one final note.

Sitting here with all of my thank you cards written out, City Project is coming to that final note.  It took me about a week and a half to write out all of these thank you cards (partially because of my laziness), but that's amazing.  I have so many people to thank for supporting me this summer.  If we just rewind to the beginning of this journey in February or March, I remember thinking that I didn't have anybody to contact, and here I am writing out so many thank you cards I want to complain about writing.  And yet God reminds me how grateful I should be and through it again, I realize once more of a theme that has been recurrent during my journey through City Project:

God loves me.

It's so simple, but so sweet and revolutionary every time I realize it.

God loves me.  He loves me even though I'm broken.  He loves me enough to tear down my idols because He wants me to just worship Him.  He loves me enough to strip down my pride so I can depend on Him.  He loves me enough to affirm me through others of my gifts.  He loves me so much that in every single way possible, I can recognize Him.  And this is love...because as John Piper said God isn't being selfish when He points you back to Him because God is the only one who can fill me and affirm and comfort me.  He is all that I need.

City Project 2012 has been amazing.  More than amazing.  I learned how to swing dance.  I ate my first made-from-scratch lasagna.  I shared the Gospel (by God's strength) to someone who had never heard it.  I was asked to be best friends with girls who didn't even know me.  I was held and prayed over by nine other girls as I confessed my sins.  I was told I was beautiful in a foreign country.  I saw a sunrise in Africa while listening to "Circle of Life."  And so much more...

And even when it ended, God still has been teaching me so much.  Even recently, I cried when falling asleep because I felt like I had failed.  I felt like I had failed because I thought I had to be this better Christian when I cam back, but I was struggling just as much.  I didn't spend hours and hours in devotions or my hours watcing shows didn't drastically decrease.  But, God whispered to me that maybe it wasn't me becoming this better Christian, but it was more about how I needed Him desperately.  I still need Him even though He's taught me so much.  I thought going through this missions made me a more independent Christian, but really, my eyes have been opened to my greater need of desperatley and willingly clinging onto our Father.  And in that moment, when I realized that...I felt so free.  The burdens of expectations and change I thought I had to see in my life were gone because...it's more freeing to realize that we need to rely on God than it is to try to live on our own.

And that I realize as I'm typing up now is another way for God to remind us that He loves us.  We need Him, and as our eyes are opened to see how much we need Him, as my friend reminded us on the last day of City Project, that's grace too.  God didn't have to open our eyes, but He did because He wanted us to know Him.  And by knowing Him, that's our everything. He is my everything.

And I don't get this truth every moment, and that's okay because God is pursuing me.  I freely admit I need God so much in my life.  I am truly lost without my Savior.

With Him, I am Found.  I am Free.  I am Loved.

For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship.  And by him we cry, " Abba Father." Romans 8:15.

Goodbye City Project 2012.

All my fountains are in you

I remember there was a point when we were walking through a village that I realized I was staring at my shoes.  I was staring at the white tops of my gray converses, and watching the sand rise up with every step I took.

Why wasn't I looking up?  Because I didn't want to.

A part of me (and I guess the overwhelming part of me) didn't want to see the bare feet of the children, the ditches by the side of the street for their sewage, the red and green shops where the moms were carrying their babies on their backs. I didn't want to face real world truth.  I was scared of my perspective changing.  I was scared of change.  But, that was so silly.  God knew what He was doing when He brought me there.  I was here for a reason, and to learn.  So, pushing my head up, I saw... Smiles.  Giggles.  Held hands. Laughter.  Conversations.  Life.  Joy.

The families that we stayed with in Jikaze had run away from post-election violence in 2008.  They had nothing.  Some families had to leave jobs that had provided for their families.  The babies that we visited at the orphanage had been abandoned by their families here on Earth because of different circumstances.  The women we visited through the AIDS organization had failing health.

Wealth.  Family.  Health.  had been stripped away.  Things I use to define my happiness, and these people didn't have it.  And yet, they had a joy.  A joy that was untouched by their circumstances.  A joy that set them...free.

Living with Esther I saw and felt this joy.  Joy in giving, joy in working.   We had just gotten back from eating lunch on the bus.  And as we were coming in,we smell garlic and fried vegetables.  Esther tells us, "Sit. Sit."  She brings out in various colored bowl ugali. I remember my bowl being a light blue plastic bowl. On one side of the bowl is a slab of solidified rice that fills us at least half of the bowl and next to it her sauteed greens.  I remember at this point, I was concered and soley thinking of how I would be able to finish it that I wouldn't remember until later how much of her own family's food she had just offered to three strangers.  We were strangers and yet she still gave.   I asked her multiple times throughout those two weeks:  "Esther, what is your favorite thing to do here?"  She said, "Work.  I like to work."  And then she laughed.

Esther had run away from her previous village and had completely had to start over, but she was so grateful to be here.  She wasn't mad, she was just grateful to God.  Grateful.

That was Kenya for me.  I re-learned joy.  My eyes were opened to see that joy, true joy, is not based on circumstances.  It's really not.  It's found in Jesus.  They didn't say it neccessarily with words, but with their lives.

We visited a woman through the Care for Aids ministry.  She is HIV+ and when asked what her favorite verse or passage in the Bible, she recited Psalms 23.

The Lord is my shepard, I lack nothing.
He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul.
He guides me along the right paths for his name's sake.
Even though I walk through the darkest valley,
I will fear no eveil, for you are with me;
your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.
Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Her manna, her life was founded on this Psalm.

And that's the freeing joy.