June 11th, 2001…Eleven teens and two adults (all just big kids at heart!) met at the O’Hare airport in Chicago. Though we all had quite different personalities, we had one goal…to spread the gospel of Christ. We stayed in Chicago two days just to familiarize ourselves with our plans, our means with which to share the gospel, and definitely not least…each other! From the very start, we noticed that we all had quite strong leadership personalities. “Whew! That’ll be something God will DEFINITELY have to work out!!”, I thought! He did, too! From the very start we bonded like a family.

   Soon after, we departed for Heathrow Airport in London. It was an over-night flight that really took a lot of God’s sustaining grace! My legs were just as long as the spaces between the seats were short! Needless to say, it was quite a long night! We arrived in London the next morning and soon began the 7 hours layover during which we would be allowed to see the town. We got to see a much more of the town than we had originally planned! Through circumstances that we could easily see God’s hand in, we missed our flight to Zimbabwe and became stranded in London’s Gatwick Airport. We really had mixed feelings then…we were a little discouraged because we thought that we would miss some of our ministry opportunities in Africa, but we were extremely excited to see how God would extricate us from the predicament that we thought we were in. After a few phone calls, we located a pastor two hours away who came and rescued us in the middle of the night! God is awesome!! It ended up that we got to minister in England during our four day “layover”, and when the time to leave for Zimbabwe finally rolled around again, we were pumped up with excitement.

   When we finally arrived in Zimbabwe, we knew that we had a lot of work to make up because of our delay. So, the day that we flew in, we were briefed about the culture of the country. We then went to a government school and started doing our dearly-practiced presentations. Before we arrived, we were quite exhausted from the long over-night flight. But as we sang songs, did puppet skits, and led counsel times, the weariness completely left me. God’s sustaining grace was working overtime the entire week to refresh us. I was energized by the attitude of the people there as well. It seemed like our word for “stranger” translated into their word for “brother”. It was a blessing to be immediately accepted into the “Zimbabwe family”. The rest of our time consisted of doing puppet shows, singing songs, presenting the gospel and doing skits in public schools, churches and Awana clubs. In fact, God worked it out so that we were able to reclaim all of the ministry that we thought we were going to miss because of London!

   I think the theme of this trip would be God’s plans vs. man’s plans as seen in Isa. 55:8-9. Every time we think that our plan is the best or only plan, God shows us a better plan…His plan! And it’s up to us to cheerfully accept it, or miss out on His will. If we do accept His perfect work in our lives, then He’ll work His perfect plan in our lives...sweeter than we expect. That was my experience! Thank you so much for your prayers!!