Team Kenya Retreat

So, today we had a mini-retreat for Team Kenya. It really was an awesome time. We went to the household of one of the team members and were extremely blessed by her family! Fun games, lots of laughs, great food, some face paint, amazing magic tricks, and some genuine team bonding. I continue to get more and more excited for the trip. While on the retreat I had a brief moment where the reality hit me. I am going back to Africa. It is humorous to me because I used to have this bizarre attitude towards missions in Africa. I remember when I started college thinking to myself, "I'm not going to be one of those Christians that goes to Africa to do missions." I really just thought it was the "trendy" thing to do and was, therefor, not going to "be like that." Out of seemingly no where God placed in me a huge desire to go to Africa and serve, which manifested in my trip to South Africa last May through July. To be honest, now there is still a large part of me that just wants to be in Africa. God's path in my life is crazy, and I never seem to be able to figure out his next move. I just know that my appetite for another trip to Africa is growing.

There was something about today that really got me. My team members family hosts international students regularly and they currently have a Chinese woman living with them. We were told some of her story, and I was simply floored. She was a member of the underground church in China. The government had become aware of her involvement with the church and had contacted her family warning them to have her stop before she would be punished. She is here in America to flee from the persecution that threatens her in her home country. Wait. That kind of stuff isn't real. Persecution is something we just talk about, but we don't actually stand in the same room with someone who has lived it. To think, I complain about having to go to chapel three times a week. Uh oh, conviction. Is it possible that the comfortability we as Christians in the states can live our lives in makes us dull to the reality of our faith? "Love your enemy as yourself..." the closest thing that I have as an enemy is a quacky neighbor who leaves mean notes on our door. My government hasn't called my mom to tell her to make me stop being a Christian on penalty of imprisonment or worse! My Christian faith becomes more my routine then my relationship to a God who is so worthy to be praised that I should be willing to risk everything to worship Him. Would I stay faithful in persecution? Could I stay faithful?