This my dear friends is shaping up to be an extremely true statement, and I am thoroughly excited about it! I believe that for many of you this will be a rather shocking statement... don't worry it was for me too, but as I tell you this story you may find that there is no way that our fantastic God is not putting this together.
I suppose this all started when Lauren, a girl from my church serving in Tanzania, came and spoke at church about what she was doing there. Later that same week she showed up at small group, and shared in more detail what she was doing in Tanzania and what God was teaching her through that. During these times that she spoke I felt God clearly calling me to go and do something in Africa.... I think we all know that I ignored this. Fortunately, about this same time Ogles, you can read about her here: http://allisoninmalawi.blogspot.com/, was really sensing that God was calling her to work in Africa as well. So it was rather hard to ignore God telling me to do something when someone so close to me is constantly talking about if .For this, I am grateful. At some point in all of this I began to really pray about what serving in Africa would look like for me and how that would happen.
One evening we ran into the Kyser family at wal-mart and they started telling us all about their plans to move to Malawi and how God had called them there. Personally, I was excited and ready to go... I like to believe i hid this well, but others may have a different story so... yeah. So about a week later Ogles came home from the Open house she had been to at the Kyser's at crawled into my bed and started telling me all about ABC, which you can read all about here http://africanbiblecolleges.org/, and her plans to go... After what I think was at least an hour, if not two...I finally said well Ogles I've been praying about going to Africa... and I told her that my devotion early that week had been about Jesus sending his disciples out in pairs to serve together. At this point I was still just praying and looking into ABC. However, I was out one afternoon picking up a book my mom asked me to bring home and I was just browsing the store when I came across a collection of C. S. Lewis' books all bound in one book... I picked it up and thumbed through it and said to myself, "this will be really convenient for when I go to Africa." I then book the book down and left the store immediately.
Over Thanksgiving I continued to look into ABC, and I talked my mom and let her know that I was seriously considering moving to Malawi to work with ABC after I graduated college... and that was about it. When we went back to school everything really started falling into place. Ogles and I were able to have dinner with Jan Harper who is wonderful and works for ABC. Another girl that is currently serving with ABC came to eat with us as well. It was a wonderful evening of being able to ask questions and simply learn more about what we would be doing and how that would work.
This is my favorite story to date... Ogles and I had been out with Max finishing up some Christmas shopping at Barnes and Noble when we came across the Nook... and after looking at it for a while we we decided that should we go to Malawi we should invest in a Nook, because books are simply impractical in Africa. Later that evening we were talking to Ammie about our plans to get a Nook. Ammie went to class the next day and a girl in her class had just purchased a Nook and was telling them all how wonderful it was. Ammie told them that Ogles and I were thinking about getting one for when we moved to Africa. Another woman in her class asked her if we were planning to missionaries there and if it would be possible for her Sunday school class to purchase the Nook for us as a mission project. Ammie told her that she could get in touch with us and figure out more about it. That was on a Monday. The following Wednesday the woman handed Ammie an envelope with $277 in it for Ogles and I to get a Nook! Oh my STARS! What a wonderful reminder of the promise of God's provision in everything that we do! I am so excited about how God is growing and teaching me.
To bring everyone up to speed I have sent in my application and believe that all of my references have been turned in as well. Everything seems to be falling into place and I am simply waiting for official confirmation from ABC. There is still much support raising and preparing to be done, but for now I would greatly appreciate your continued prayers as God leads me down this journey.
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