... and im sitting at the Sydney Airport waiting for my flight to Canada, which has been delayed. You might think, how does a song and a shaky leg make you pack yourself up and move that far away (21,463km if you ask Google maps and it takes you via Japan and suggets that you kyak over the Pacific Ocean.. hmmm). Well thats where this blog will begin...
For those of you who don't know I have joined YWAM ( Youth With A Mission) for the next six months for their Nexia - discipleship training school, which will be based in Vancouver for 3 months and then who knows where after that for the following three months. (more to come on this later)
So since doing uni and working with bacteria and learning about the diseases they can cause I have, developed a bit of an interest for hygiene, sanitation and clean water. (Although people would probably tell you different from the unidentifiable organic matter I have pulled from my fridge.) I never really knew what I would do with this interest and would often say I would like to build a well somewhere in Africa, but never really knew how to get involved or do anything about it. Unbeknownst to me this all started to change last year when, at church, a group of us took part in a 12 week course which was about being missionaries in our local area. Every fortnight we would get together in small groups and talk about what we had read in the Book of Acts. Our group never really talked about the readings, but talked more about what we would like to do to serve others. From these conversations a friend of mine sent an email to a contact she had within YWAM and in early January she forwarded part of an email she had had in reply. My friend had told her contact about me and my passion for hygiene and sanitation, and he had suggested that I apply for their Nexia- DTS. So I downloaded the application form, talked to Mum and Dad, prayed about it, had about 4 Migraines and procrastinated filling out the forms for about a months. But I got there in the end and in April found out that I had been accepted.
So much went through my head about whether it was the right thing to do and did I really want to go. And was it actually a God thing. Well the next weekend at church it was clear to me that it was a God thing. My left leg is what I call my God leg. I find it easy to not listen to God, for 7 years I pushed away His call for me to get baptised, not healthy I know as I can see now that in that time I didn’t grow in my faith and became very stagnent in my relationship with God. To make me listen, I have a very physical response to God telling me something, that something is the uncontrollable shaking of my left leg. Not my right, but my left. My right leg shakes when I am playing piano in front of more than about 2 people.
So that weekend, I was say na I’m not going. But at church church though, God told me different. I can’t remember what the sermon was about ( Sorry Tim or Blake). But I was at 8:45 service (I love the old songs you see) and the song that the service closed with was I give you my heart, and man did my left leg shake, not only because the song is about lining for God alone, but also because it was the same song that was sung at a Youth Alive when I made my own decision to follow God when I was in year 7. The same song was sung to close the 6:00 service too, and again my leg was going off.
So since then to now, a whole lot of life has happened, but the whole time I was preparing for today, and the next six months to come. Although I still freak out about what I am doing and the unknown, which is also exciting, I know God is definitely in this. This morning at some stupid time of the morning Timmy D turned on the TV in our F1 airport hotel, and there was a program on. I’m not sure what it was called but there was a focus on providing clean water for Africa, and what it means for health of communities. Em, Tim and I were like whoa whoa whoa… but that’s not all… As I was boarding the plane and saying goodbye to my family the Today show was on and there was a choir singing Amazing Grace.. Yep definitely a God thing.
So the adventure is just beginning .. It going to be a big one.. and now I think I just might be starting to get excited…….
