(I wrote this blog on Friday but haven't been able to post it until now. After 40 hours of air travel, we finally arrived in Atlanta, and I am headed to Calgary tomorrow! Enjoy this last blog, and thanks again for your support! See you so soon!!) I can't believe this trip is actually coming to an end, and that I'll be back in Calgary in just a few days. I say 'trip', but after living somewhere for over 3 months, it starts to become your home, your normal, your usual life, and leaving the place also means leaving people and things that have become comfortable and loved behind. Things...

As I prepare to go home, I am bracing myself for the countless times I will be asked "How was Africa?" by people who expect a short 1 or 2 minute response summarizing the past 4 months of my life. Africa is somehow indescribable, but the following list is my attempt to put words to the incredible things I have seen, felt and done throughout this season of my life. Africa is sitting in a classroom for hours with 19 year old Benedict as he shares how God has worked in his life, walking 11 year old Rechael to school, holding partially naked toddler Shelly while she sings and babbles in...

I am home. Is this real life?   Life feels incredibly normal again and Africa feels like a dream.   But I know, as much as it feels normal, I haven't fully begun to process the past 3 1/2 months of my life. People will ask me how was my "experience" or how was my "trip"? But it's not simply a trip, it was my life. My first night at home I woke up at 3:30 am, fully awake and incredibly alone. Going from having 4 roommates, a bed digging into my back, sweating and being tucked in by a mosquito net to being alone, in a bed super comfy, tucked...

      I came to Africa looking for God. Looking for Him in worship, in healing, in crazy stories of revival. I continually begged Him to meet me through miracles, through angels, or through any mind-blowing experience. None of this happened. I don't have any stories where I fell out in the Spirit or had a super intense worship night where the Lord broke me. Then one day God asked me to take a good look around Lira–the town I have lived in and slowly adapted to over the past three months. God lifted a veil from my eyes, and what I saw overwhelmed me.      ...

Between a Sunrise and a Sunset     Do you ever have those moments when you just wish God would let you know it will all be okay in the end?   About two months ago, our team was spending a night praying and worshipping the Lord.  As a leader I asked God to show me more about this journey we were on.   He showed me a picture of our whole team dancing and worshipping under a huge African sun near the end of our time here in Uganda. He showed me that we were about to go on an epic journey with him.   It was an image of hope amidst the hard times that were coming An...

Being home or "re-entry" as they tell us is exactly how they warned it would be and exactly how I denied it ever would.  I feel lost without my team, and purposeless without a ministry plan.  These last few days I've barely left the comfort of my bedroom, hoping that reading my Bible and listening to Christian music would suffice God's calling and plan on my life at home…. Nope, not at all! He has clearly spoken reminding me that as Christians our jobs are never done. Thanks to some really caring and loving teammates I had a pretty life-changing realization...