Tasha Bailey, Teams Participant
January-March 2016
January-March 2016
“If it is true that you look favorably on me, let me know your ways so I may understand you more fully and continue to enjoy your favor. And remember that this nation is your very own people” (Exodus 33:13 NLT).
With three hours left before landing at the Entebbe Airport in Kampala, Uganda, I filled my journal with cries of desperation. Fear had spilled into every space of my being, and I questioned all that God had asked of me.
Later, I walked through the doors of Sanyu Babies Home, still wondering if God had mistakenly chosen the wrong person: “I’m not strong enough or brave enough for this.”
As our team of 12 American women walked through the orphanage, I felt out of place and altogether wrecked inside. I couldn’t contain the constant flow of tears puddling at the base of my chin as I looked around, eyes wide with pity and fear. Then I heard the prayers of 4-year-old Beatrice. With hands tightly clasped, the melody of her prayer swirled inside her delicate reverence, hovering with bold confidence in the air around us. The initials “SBH” shouted against the white cotton of her tired dress. But even the stain of Beatrice’s reality faded beneath the purity and redemption of her prayer. I was sure her words penetrated the heights and depths of the goodness of our God. I had come to a place known for its material poverty, but I was witnessing the freedom of spiritual wealth.
Sanyu isn’t a place where the abandoned are forgotten. God’s constant wave of hope and pulsating love are flowing deep and wide through every paint-chipped crib and every faded piece of “SBH” clothing.
I learned the absence of fear is the presence of Jehovah-Jireh, an unyielding force that infiltrated the life and breath of this journey. I have been completely broken but altogether made fully whole.
Maybe we all need to be broken, completely shattered into a million pieces of self, so the Holy Trinity can soar in like a blazing cavalcade of hope to rebuild us with a million pieces of Himself, fragments woven from a million moments made by His sovereign truth and relentless love.
Because material poverty is weightless against spiritual wealth, His perfect provision is alive in those who allow Him to wreck our worlds, only to rebuild something greater for His kingdom come!
(Thanks to my teammate, Abra Clampitt with www.giftoftodayphotography.com, for capturing these images and to the Metz family for sharing your Uganda.)
GO: Whether you want to do construction, paint, lead a VBS or kids club, take care of orphans, provide medical care, play sports, cook, or pray, there’s a team for you! Learn more at www.wgm.org/teams.
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