Encouragement from half a world away

          Well  the last week or so, really the last two and a half months, have been full of learning but this week I feel I have learned something that I want to share with everyone back home. After journaling about it I feel that this lesson is as much for all of you as it is for me and as I am too lazy to reword everything I am just going to type everything that I wrote. I don't know what brought all these thoughts on but I am so glad to have gone through this thought process for myself and I hope it will inspire and encourage some of you back home.Hope everything makes sense, I am not going to be editing, again I am just too plain lazy today.  Here goes...

      " This morning I was reading Natalie's blog and thinking, " Wow! I wish I was having experiences like that. She sounds like a real missionary!" The thing is we are here together, doing mostly the same things. I am here, living in Uganda, taking a discipleship training course,doing my best to live for God. Whenever I talk to people from home they always want to know what/how I am doing. They always say things like " you are touching peoples lives," or " you must be helping so many people" but in reality I do not feel like I am doing anything all that spectacular. I am simply living in Africa. I do not feel like some super spiritual missionary, I don't have stories about masses of people coming to Christ, or demon possessed people being freed. I am simply living and loving those in my path, and if I am honest even doing that is not always easy. I always have an excuse why I can't reach out to someone, ( for example language or cultural issues, I don't want to break a rule that I may not know exists ) the hard part is doing it anyway. Back home they ( various pastors I have heard a t events like breakforth) you do not have to be in a different country to be a missionary. All you have to do is step out of the doors of the church. I always used to think that though that might be true the ones who go overseas were more important, more special, more likely to do great things. I realize now that I was wrong. I still love overseas missions and think perhaps I would like to do it again someday after 360, but you don't have to leave " normal" life to be an influential missionary. You just need a burning desire to live every breath for God and a love for him that cannot be quenched. Though I am supposedly on a " missions trip" I am just now learning what it means to be a missionary, and it has nothing to do with where you live."

      This is my prayer for all of you back home. That you would see the amazing power you have to be a blessing to all those around you. We live in communities that need the LORD!!  You do not need anything that God has not given you to make a difference, he has created you to be his hands and feet on earth. There is nothing more special about those of us who travel to another country, we are simply following where God has asked us, but he has called each of us where we are at. I believe that if he has not called you to leave your country of birth to be a missionary then he has called you to be one at home, in your community, among the people that you see every single day.  He can use you and he will! If only you will come to him lay all the worries of what it will mean to be his disciple at his feet, leave them there and then step forward with Him as your guide.  I hope this was encouraging, it was my desire that it would be, if it was offensive I apologize for how it was received but not for what I said. I believe that God longs with all of his being to use each and every one of us but he will only use as much of us as we present to Him. He will not force anything upon us, so now it is up to you what you will do. Following him, being his missionary does not mean that we never fall down, but it does mean that we get back up with the help of our savior and continue on. In closing I feel like it would be appropriate to share a poem that I wrote on the 29 of June 2011:

The time is right

take that step.

The world is at your feet 

dare to go forward.

All you have ever known,

is about to change.

All you have been taught,

will be put to the test.

Open your mind to the things you have never known.

The time is right

take that step.

The world is at your feet

dare to go forward.

Dream big and you will find

everything that you were meant to be.

If you take a leap of faith,

anything is possible.

Never forget all that was, 

move into the future to find all that can be,

the world is at your feet

Spread your wings and fly.