Well, time has flown by! I wanted to send out a quick, albeit very last-minute, reminder that I will be speaking tomorrow (or today depending when you read this), Sunday July 29 at the 9:30 and 11:00am services at Grace Ministry Center in Port Huron (Kimball) MI, in the outlet mall off of Range Road. I’ll be sharing some amazing testimonies of God-at-work in Botswana.
Also, a new update is that I will be giving a presentation with pictures, movies, and testimonies/stories from Botswana this coming Tuesday, July 31 at 6:30pm at Trinity in Lexington (5646 Main Street). When you come in the side doors off the parking lot, go up the stairs, and go through the first doors to the left.
My time in the U.S. (and Canada today and yesterday!) has been great! It’s been a blessing to see so many friends and family.
As I said, time has flown by, so unfortunately I couldn’t see everyone in Minnesota I’d hoped, but I’m thankful to have seen the ones I did! I hope to see some more in Michigan this week. I have just 8 full days left in the U.S. I leave on August 6 to fly back to Botswana for my second term!
The Rock Testimony
I had no doubt I am supposed to return to Botswana, but I’ll share a story that continued to confirm that I’m on the right track:
In May when I was going for a run along the Lake Huron beach, I stopped to sit and pray at the spot where, at age 19 back in 2002, I’d first felt God calling me to be a missionary (“You should be a missionary” had popped into my mind randomly). After much prayer and God confirming it in many ways, I was back on the beach a couple months later praying and asking God where I was supposed to be a missionary. Right after I prayed, “I’ll go wherever You want me to go; wherever You want to send me…”, then “Botswana” popped in my mind! I wasn’t even sure what/where that was! Again, through much prayer and many things, God confirmed that, indeed, Botswana is where I’m supposed to be.
So now, ten years after that, in late May this year, I was on that stretch of beach and continued north to the beach for Cozma’s Cottages, just about half a mile further up the beach from where I felt called to missions/Botswana. I remembered that we used to vacation at Cozma’s back when we still lived in Dexter, Michigan (near Ann Arbor). So I had been on that very beach as a 7 and 8 year old. As I was there this May, reminiscing about that, I had the thought that God saw me there on that very beach 22 years ago, and I believe in His foreknowledge, knowing the end from the beginning, He knew even when I was 7 that 12 years later He would call me to missions and Botswana just a half mile down that shoreline. So I thought, 'Why don’t I find a cool-looking rock from Cozma’s beach to keep as a reminder that even then, when I was first here (or truthfully, before I was even born), God knew that He would call me to missions in Botswana?' Within 10 seconds of starting to look for a rock, I found one that I and many others feel has a striking resemblance to the continent of Africa, even including the Horn of Africa!
Yup…that one will do!! So now I have an Africa-shaped rock to remind me that, way back when, God knew He would call me to missions in Africa!!! I was just blown away yet again by our amazing God!! Also, others have even seen a whitish angel inside “Africa” on the rock—a profile view with her head bowed and wings to the right, dress at the bottom.
Another background story that makes it even cooler is that when I was at Cozma’s beach at age 7, I had collected a cup full of little rocks and shells that I wanted to keep and take back to my home in Dexter. I left the cup down on the dock, and when I came back later, someone had stolen it. For a 7-year-old, I was sad and upset. Now I can run up and down that shoreline and have any of millions of rocks...and at that same spot 22 years later, God gave me a pretty sweet rock!
So, all that to say, I’m excited to head back to Botswana, for I know Africa is where I’m supposed to be. Even one of the YFC volunteers in Botswana, upon hearing this rock story, wrote to me that it’s a sign that my work is not done there in Africa. True that.
Speaking of going back, my Botswana residence permit expires today, but I applied before I left for a renewal. Prayers for its quick approval are appreciated and that they let me in Botswana without a hassle (I have the receipt for the renewal to show them).
Beauty from Ashes
One other interesting story I'll share happened this week. I was back on that stretch of Lake Huron shoreline again on Thursday, and since it looked rainy I left my mp3 music player in the car. So as I walked along the beach about an 1/8 mile from the spot where I felt called to missions/Botswana, I was singing the song I wrote last year called "Beauty from Ashes" (and for the record, this was the first time I can ever remember singing my own songs a cappella on a run/walk...I normally listen to music or just think/pray without music). Then right as I was singing the chorus--"You [God] bring beauty from ashes, You trade joy for mourning, You bring beauty from ashes..." I saw RIGHT in front of me, washed up on shore, a flower (like a rose or carnation with a stem)! Never in all my years of running and walking along the beach have I ever seen a flower wash up on the shore! And what beautiful timing--RIGHT as I'm singing how God brings beauty from the ashes.
Interestingly, I realized later that the spot where that rose washed up is literally within feet of where I was sitting about 3 months after my accident when I found a piece of glass washed up on the shore and shared the following email I'd written on this Caring Bridge journal:
Maybe we can learn a lesson from a piece of glass I found on the beach today. It had been washed in the water so long that it was dull and opaque (no longer clear), but also no longer sharp. I remember thinking what's it good for now? You can't look through it anymore. But then I saw another flat brown rock and I picked it up. Then without really thinking I rubbed the glass on it and drew clearly a white heart on the rock. The glass "wrote" extremely well and clearly (more so than other rocks would).
As I was walking back home, I was kinda like, "Lord, are you trying to teach me something from that??" and then I thought how sometimes things happen that change us that we have no control over. Sometimes we can't do the things we used to. Sometimes the future will look much different than the past. The glass didn't choose to be thrown in the lake and become dull, soft-edged, and opaque. It's no longer able to do what it used to do--be a clear substance through which one can look. But is it useless now? No, it can be used in different ways now.
Similarly, things will never be the same for the families of Isaac, Jessica, and Karin. There is no hope of going back to the way things used to be, now that they are Home. But there is hope, that though things are different, God still has purposes and plans for the grieving families and can use them just as they are now, though they may feel broken, worn, empty. And it may be that very brokenness that allows them in the future to 'write' Christ's heart out for others to see during their times of heartache. Their ability to empathize with and comfort others after this does not necessarily make the tragedy 'worthwhile' or 'justified'...it doesn't outweigh the pain, but it does show that when things change us forever, God is still at work to bring good out of it so it is not a total loss.
So, in this life, yes things will always be different. We are like the broken glass that's been tossed by the waves, forever changed. But God is working to somehow bring good out of even that. And then once this time on earth is done, we have the hope that we will be reunited with those we love who have died before us in faith. So yes, death stings unimaginably hard now...but ultimately we will be able to say, "Where O Death is your sting?” for “Death has been swallowed up in victory” (1 Cor 15:54-55).
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So that's what I wrote in nearly the same spot where this week I found a flower washed up on the shore for the first time ever, while singing that God brings beauty from the ashes (good out of hard things)!
Reading now what I wrote back then and how I'd taken it mainly from the angle of the other families, reminds me that I have yet to share with you all the wonderful news that little Isaac's parents (the other two survivors), Scott & Andrea Sward, were extremely blessed by Andrea's giving birth to a healthy, beautiful baby boy, Zachary Alan, in late May!! They are in Cambodia with their precious little guy.
Beautiful!
Blessings!
~Em
