"He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from the beginning to end... For there is a time there for every purpose and for every work."
- Ecclesiastes 3:11, 17
If there is one thing I have learned over the years, it is to never worry about anything because God always has the bigger picture of life. Looking back at the journey I have gone on the last three years, I can only thank God for taking me where I have been. When I set out for my YWAM DTS school in January 2006 I left to find myself and the call that God had on my life. I knew I wouldn't be just anyone in the work place but that I was called to look outside the box and touch the world. Yet back then I had NO clue what God really had in store for me.
I can honestly say that God has captured my heart and completely changed me from the inside out. Taking every core thing that was in my life and transforming it in ways I didn't know were possible. I am so thankful for it all even though its been extremely hard at times and I haven't always understood why God had me doing everything I was doing. Everything that has happened the last three years was all about leading me into a future that is beyond my comprehension. I have been renewed, restored, and rejuvenated so that God can send me into the next season of my life.
With all that said I am home in my beautiful wild Colorado, the place that has always had half of my heart no matter where I was in the world! This next season isn't one that I would have predicted but one that I think I am finally ready for. The other half of my heart still belongs to Africa and that will never change because I will be back there someday soon to live out my God giving long term vision. However, for this season in my life I am stepping off of the mission field and staying home to see where God wants me to go from here!
Identidad Restaurada (Identity Restored)
So what happened to the project in Panama...? Like I said before God always has a plan for everything even if we don't know it. God truly transformed something that looked impossible into exactly what He needed it to be! We were all amazed to see everything come together especially looking at where we started out with it all. Nothing that we had planned all the way back in June turned out as we thought it was going to! It was a God thing from the start and He lead it where He wanted it to go, which we couldn't have been more thankful for.
Wrapping Up!
The last month we worked on getting everything that we might have been missing for the video to put it all together. The video guy, Peter, that I told you about came and took a trip to the Ngobe people in Lechuza which is up in the mountains of Panama with the team. A lot of great interviews came out of the trip and they were able to really get a whole new view of the indigenous people for the documentary. A lot of doors got opened while they were there and they are even going back in December to do a song-writing workshop where the Ngobe people are then going to do a cultural evangelism outreach with the songs for the other Ngobe villages. Which is something we had dreamed of happening on this project and just needed God to make it possible!
Peter worked with the team a lot on how to make outline scripts, the basics of how to make a documentary, and how to edit with the top editing software that he gave us. We went through all the video footage and photos that we had taken throughout the last three months and we started piecing everything together into a script for the video! The project is not done yet but the team there in Panama will be doing some follow up footage when they go back to the Ngobe village and are planning on finishing the project in January! We know that God started this project and will do amazing things with it when its finished to touch the hearts and lives of these people!
So What's Next...?
Well I guess you could say that what we expected the future to be is not what God has planned out for us because for the first time in my life I really want to go to college and work on the technical side of photography, photoshop, and graphic design! The plan is to be here in Colorado for the next 2 years to go to school and plant some much needed roots in one place. After traveling so much for almost three straight years I came to realize that in order for me to be a full time missionary down the road I need roots somewhere and a place to truly call home to send me out! So I will not just be here to go to school and work but to plant myself into a ministry and a core group of people that can send me out in a few years to be the support I need as a missionary! I'm excited and nervous at the same time because this is such a hard transition for me to be making. However, God specifically told me that if He provided for me on the mission field it would be no different at home because He was still the same GOd no matter what I am at! And that is exactly what He has done. Its been hard but God has already shut some doors that needed shut and opened some amazing doors for me to live here and go to school! I know everything will continue to fall into place because He has never stopped being faith!
