Water into Wine

I've been thinking a lot lately about the ordinary and the extraordinary. The weak and the strong. The imperfect and the perfect. The water and the wine. And it's kind of been an interesting process.

It has helped that I've had Chris August's "Water into Wine" song on repeat since I bought it. I mean the entire cd has been my music to and from work, but the first time I heard this song I was like "Woah, this fits me, every day, every moment, every hour, every struggle, every thought." It is rare that I connect with a song and so it's the first song I play in the morning and the last song I play at night. I mediate on the words in that song and think about them and soak them in.

So finally after weeks and weeks of listening to that song I went and found the passage in the Bible in John 2: 7 & 8, that talks about Jesus changing water in to wine. And at first I was kind of like, big deal, it's such a puny miracle, like He didn't heal anyone's crippled legs, He didn't bring anyone back from the dead, He just changed a liquid into a different kind of liquid. But to be honest it is a big deal. Jesus doing anything is a big deal, but seriously this is the first miracle that John mentions, the first of many, this miracle was the first that revealed His Glory. That is important.

But what is even more important is what the wine did. You see it was custom to bring out the good stuff at the beginning of the wedding so that guest could get tipsy and when they ran out of the really good stuff they would bring out the cheap stuff and no one would really taste it. But this wine, this wine that use to be tasteless water was the best these people had ever tasted. There was something about this "transformed" wine that tasted like no other.

Jesus could have easily tossed money at His mother or people around Him and said go get the cheap stuff, but instead He chose to say, give me what you have, just water and I'll transform it into something better, something extraordinary, and for those people and for that wedding it was the best tasting wine ever. This miracle small yes, was still huge. It not only revealed His glory but allowed the disciples to put their faith in Him.

Jesus didn't cast it aside as nothing, he didn't do something cheap. He was a craftsmen, a glorious craftsmen. We live in a world today where cheap is popular and true craftsmanship cost much, so we tend to replace rather than repair. We run around in circles trying to find the right way, trying follow what the world says, if it's broken don't fix it, just replace it. If it's all gone it's useless. If there is no more love, just get out and go find better love. Out with the old and in with the new.

"But Jesus, Jesus is irreplaceable. He broke for us but we could not find someone new. He was cast aside, but we could find no replacement for His love, But oh how we have tried" -Catherine Sylvester.

We've tried to fill our bellies on cheap wine. Tried to fill our hearts with cheap love. Tried to fill our minds with useless knowledge. Tried to put our faith in the seen, instead of the unseen. But it's failed us every time. Why, because we need the glory revealed, we need the water before the wine, we need faith in the unseen, the love of Christ, we need to be transformed, not just replaced. We need to be changed from water into wine. We need the transforming glory of Jesus.

We all have the answer, it lives in us. He lives in us. The unique, the one of a kind Jesus.

The one who says "Give me what you have and I will do amazing things, I will fulfill your thirst like water into wine."

He will take our nothing and He will turn it into something.


The amazing thing about my Jesus is that He knows me. He knows I struggle everyday with greed and lies and lust and temptation, He sees me at my worst and yet He redeemed me, He set me free and every day He gives me a choice to live in that sin or to live in Him. And every day I stumble. I am far from perfect, but each day I choose Him, He is perfecting me. Each day I step further away from the lies, further away from the world, and my ordinary becomes extraordinary. Every day I struggle with my weakness, trying to do things on my own and yet when I choose to let Him carry me, to take my burdens, Him and only through Him am I strong.

It's not about being the best, it's not about fitting in. It's not about fulfilling the thirst of this parched world. It's not about pleasing anyone but Him. He's transforming me, it's my choice. And I know in my heart that I can walk away any time I want. But I won't and I can't, because I wouldn't survive without Him. He doesn't need me, He wants me.

He looks at me and sees my potential. He doesn't see my failures, He doesn't see my mistakes, He sees water being transformed into wine.




Slowly transforming,


HIS and yours,


 Cami

Holding My Breath.

I'm little. Full of laughter and water surrounding me; its coolness lapping against the warmth of my skin. My arms are heavy as they pull back wave after wave, stroke after stroke. but I love water. I love swimming. but most of all I love holding my breath. It's my favorite game. Better than playing tea party at the bottom. Because being the one to hold their breath the longest, now that is skill, that is talent, it's just sheer awesomeness.

And there I swim, in my one piece green and purple suit with it's pink polka-dots all over. I'm twelve maybe thirteen, making myself sink to the bottom of the pool. Eyes shut, mouth closed tight. I hit the bottom of the pool and it begins. My eyes open and the chlorine immediately stings them, No one else has joined me, there is silence at the bottom of the pool. I feel the water all around me, flowing endlessly, easily. I can feel my lungs start to burn and ache for air, for freshness, but I wait a little longer. Counting and waiting and counting and waiting. Soon my lungs are screaming and the water has no longer become peaceful but a force that is keeping me from the surface, from the freshness of new air. I kick off the bottom of the pool and surge upward towards the sky. My face breaks the surface and I gasp as my lungs fill with air. I lay on my back and let the surface tension of the water hold me up. Catching my breath until I can hold it again.

I spend a lot of time holding my breath in life. Making myself sink to the bottom, letting my lungs fill and ache and burn for freshness, but just counting and waiting. I'm always breathing in, but never breathing out. And I constantly find myself kicking and screaming at the bottom, my lungs screaming at me, my ears full of water, trying to push myself to the top but never really getting there.

I think in my head I have this idea. My head never has good ideas, my heart is much better. But I think my head thinks that if I know how to hold my breath long enough, when I step out of the boat I won't have to worry about sinking. That when the time comes and God calls me out to walk on the water, I'll be prepared, so when I sink I can just hold my breath.

But that is not the point. I'm not suppose to want to hold my breath. I'm suppose to want to walk on the water. I'm suppose to want to jump out of that boat with reckless abandonment, grab my Jesus's hand and run across those waves to wherever He takes me. But most days, that is not the case. Most days I prep myself to hold my breath. To sink under the waves and into the darkness of the depths.

I hold my breath and count. Hold my breath for the right job, hold my breath for that friend to call, hold my breath for love, hold my breath for Africa, hold my breath for my family, holding and holding and holding.... hold my breath and wait and wait and sit on the bottom. But God is teaching me something spectacular. Something life changing.

He's teaching me how to breathe again.

To breathe HIM in and breathe HIM out.

To stop waiting and counting and holding my breath. But to just breathe. To constantly breathe and never stop. To no longer hold my breath, but to breathe out in all the things that He's done and is doing and will continue to do in my life. To stop wasting away at the bottom of that crummy ocean or pool, but to finally push myself off the bottom and surge toward the sky.

It's hard. I've been holding my breath for so long it seems that I've got a lot to learn when it comes to breathing again. But slowly and surely I step out of that boat and instead of sucking air into my lungs, I'm reaching out my hands, I'm lifting my head up towards the sky and grasping onto my Jesus, breathing.

The easiest thing to do is to just sit by. To just hold my breath and watch others live. To spend my time waiting on everyone else, holding my breath and hoping things will fall into my life. But that is not who God created me to be. He created me to run, to swim, to laugh, to love recklessly. He created me to BREATHE. so I'm going to do just that. no more sinking, no more counting no more waiting.

I'm going to live abandoned, love recklessly and breathe like there is no tomorrow.




 Just breathing.


HIS and yours,


 Cami

My Mom... My Mother's Heart, and the Orphans.

Let me just take a moment to appreciate my mother. It's probably something I don't do very often. Come to think of it I probably don't do it near enough as I should. To be honest I tend to forget all the things my mom has done for me and taught me.

I mean this is the woman that carried me for 9 months, has raised me for 22 years, watched me cross countries and lands. I can talk to about anything and can also fight with about everything and yet still loves me. If there is anyone that represent unconditional love, this woman is the epitome of it all. Yes sometimes she drives me nuts and I'm sure I drive her crazy too. Sometimes we don't see eye to eye on things, but this woman no matter how many hurtful words I have spit at her in the last 22 years of my life continues to hold me tight and love me despite of it.

She has become one of my best friends and has taught me strength and courage in ways she couldn't even imagine. She is one of the reasons I leave this place, this home, this comfort in my mother's arms to fly half-way around the world to the kids I love. Because I want people feel the warmth of my mother's hugs through me. Because I am extremely blessed with not only a mother, but two amazing parents. And most of these kids don't have any parents, let alone one. And the burden on my heart is to be a mother, a sister, an aunt, a whatever they need. To be Jesus.

God has blessed me with my amazing mother, here with me. And He has also given my mother a burden for vulnerable children, which makes our hearts that much more connected. It's amazing how God can put people directly in front of me, like my own mother, who share similar burdens.

So I appreciate my mother. Everything she has done, continues to do, and will do in the future for me. From carrying me, to bringing me into this world, to teaching me about Jesus, to listening to me, talking with me, fighting with me, encouraging my dreams. Just everything. I thank her and I thank God for blessing me with one extraordinary woman I get to call my mom.

These days make me think about those beautiful faces across the ocean. About the villages I walked through in Tanzania and how many of those families, how many of those widows, those mothers had taken in kids that were not their own. So many made huge imprints on my heart. My mama that I lived with was one of those. Esther, but she was known has Mama Caren to me. She allowed me and my ministry partner to come and live and become a part of their family. To teach me Swahili and how to cook over a coal stove. To teach me how to gut chickens and properly wash my clothes in a bucket. To letting me love on her children.

She was amazing, her heart and her love. Her unending ability to teach me things even when I didn't want to be taught. The fact that three of the six children that lived with her were not her own. Yet she took care of them, fed them, and loved them like they were. No complaining or tossing them away. But radical love, taking in these three beautiful kids that were orphaned or unwanted. It blew my mind.

It never stopped there. So many of the woman we would visit had similar stories. Even if they could hardly provide for themselves they took in these kids when no one else would. They were literally Jesus to these children. To the least of these. My heart ached with joy and sorrow. Joy for the way Jesus can be found in a a tiny village in Tanzania, but sorrow for the conditions and how hopeless they seemed. Yet they loved with a love that's beyond words. To take in a orphaned child, an unwanted child, when they barely had nothing themselves. that is love in the greatest description. Doing something for someone who can do nothing for you in return.

That is my heart. That is my burden. That is my calling. To go. To reach. To be a mother to those who have none. To be a sister an, aunt, a friend. To be Jesus. Wherever I go, whatever I do, whoever I'm with.

And though I worry constantly about these widows and these families and these children. I have an amazing Lord who is a Father to the fatherless who says in His word "I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you." (John 14:18). And in that I find strength, in that I find peace and comfort for my worries. Because I know that even when I'm not there, and even when they feel lonely, God is covering them with His robe, holding them in His hands and loving them with His heart.

I am blessed beyond measure with a mother and a father who love me and support me in all I do. I'm also blessed with knowing that I have a God who watches over me and all those I love here and overseas. That He is calling me to be like Him. It's a hard task, but one I will spend the rest of my life doing.


Happy Mother's Day!


HIS and yours,


  Cami

"no... I mean a real man!"

"no... I mean a real man."

The phrase kind of caught me off guard. I don't know why, I imagine myself back in the situation again and can't seem to figure out why I didn't see that coming. Maybe I'm naive or slightly oblivious to the fact that I am a little bit different from other people. I don't know but still this phrase... this one sentence kind of knocked the breath from my lungs and made me gather my thoughts coherently before I said something stupid without thinking.

We were standing in the back room of the store processing clothes and just chit-chatting to pass the time. One of the girls began to talk about her one year anniversary, which led to everyone else talking about the men in their lives and then it came to me. of course, as it always does.

"So Cami, you got any men in your life?" the question bounces off the back room walls and echoes through my ears. I hate this question and I've never understood why it's phrased that way and why people feel the need to ask it.

So I stand there silent for a moment pushing hangers into t-shirts, thinking about my answer and the last time I got into a conversation about being single... and then I just said. "um. Just one." I don't know where it came from, but I knew exactly why, because this was my moment. My opportunity I had been asking for.

And squeals came from the woman around me, followed by questions. "Is he cute, what's his name, is he the one?"

And I kind of laughed, because I knew my answer would be something they didn't want to hear. "Well I'm not really sure what He looks like, but I can tell you He is amazing. He can walk on water, heal the blind, and He never leaves me."

They all kind of stop what they are doing and look at me like I'm crazy. "no... I mean a real man." One of the woman say from behind me.

I chuckle and kind of look up to the ceiling... like "okay God, you are in this." And then I'm speaking. "He is real, I see Him everywhere and in everything. In the raindrops and the sun, in my best friends laugh, in the little children I think about daily across the ocean, in the random i miss you texts from friends, I see Him in every person even if they don't themselves."

Silence...

Then it's like someone let air out of the room. and one of the ladies speaks "That's pretty cool, I guess I kind of understand."

And I smile at her.

"You're not really a type of girl guys would date anyway. You know?" She looks down at the shirt she's holding as if realizing what she just said was kind of hurtful.

And this time instead of getting upset I laugh. I mean full on belly laugh, leaning over on the table. Then all the women around me are laughing. And I look at her through joyful tears and I say, "to be honest as of right now there is no guy that I would date. There is no guy that I feel is right for me. And I'm okay with that, I'm okay with it just being me and God, to be honest I wouldn't want it any other way."

We're all smiling and she says "You're pretty amazing. And just a little bit different."

"You can thank the man upstairs for that one." I smile and we continue hanging clothes.

Someone's humming along to the music and I'm laughing at the way God works and loves and answers my prayers.

And then one of the woman turn to me puts her hand on my shoulder and says, "I respect everything you said, I may not agree with it, but I love how open you are, and I can honestly say I'm surprised that no guy has snatched you up. Because man whoever does better be in for one hell of a ride."

And just like that God's open more doors for His love to pour out and into. And I'm so amazed how often His love just blows me aways. Sometimes love is patient, sometimes love is kind, and sometimes it just rocks your face off. And lately it's been rocking my face off.

That He answers my prayers in sharing Him with others at my work. It's my biggest desire and one that He's like okay I'll give you the opportunity, it's not going to be easy, you're going to be judge and called names, but you asked for the chance and I am giving it to you.

And I think that is the way with life. Every moment is a chance. Every interaction an opportunity. and if we are not showing Christ through love or actions or words, than what are we really doing. I miss these opportunities every single day. But there are moments, like this one, where God's clearly says speak and words are in my mouth before I even have time to think.

Here's to more moments like that,



HIS and yours,


 Cami

Coloring Outside Lines

There is a pitter-patter of rain against my window and a low whistle of wind blowing through leafless tree limbs outside. My nose is cold and I'm wrapped in my African blanket sitting on my bed debating whether or not to go make a nice hot cup of tea or to just let my head hit the pillow and sleep until tomorrow.

Neither seem to be an appealing choice at the moment. So I think I'll just sit indian style on my bed with my shoulders draped with the warmth of Africa, on my shoulders, on my mind, and heavy on my heart.

My thoughts are a jumble and my words do not seem to be so eloquent. Phrases aren't forming in my mind and it seems that spelling has become an issue. I find it difficult to express myself with words spoken. I find that the written words are much more beautiful and much simpler for me to describe my heart. I think it's because I look around and I see God's scribbles on everything, and I feel like if I can just scribble even remotely close to Him than maybe, just maybe there will be beauty. 

But I tend to scribble a little too much and a little too off. I tend to scribble over God's scribbles instead of next to. Too often I tend to take the crayon from God's hand instead of asking Him to guide mine. I tend to think that if I color anywhere outside of the line, if my scribbles become wild and reckless than I've lost my path and somehow God's not going to be able to clean my picture back up. 

But God is pretty awesome. He takes my broken crayon from my hand, looks me in the eyes and tells me that He loves to color outside the lines. He loves to use the weak to shame the strong. He loves to heal the blind and the lame and the sick and save the poor. He loves the least of these. He loves the faith of the child. He loves the beauty in the simple things, especially when it's outside the lines.

For so long I thought that I had to stay inside these lines, but God doesn't have lines to stay inside. His coloring is all over creation. His handwriting covers states and countries and continents that I have yet to see. And it's beautiful. It's an amazing thing to think about. That our God has touched every single one of us, our homes, our families, our hearts. He has heard every single one of our prayers, our angry shouts, our praises. He is coloring our lives. Each a different shade. Each a beautiful shade. and Each one of us has our crayons too... I like the 64 pack... so many to choose from. And God hands me a crayon and says, "Color, my daughter, be my hands, be my feet. I'm sending you here to shine the light to share the shade of color I have given you. Go and color outside the lines." 

He calls me to go boldly toward my dreams to color with wild abandonment. To realize that He's gone ahead of me with His a-million pack of crayons and that He's taking care of everything, every color I think I don't have, He has. And every time my crayon gets dull, He hands me a new shade and I begin again. Coloring outside the lines and trying to follow His colorful, beautiful path. 

It's easy to lose track of the beauty God has placed in the world. And it's easy, especially now for me to just want to play it safe, to color inside the lines. But I can't do that and I don't want to do that. I want to color like crazy. To go outside the lines and beyond. To run wild and free. to care freely, to love deeply, to walk humbly and live justly. To show people who He is through me. That there would be so much more of Him and much much less of me. That the colors of my life would be His, blazing through like a rainbow after the clouds pass away and the water is no longer falling from the sky. 

He's teaching me to be different than what is expected. To color outside the lines. and I love it.

Coloring outside the lines,

HIS and yours,

Cami 

A letter to the world...

Let me tell you something world. You see I don't fit you. I don't fit into your ideas, into your molds, into your boxes. I don't fit into this cookie cutter image of a woman that you decided I have to be. I don't fit because I don't want to. I don't fit because I have been saved from that. been saved from the world, from you and what you tell me to become, but more importantly I've been saved from myself.

Saved from the girl I used to be. The girl who wanted nothing but to be the world. To be this image. to be this woman that was pushed into her mind from tv and magazines and internet and other women around her. To be this definition of beauty, that quite frankly doesn't exist. You see I hated me. I hated my unnaturally large feet, and my crooked smile, my hairy arms, and frizzy hair, my bitten finger nails/ large hands, and my loud awkward laughter. I had list and list and list written up, taken down, in my head, on pieces of papers, in mirrors and windows I'd walk past. I could see it everything I wasn't. 

Don't try to tell me I am beautiful world, because I know what you think of me. I know what you say behind my back, when you think I'm not looking or listening. Because I've felt it. Every single word, every single glance and stare like ice down my back and in my veins. World, you may wait until I'm turned the other way, but you make sure I see it and I feel it every day of my life. You make sure you know that you want me to desire your approval. You want me to fawn over this image and idea you have of me to be. 

But let me tell you something world. Let me tell you what I think. Let me tell you that I don't need your approval. Because I am approved by Someone much greater than you. He knows me and He loves me. World, He doesn't desire me to be anyone else! Get this world, He created me to be this person. This person that you are trying so hard to change, to make into your way. But I'm not made in your image, I'm not made in your way. I am made in His image, in His way. Because His thoughts, His plans, His ways, and His creation is so much greater, so much more than anything you, world, could ever fathom. 

You see, world, He created every part of me. My beauty is in my flaws, my beauty is in Him. He made my large feet to be covered by the dusty roads of foreign countries, my crooked smile to shine at strangers on the street, my hairy arms to be pulled my sweet ebony hands, my frizzy hair to be brushed through and played with by my niece. My bitten fingers to type words onto pages, to rub away soreness in little children, my large hands to cling onto those I love dearly and those who just happen into my embrace. And my laughter echo off walls in church buildings and schools, and homes, and hallways, and in the middle of nowhere Africa, to show the joy of Christ. You see He created me. He made me the way I am. Why would I want to be you world, when there is so much more to me?

World, you and I have always had our issues, but God calls me to be something greater than what you ask of me. He calls me to be holy. you call me to be pretty. He calls me to be selfless, you call me to be selfish. He calls me to love everyone, you call me to love those who look a certain way. And world, I can't help but tell you that you are wrong. You're wrong. Your ideas, your molds, your boxes. They are all wrong.

Yeah, my image doesn't reflect yours, Praise God for that. I like my steak and potatoes, my burgers and fries. I like carrying kids on my back and having messy hair.  I like my height and I like my weight, I like my sweatpants and sweatshirts. I like my natural face. I like being dirty, I like sitting on dirt floors in sweltering heat getting eaten alive by mosquitos and loving on widows. I like all of these things. And all of these things in your definition of a woman just doesn't fit. And I'm okay with that. I was not made, nor was I born, nor will I ever become a worldly woman. I am made to be a Godly woman. 

World I just have one more thing to say. Stop. Just stop. Stop objectifying my fellow woman on TV and magazine covers. Stop telling us our worth comes from men and from clothes and shoes and relationships. Stop telling us we have to be a certain height and a certain weight. Stop. just stop. Stop trying to fit us into boxes and molds that we were not made to fit into. Stop telling us were are flawed. Just stop. 

Because we are beautiful. I am beautiful. God has made me and has told me. His approval is all I need. He makes me worthy. Not you world, not you! 

"All beautiful you are my darling there is NO flaw in you" Songs 4:7 

World, you could be so much more. You could be beautiful. But you're sinful and so am I. The only difference is I've received this grace and walk in His love and faith. and You world, you're determined to be your ideals and your mold. But I will not. He is my King, not you. He is my Rock, not you. 

But world, He loves you. He loves you. So come back, come back to Him, He's waiting for you.

Sincerely, 

  A woman whose been hurt by you, but Healed by Grace. 

Mary, Martha, and Me

So this week has been really interesting. Thanks God!

Last Saturday I received an email from the organization I went to Africa with, seeking people to help out with a Kid's Program in Madagascar. I seriously peed my pants with excitement... Okay that was a little exaggerated. But I was super excited, anyone who knows me, knows that if you put Jesus, Africa, and kids in the same sentence I am so there. Or just Jesus and Africa... or Jesus and kids... I mean anything with Jesus is pretty awesome.

Okay back to the point.

So anyway I got the email and read it through maybe three times thinking finally, even if it's only for two weeks I can go back, love on some kids, and serve Him. But in the back of my mind I heard a voice. In the inner most part of my heart I felt a tug. Pray. Pray. Pray. So I emailed some friends asking them to pray for me and I did the same as well. The entire week.

"God give me clarity, this is Your decision, not mine. I desire to serve You, but I want it to be Your timing, not my own. I want it to be Your Africa, Your kids, Your heart, not my own. Show me the way, teach me Your way. Give me patience, all in your timing."

I went about my week working and went up to Northwestern and visited some wonderful friends up there. And Sunday night was their last Praise and Worship and the speaker's words hit me right in the face. He talked about Mary and Martha, and it was like he was talking about me to me. It was like God was there saying "Cami, Cami, look what I am teaching you, listen to what I am teaching you."

And I really had to sit back an evaluate myself and my heart and my service.

I love to serve. In all honesty that is what God created me to do. If someone called me up and asked me to do something for them, I am more than likely to say yes without hesitation. I love helping people. If God were like Cami go, I'd say yes, no matter where, when, or why.

But in this moment I asked myself a serious question. "Who am I not seeing because I am too busy serving?"

It was kind of a mind-blowing question. I mean obviously I am serving people so how can I be missing people. But I think it's the Martha in me. I get so caught up in making sure the serving gets done that I sometime forget to sit with the people and really listen.

When I look at it. When I am home I am a Martha, constantly looking for things to do to keep me busy, to serve people and their needs, that sometimes I don't see God calling me to His feet to sit and listen, calling me to His people to sit and listen. But when I am overseas I tend to get so caught up in listening and sitting that nothing ever gets done, especially when it needs to be. I guess I need a healthy balance of the two. But if I'm honest most days I'm a Martha.

Running around trying to make sure everything is getting done and forgetting that the one thing Christ asks of me is to sit and to listen to Him. To hear His heart and His words. and so this week when I got home it kind of just turned into a restful week. A lot of sitting alone and just trying to listen to what He is saying to me.

I think that in our culture it's easy to be a Martha. And there is nothing wrong with that. But there are times when people get so caught up in serving that they forget about who they are serving and why. That our culture believes that to be busy busy all the time is a good thing, that task-oriented is better than people-oriented.

And sometimes I wonder if the most radical thing Christ-followers can do in a loud, competitive culture is become better listeners.

Listeners not only to the people around them but to God as well. To be more like Mary and choose the thing that will never be taken away from her. To sit and Jesus's feet and soak in His presence, His love, and His words.

But to also remember that God has made us to be with other people. Sometimes, I know in my own life, and maybe in others, I tend to think well this person just called to talk but I want to do my devotions and then get to bed at this time, so maybe I will call them back some other time. I think some Christians have a habit of pulling the God card... okay, I mean I've heard about it being used when a guy breaks up with a girl or vice versa, saying that they've been putting God on the back burner, but I think that God designed us to be with other people at certain times.

It's kind of confusing. But there is a balance between Mary and Martha. Yes, in my life God will always come first, but He also calls me to love on the people around me, that means taking that phone call even if it interrupts my devotions, because it may be something important, it may be an opportunity to share His love, and if it's not extremely important most people understand when I tell them I spending time with my Best Friend.

So at this moment I am a lot of Martha and God is teaching me to be a Mary. He is telling me No to Madagascar, telling me to sit at His feet awhile longer. That He is moving and in His timing and only His timing will I go. To keep my eyes open to the people around me, to not get caught up in the task and also not to become lazy.

To see that He is placing amazing people in my life right now who encourage me in my faith, people I would have never met had I not spent that time at His feet in Kenya, when the decisions were on the balance. It blows my mind how He works in all things. And I typically don't see it until way after, but He never fails me. He never gives up on me. He's always there, always moving, always teaching me more and more.

So right now I've been spending a lot of time reading and just being. It's kind of nice... kind of weird... but kind of nice. I know that God's moving and I believe all in His perfect timing He will bring me back to His Africa, to His children, to His heart, to His service and I cannot wait until that day!


trying to mix my Martha with Mary and cuddling dogs,


 HIS and yours,


 Cami