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My Journey Towards Africa
Since
I returned from my backpacking and volunteering odyssey in Israel and Jordan ,
I have been feverishly planning and booking and researching all the things that
I need to confirm for my Africa trip this
December! I will be going for nearly three months and it will be an exciting
journey spanning several countries. I’ll be passing through South Africa, then
staying for the most part in Zimbabwe while doing missions, spending some time
with a Zimbabwean friend and his family, and also heading to the
Zimbabwean-Mozambican border at a small town called Mutare where I’ll be doing
some work with Serving in Mission (SIM) and their sister organisation Hope for
Aids. I’ll also be going to the land of a thousand hills – Rwanda (!!!) – to
visit one of the only music schools there, Kigali Music School affiliated with
Musicians without Borders, and to finally meet my Compassion sponsor child of
the past two years. Her name is Ntawangaheza and she lives in a village in the
southern hills of Rwanda
After
Rwanda, I head to Kenya, my last stop. I will be visiting a project with Spur
Afrika in the urban slums of Kibera and then travelling some before I embark on
my final project – teaching music at a school in Nairobi Middle
East ). And of course, I can’t thank God enough for the Volunteer
Africa grant that I was awarded by Mission Travel Group last year.
You
know, I just wanna’ say, I cannot for the life of me have ever conjured – even
in the most ludicrous of imaginations – the idea that I’d one day be going to
all these places in Africa and also finally getting to meet my Zimbabwean
friend as well as my sponsor child in Rwanda. I honestly can only thank God
with all my heart, and with my life, because none of this would have been
possible without His guidance. As I knocked on many different doors, I asked
God to allow the right ones to be open at the best times. And He has. I cannot
believe that these are mere coincidences, because they have been way too
specific to the things I have prayed about, the things I have asked for, the
things that even perfect strangers or friends who had known nothing about my
plans have spoken to me about, the things I have journalled in the midnight
hours and cried about. This is my story, and I know if there’s a reason I got
here, there’s a reason for me to share it.
Two
years ago, when I made a trip back to Malaysia
with my family as well as travelled in Bangkok
Several
times, I felt God whisper into my thoughts, either while I was praying, playing
music, taking a long walk, journaling or reading my Bible – that He would lead
me to places I never thought of before. He would take me to people living in
spiritually dark places – people who were losing hope and who were in prison to
their own vices or the religion imposed on them by their culture or society. God
assured me, through all this, no matter how difficult things seem, how
impossible they appear, how far-fetched they are, that I will not lack a single
good thing. Since then He has always reminded me to not look to the left or to
the right – to not worry about what other people are doing or not doing. I need
to focus on what I can do right now and what He has already placed before me. So
that’s what I have been doing.
All
the stuff I’d been involved in during the past two years – my volunteering at
The Song Room not-for-profit organisation and teaching children from Sudanese
refugee families, serving with the African church and youth in Dandenong, writing
and performing music with my Congolese band, leading a university girls group with
Crossway’s Young Adults, solo travelling around Australia and then most
recently in Israel, and so much more – has definitely shaped me to be the
person that I am. God has and is still preparing me for what is to come.
Admittedly,
I’ve made mistakes along the way, I have been untruthful at times to myself and
to those closest to me. I have tried to ignore God’s voice, I have disappointed
my family in many ways, I have gone astray and done things I’d be ashamed to
speak of. But through all this, God has kept me. He really has. His grace and
truth has been my anchor. Even though I had made some wrong turns, and I
believe last year was a year I was going off track (it was as if the devil
himself was trying to stop me from arriving at this pivotal year in my life –
2014 – where I would have all these crazy opportunities open to me), God has
brought me back. The thought itself fills me with hope and wonder. God has
brought me home! This realization led me to write a song of His unconditional
love, and one of the lines goes: ‘How can the God of the universe, love me as
His own? Oh just how marvellous this is!’
In
the end, I have realized that it’s not about how bad I’ve messed up – though I still might have to face the consequences of
my actions – it’s about coming back Home. God loves us beyond our craziest,
deepest comprehension. I’ve come to realize that there’s nothing out there in
the world that can satisfy me. Nothing at all. I’ve gone there and it’s a dark,
bleak place. It’s cool for a while, it’s entertaining for a bit, but then it
begins to lose meaning – and then you find yourself lost in the din. It was
only in brokenness and tears that I found Yeshua reaching out to me. He always
had been. It was I who had slipped away. And He let me, knowing that through my
mistake, I would eventually be able to confront the truth and experience His
peace with deeper conviction.
In
2012 when I made that prayer while in Bangkok, telling God that I want to do
something with my life that would coincide with His purpose for me, I never have
thought that two years later I’d be going to volunteer and backpack in Israel
and in the same year embark on a trip to Africa. If someone told me that by the
time I’m 20, I’d be playing music and talking about faith with some new friends
in a predominantly Arab village in north Israel, or that I would be going to
see my Zimbabwean friend and my Rwandan sponsor child, all in the same year – I
would have laughed nervously and dismissed your lunacy. But it’s happening now.
How?
All
I can say is that it has happened over time, over months of prayer and
committing new things to God, over days and weeks of research and reading, over
long walks and tears shed and silent dark nights of the soul. People often
think that I make decisions ‘spontaneously’, because I only tell everyone a few
months before where I am going or what I’m doing. But in actual fact, it has been
brewing in my mind for a substantial amount of time already. Nevertheless, I do
also operate quite spontaneously – but that is usually when I’m already on the
move! Still, I don’t like telling anyone until I know I’ve got the facts right
and I’m actually going to do it. In the past, I have made the mistake of
talking about things too early, when I didn’t yet know if I could commit myself
to them. I still fall into that trap sometimes, but I’m learning to watch my
words.
Honestly,
this story is so long, as there are so many facets to the journey. People may
ask me why I chose to go to Zimbabwe, why this, why that, and a whole lot of
other questions that would take all day to answer. But let’s start with Zim. It’s
simple, and it’s quite crazy, to think of it.
Around
one and a half years ago, I met a friend from Zimbabwe Zimbabwe Zimbabwe
Anyway,
since I won the Volunteer Africa grant with Mission Travel Group last December,
I had decided I wanted to use it to do some missions work in Zimbabwe Africa ! How, of all websites
did he happen to find mine while Googling for something else? I told you, I
don’t believe in coincidences anymore.
To
be continued…
[I will share about how and why I'm going to Rwanda!]
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