So it has been about a month since I have left the beautiful continent of Africa and made it back to America.
Good news! I am healed completely from Malaria (that I know of) and got news that I will be fighting West Nile when I get back to school in North Texas area, people I know have been in the hospital for West Nile already and many have already died. Crazy to think that these mosquito causing deadly diseases were only in Africa.
Training for work in Resident life might have been harder that being in Africa with no training. It insures me though that there are going to be challenges and that God is going to help me through and that there is a purpose for me living on campus and being over 50 student residents. This now is my ministry.
For one of my programs I will talk about my trip to Zimbabwe and Rwanda and share with them my many experiences that I had.
I have been asked to speak at 3 churches from my home town in Laredo.
I have also been asked to be interview for our local newspaper!
What a great opportunity and Honor God has blessed me with!
First week of classes are over!
This semester is going to be very different than any I have had here at Texas Woman's University. I am taking two painting classes and a sign language class (against my advisors wishes, but I have always wanted to learn sign language) I knew I was registered for this class for a reason and that was the experience I had in Rwanda with this deaf woman. I prayed with her for a long time after a false prophet said he would heal here and nothing happened. It was so hard to explain that God can heal her and that she needed to trust in the plan he had for her. I had no idea what she was saying to me. I had this necklace I wanted to give away to someone special and I felt that God wanted me to give it to her. Showing her in someway that she was precious and that Jesus loved her. The necklace was cut so that in the light it had many colors in the shape of a heart with a cross inside. She was really happy and signed to me that she loves God and God loves her and I tried to sign that I loved her as well and that I would pray for her. Then I realized even the signs I did know were probably completely different than the ones she made up herself since she wasn't taught any formal sign language. But the one sign she understood for sure was the hug that I gave and the gift that I hope will remind her of the Love of Jesus.
Tomorrow applications go up for grad school in Occupational Therapy which I feel now I am finally ready to start. For a while I doubted God's plan for me and if it really was grad school, but while I was in Rwanda he confirmed it me. Now to just way to get accepted and find out what city I will be spending the next two years of my life in.
For now I will be painting my heart out to share about my time in Africa because that is what my series of artwork will be on.. Africa. The paintings will include inspirations of all the many pictures I took, the stories I heard, that faces I remember, and the feelings I felt. Not sure if I will have time to paint all that I want to, but I know that they are going to be bring Glory to the Lord some way, if not they would have no meaning.
My ministry now is focusing on my residents (neighbors/students) classmates, co-workers, and being a living Jesus for them.
Pray for this as well as for the Baptist Student Ministry on Campus as I hope I can serve as a good leader this semester and Overflow Ministries through First Baptist Denton which has been one of the things that as changed my life and has grown me so much closer to the Lord. Through these ministries I pray I can reach the unreached here in this college town.
Being back in America and in Denton feels temporary and maybe it is just as this life is, but I know where ever the Lord leads me I WILL follow.
