The past couple weeks I have been very blessed, after being the only girl student on my YWAM base and the only American, God sent me 8 Americans and 7 of them are girls! It is a group from The World Race that have been traveling for 10 months and this is there last and final month. I can not being to express how much of a blessing they have been to me. They have adopted me into their group from the very start and have loved on me and prayed for me and laughed with me and eaten way to much ice cream with me. 

This past weeks I have been able to go out and do ministry with them and I don't think my heart has never been so full. It was the moment I had been waiting for. As we walked the streets we were greeted by so many sweet kids. That was the moment this little girl ran toward me, hugged me so tight, and looked up at me with her big brown eyes. I grabbed her hand and she said nothing but I was so captivated by that moment and how simple the love of Jesus is and how simple that little girl showed it to me. As we went to different homes and just talked with people and loved on people and prayed with people my joy only grew. 

I am thankful for Gods timing even when I so eagerly want something, I have learned time and time again he is an on time God. 

I have been so blessed by this group of people they have encouraged me and challenged me to be better. I am thankful for the goodness he poured out upon them and the sense of adventure. So thank you World Racers for coming to us and blessing YWAM Livingstone you have made a mark on this place and on my heart. 

In this past week I was reminded of one of my favorite Bibles verses John 13. As Jesus is  talking with his disciples and washing their feet they have so many questions and he simple states “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.””

‭‭I love this verse because I have experienced it in my own life time after time, in the midst of life I do not realize what Jesus is doing I don't know where he is planting seeds or where he may be furthering his Kingdom or where he is working in my own life, until I look back at the season and I have those ah ha moments where I can point and say "that time was so hard but God was working." Sometimes I even laugh at the goodness of God when it felt like everything was crazy or not making sense in life it's when he is doing something and he is sitting there saying to me "Karlie, you do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand" 

So I am not some great theologian and I am not perfect in my understanding of God or the Bible, but frankly no one is. This is my little two cents of the week. God knows, he is always working and always moving in us whether we see it or not. 

I Asked God

     I asked God to give me trust without borders. I asked him to send me, to lead me where he wanted me. I asked him to say "GO" and I would go. And so I went, I took the leap. And as I have been here I feel like I have lacked. I started to put marks on where I thought I should be spiritually and mentally. I started to limit myself and limit God. But I felt God reveling to me that he is not marking where I am at and I shouldn't either.

    Before this realization I stopped updating people. I didn't want to write about my struggle with homesickness and culture shock and not understand what God was doing in my life. I was hesitant to be real. I don't know why we have this thing as humans that makes us want to portray that our lives are perfect. I was feeling like I only wanted to update people if I had amazing things to say. But today I was reminded by my Dad and his good friend Oswald Chambers that " The things Jesus did were the most menial of everyday tasks." So some of my days are spent doing the most menial of tasks like doing the dishes or cleaning the bathrooms, but that is okay.

    And this is the most recent lesson I have learned. I have learned that leaving home and doing ministry is not meant to be easy it's not meant to be comfortable and I have experienced that discomfort, but I have also experienced God working in me and pushing me to be better. For me it took coming to Africa to realize so many things in my life. I have realized it's okay to share with all of you every step of my journey the good and the hard and that you will love me anyway and you want to hear from me anyway. So thank you all for your love and your support and your prayers and here is my first step in getting better about being real with all of you. And lastly I am so glad that I prayed for God to send me and that he sent me. 

Karlie