By the glorious grace of our Heavenly Father, I have returned from Africa! Thank you all so much for your thoughts and prayers- I am grateful. The main purpose of my trip was to seek Him for direction about my future in East Africa and the Lord was faithful in that and in many other ways, as well. I’m excited to share some of the insights along with some funny and exciting stories!
Camel Milk: there is a plethora of camels in this part of the world and this is a favored beverage. I had the unique opportunity to try camel milk and, to summarize my experience: it smelled like burnt tires and tasted how I would imagine they taste. Not good.
Visa: I had some difficult issues getting in and out of countries over in East Africa due to my own negligence and the local governments, and although I had to make four trips to the local embassy, the Lord was faithful and provided me access into the last country!
Speaking of Travel: the day before I traveled to my second-to-last destination, I found out that the worker I was planning to visit was not going to be ‘home’ when I was planning to visit him. Oh my. Still, after nine hours of travel across East African deserts (including various stops and check points along the way), I was dropped off at a gas station on the outskirts of his city because I knew that there were other workers that I might be able to visit. After two quick phone calls on a random taxi driver’s cell phone (my international SIM card declined to work in that country), I got into contact with a missionary couple in the city and discovered that not only were they excited to host me for the night, but they only lived one block away from the gas station! Glory to God for His provision!
Difficulty: because the nature of the trip was a “vision trip” to seek the Lord’s guidance for my future, I intentionally didn’t try to plan many ‘things’ to do while I was over there. Because I am an “doer” and like accomplishing things, not doing very many tangible significant things during my four weeks was tough for me. But the Lord taught me how to rest not only in the busyness of life (in which I am accustomed to being) but also in the slowness of life.
Lessons Learned: during my restful time the last few days of my trip, the Lord taught me two great lessons:
1) Oftentimes I try to measure the ‘success’ of a service trip by how many lives I believe were changed because of my presence in the country. The Lord humbled me by showing me that there are times when He will ask me to do things where the result is the only life changed is my own... and that’s what He wants.
2) I’ve grown accustomed to seeing “immediate change” having grown up in an age of immediate gratification, so because I’m not significantly different now because of my four weeks overseas, it would be easy for me to ‘write off’ any impact the trip had on my life. But in the same way that a fruit tree does not yield immediate results, after years of watering and pruning the tree much fruit is produced. So while I may not see any immediate changes in my life, the Lord gave me a peace that one day I will look back on this trip and see that He used the trip in my life in a big way.
Future: one of the main reasons for my trip was to seek the Lord’s will and gain experiential knowledge of the people and terrain over in East Africa. Honestly, the experiential knowledge that I gained made the trip worth it, and in the few weeks since I have returned I have already been in touch with one of the teams that I met and we are are talking about me joining their team later this year for long-term work in that part of the world!
So my tentative schedule over the next few months is:
I go to the West Coast to do some training for two weeks in June. I will return and hit the ground running raising monthly support, and then I hope to head back out to East Africa by the beginning of the fall to serve long-term!
Again- I am eternally grateful for your prayer-partnership in my ministry as I continue seeking to reveal His glory to the ends of the earth. Please continue to keep me in your prayers and I will try to keep you updated...
By His grace...
Luke Sjogren
