Oh Canada

We are back on solid ground as of Sunday afternoon. Our flight came in on time and going through customs proved incredibly simple...mostly because we had no luggage. lol. When we arrived in Washington D.C. to catch our connecting flight to Toronto, we were to gather our bags and go through U.S. customs with them...only after an hour of watching bags go round and round on the conveyor belt, we realized ours were definitely not there..along with a few others bags, so we did some paper work and we are hoping and praying that as our bags tour the world without us, they will return in one piece very soon....so we can do our laundry. :D

Coming back we were discussing the fact of what to say when our dear loved ones ask us "so how was your trip?" when so much has happened in such a short amount of time and we haven't had time to process everything yet. I know I can't answer for the entire team, but I will do my best to give at least my perspective on how the trip was...it was amazing.

In so many ways, when I left I expected God to challenge and stretch me in big ways... I felt like I was going to go through some intensely trying and hard times, and I know I even talked and prayed about this with a good friend before I left. Looking back and contemplating what has happened in the last four weeks, it just makes me shake my head in wonder at how God works..and how great and awesome He really is....

..I found it incredibly revitalizing. Zambia is a Christian nation. Like I mentioned in a note before, Christian music is played in the grocery store, on mini buses and in taxis. The Scripture Union team we worked with is free to talk about their faith and God in the public schools. Really, it is just a very free place to be as a Christian. I don't think I ever got used to how open we were allowed to be and were...I mean, I could feel inside me the tension and thoughts of "why aren't people freaking out about this music or what we're saying?" and then I would realize over and again that it's normal and ok. Over the course of the time we spent there, I just felt more and more at peace and inspired and really challenged to take this back to Canada. I just experienced this sense that if we are able to be so free and open and to really care here, why not back home? What is it that scares us from speaking out and not content to be so incredibly passive with our culture in Canada...?

I truly believe this was the challenge God was planning for me to face and be stretched with...and now the test starts because I'm back home, a week from now starting a placement working with African-Canadian Youth. What am I going to do? I've been so blessed to have been given the opportunity to take a step out of my culture and way of life and to live a different one for four weeks...yet with youth who still struggle and with a God who is the same there as here, yesterday and today. God has shown me so many things, and now it's my responsibility to be taking what I've learned and live it. To take the step of faith and trust and become a voice for Him in this nation. ...and in all honesty, it's a super scary and huge responsibility, but it's God who will take each of us through. It was for Him and through Him that we were able to go to Africa, and it will be for Him and through Him that we will take His message back to Canada.

I just want to thank each and every one of you for your constant thoughts and prayers and the support each one of you blessed our team with. ..and I want to encourage each of you to take a stand. God has given us His armor. We just need to take it up and be in prayer and fight this battle.

"Therefore, since through God's mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart. Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.

It is written: "I believed; therefore I have spoken." With that same spirit of faith we also believe and therefore speak, because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you in his presence. All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God.

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

2 Corinthians 4

May the Lord bless you and keep you. May he be with you and within you.

Love, Kristen
[ZTEAM sister]