‘I think that playing dress up begins at age five and never truly ends.’ – Kate Spade
Whether it’s fireman hats, giraffe ears or fairy wings there is something magical about playing dress up. We have pictures of me and my sister when we were tiny in princess dresses and clip-on earrings (and even videos of me dancing round in ridiculous outfits when I was much older, but we won’t mention them…). I suppose when you’re small the idea of being grown up is appealing – wearing your Mum’s high heels and lipstick and feeling sophisticated, not like the little one. It’s funny how now I still love dressing up, but for the opposite reason; it makes me feel childish again, free of worrying about what people think.
‘Your value doesn’t decrease based on someone’s inability to see your worth.’
While being here I have been learning a great deal about the importance (or non-importance which I am not sure is even a word) of earthly achievements. I have always been a people pleaser. People’s opinions of me matter, they affect me however much I tried to be indifferent about them. I am the girl who can’t say ‘no’ because she doesn’t want to upset people, I’m the one who has to shave her legs just to go walk the dog and who will lie awake wondering if I said something wrong. I have always been myself but I based my self worth on people’s opinions and my own achievements.
But, you aren’t ever going to be able to please everyone. Please hear me, because it has taken me years to realise this. But does it even matter? If we are living to please others we are always going to be disappointed. Earthly things are ALWAYS going to be temporary – they will let us down – there are no exceptions.
Matthew 6:19-21 talks about storing up treasure in heaven. And the only way we can do this is having our priorities in the right order. I was told the other day that this means we need to be more concerned about peoples souls, than their friendship. That is true love right there. Being willing to risk losing valued friendship by sharing, because saving them for eternity is worth the risk that they will reject you. What an adventure we are challenged to. What courage we must have.
It has taken me living in Africa for five months to be able to reduce the time I take to look presentable from 1 hour, to ten minutes. I can now throw on jeans and a t-shirt, pull my hair back and walk out the door without being self conscious all day. But it is a much deeper change than just my appearance. I now feel so much bolder sharing my faith with others, without the fear of them judging me. In fact I know people will judge me, but so what? God is the ultimate judge at the end of the day.
It has been incredible having the opportunity to evangelize in the broken community of Sweet-waters. As well as equipping me to share my faith, it is one of the most emotional experiences I have been blessed with here. As well as providing medical advice and treatment and reading scripture and praying for the patients on Thursday, we were gently encouraged (or more pushed) to share our personal testimonies with them. This is something I have never done before, or in fact even thought about and it made me completely and utterly uncomfortable. Saying that, it was an incredibly touching and rewarding moment. Out of the three patients; one became a Christian, and two were moved to tears.
‘The effect you have on others is the most valuable currency there is.’
Knowing you are having an impact on someone’s life is probably the best feeling people can have – influencing, inspiring and helping them change for the better. Leaving parts of yourself with people is something that won’t be forgotten.
Everyday we get to live knowing we are in a powerful position to affect 41 kids futures and lives. The improvements we have seen in the kids academically from when we first arrived is crazy looking back. I guess you don’t notice the little steps they are taking when every day is a tedious frustrating time of struggling through homework or reading group. But then you remember when they didn’t even understand that adding was making the number bigger and now they can do their two times table. Or when they could hardly sound out letters, let alone read a word and now they can read books to you (they may be easy, short books but at least they don’t read everything in one monotone with massive gaps between each word anymore!)
I have been surprised at how emotionally invested I have become in some of the kids and their education. To the point where, when one of the boys failed his Maths test the other day I was actually disappointed. Because I know what he is capable of, and he was better than that score showed. I guess that just shows how much I love them and want the best for them…
