The process of preparing for Kenya is continuing every day as the time between now and then grows shorter with every passing day. This journey has been an incredibly humbling experience as support raising for my team is in full swing. Each of us individually have been working with our local churches, family members, and friends to raise the funds needed to send us to Kenya and to supply us with what we need.
This trip is one fiercely personal to a passion that has been building in me for more years than I can remember. Every time I stop and think of whats to come, I am blown away all over again by the faithfulness of the Lord to allow me the incredible opportunity to travel to this country. If you don’t know anything about me at all, one of the most important things I could impress on you is how wildly important my family is to me. And each stage of life they just become even more important to me in brand new ways, and I learn to cherish the differences in that with each new season. My dad was, and always will be, one of the most impactful people in my life. I get asked often if I even remember much about him, being that I was so young when he went to be with the Lord. Sometimes I’m taken back by how gracious the Lord has been to me to leave so much of my dad in my life throughout the years. I see him in every part of my family- the family that he built. The school that sits on Kenyan soil holds a part of my dad that’s never been in my reach, and now that it possibly is in reach… my heart can barely handle it.
As our team has begun meeting regularly to plan, prepare, and pray over our time across the sea we have begun to dive into the details and logistics of what our trip could look like. Up until this point, my heart sat in the place of the paragraph above- overwhelmed and excited. But as time has ticked on, the excitement hasn’t died a bit, but reality has set in a little more. And in the face of reality, fear has begun to creep into my heart. In my family’s dynamics communication is rampant. Every day, most the times more than once a day, I talk to my mom, my sister, and my brother in some capacity. Maybe it’s what we’ve walked through together that just don’t allow those bonds to back off, even with differences in distance and schedules. While I’m in Kenya that aspect of my family will cease. Questions have started racing through my head, with one at the forefront: can I really do this?
In the midst of the thoughts, that Sunday morning at church I listened to a sermon on the Great Commission. What a timely God we have, right? A passage I’ve heard for my entire life growing up in the church, that continues to have so much to do in my heart.
Matthew 28:16-20
Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
I’ve always heard the “go and make disciples,” but this time I heard something different. “All authority on heaven and on each has been given to me. Go therefore…” This was the section of these verses that was focused on this Sunday morning. We go and make disciples because He already holds all authority, and all power. In no way do we go out for the victory to be secured, we go out from the victory that has already been secured.
Philippians 2:10-11
so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
As this truth poured over my soul, so did a peace, a confidence, and a courage. The answer to my fearful question “can I do it?” was still a resounding no. In my own strength, in my own abilities, in my own emotions, in my own will- it is a hopeless cause. But because of the price that He paid, the battle that He already won I can go to Kenya with a reassurance that no matter what does or doesn’t take place on that soil, every knee WILL bow, and every tongue WILL confess on that glorious day. These promises aren’t just secured for my trip to another country, but hold true every single day of my life as I get up and walk outside my door to a college campus full of souls in need of the Gospel.
I know the Lord is calling me to step out in faith, even in the fear, and to fully immerse myself in this calling on my life in this season of my life. And if that takes some scary sacrifices, it’s time I step out all in for the Gospel and a battle that has already been won.
The Gospel:
It is discovering a treasure of such surpassing that those who find it simply aren’t willing to settle for the mud-pie riches and glory of this fallen world. It is a treasure that is better than life, and nothing demonstrates that value of a treasure more than what we are willing to suffer and lose in order to have it. So lose it all in order to gain everything.
So Go, therefore…
Love, Em
Please continue to lift up our team in your prayers as we grow in unity, raise support, and work out the details of the journey. Plane tickets have officially been purchased and it won’t be long till we step out onto Kenyan soil! I am thrilled!!
Remember + Rejoice 