to go first and set the example for what is to happen.
I was, and still am, dumbfounded by this. God is real. He speaks real things. He moves in real ways. This is just one of many ways that He has spoken to me in the past few days. I’m more excited now than ever about this trip. Thanks so much for all of your prayers. Really… I appreciate them more than you will ever know! I love you guys, miss you guys, and can’t wait to share more incredible stories of the incredible things that God does!
In Him,
Anna
