We Choose Faith

For those of you who have not yet heard, we are planning to leave Zambia next week and return to the US! Teya’s visa was approved on Monday and we were given permission to pick it up the following day. We had a flight itinerary on hold that would have had us leaving on Tuesday but we got word yesterday that the price had unexplainably tripled overnight. No worries. Fortunately, the friend who is helping us with the tickets found the same itinerary for the same original price leaving one day earlier so we are now planning to leave on Monday, take an extra day to relax with the family on the way home, and arrive in Grand Rapids Thursday night.

And so begins the scramble to prepare for departure, which Tina has jumped into, and to wrap up as many loose ends as possible for the school which I (Kevin) have been focusing on. This week has been spent finishing odd jobs around campus, applying epoxy to the new kitchen and refurbished preschool floors, cleaning out the chicken coop and preparing it for the 200 new broiler chicks that arrived yesterday. I also had a final meeting with the school’s attorney, interviewed a teacher candidate and tried to line up some more applications, and will begin making my way around the village to say goodbyes.

But there is one job that is not yet finished. Somehow, after all that we have been through, we still need to be reminded to have constant faith in our Father. After all of the floors have again worn through, after the chickens are but a delicious memory, after teachers and legal issues have come and gone, we will still need to depend on God and trust Him in all things. But learning this well is a job that is not yet finished. And so we are being challenged in that one more time before we leave…

The visa was approved. We were told we could pick it up yesterday. We received a call that it wasn’t ready yet. No worries. I planned to return to town today to finish some other business and pick it up at the end of the day. We called to confirm this morning and were told that it was still not ready. Some worries. Then they said that there is actually a “World-wide problem with the printing of visas” and they hoped it would be fixed soon, maybe by Monday. Bigger worries. We checked and our tickets and hotel may not be refundable. Substantial worries.

But here’s the thing. We are all challenged by situations every day – big or small – that require us to choose a response. We can choose to live in FEAR or we can choose to live in FAITH. When we found out we were able to return home we were very excited. We felt very happy. That was very easy. It would have been and, in fact was, also very easy to charge ahead with our plans fueled by that happy feeling.

It would also be easy now to feel afraid or upset or angry or any number of things, and allow those feelings to fuel our response, but faith isn’t a feeling. It is a choice and it requires us to take action. We have been challenged by many things during our time in Zambia. God blessed us with His peace, protection and the gift of faith in many big and small situations. You’ve heard about some of them – living without water, bizarre infections, a failed adoption, a collapsed school building, snakes, a child hospitalized with severe malaria…

But you didn’t read about all of the times when we allowed ourselves to succumb to our fears. We didn’t exactly rush to write any blog posts about the many challenges, often laughably insignificant, that we panicked over, allowing ourselves to wallow in fear, frustration and self-pity. I’m ashamed to admit that they would probably outnumber our victories!

And so today, again, we face a challenge with potentially difficult consequences. We feel fear. But today, WE CHOOSE FAITH. We choose faith and we choose to tell about the way the God has delivered us so many times and will again. This was a promise often made hastily during difficult times and as quickly forgotten when He provided and we received the outcome we desired. Please join us in praying boldly – even fasting if so led – for God to prove His faithfulness once again.

See you soon.