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Seronga, Botswana was life changing, from teaching a preschool class of 19 crazy kiddos to digging into the word with my 13 beautiful teammates to spending some much needed alone time with my Creator, I had never felt more at home. The presence of God is so real there, you can see and feel Him everywhere. He’s in the joy of the kids, the overwhelming peace while sitting in the sand by the Okavango Delta during sunset, the selflessness of the people who have nothing, and the vast beauty of the millions of stars you can see so clearly at night. He’s everywhere. I fell in love with the children, the people in Africa, living in such a strong community with my teammates, and experiencing God in ways I never had. Coming back to America was hard. The previous familiar has become so…

The stars here are absolutely brilliant. The Milky Way galaxy is strewn across the sky and dispels my prior expectation of pressing darkness. At night the whole delta comes alive. A choir of frogs joined by thousands of crickets, and a multitude of unique bird calls. This place is saturated with life, and as such it whispers, screams, and sings of the glory of our God. Job 38:31-33 “’Can you bind the beautiful Pleiades? Can you loose the cords of Orion? Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons or lead out the Bear with its cubs? Do you know the laws of the heavens? Can you set up God’s dominion over the earth?’” Mornings with the glory of a sun that explodes our night into brilliant water color light. Flowering trees, brightly colored leaves…

It feels rather stereotypical to talk about what I have learned about myself since coming to Botswana, how the Lord pulled me half way across the world into the recesses of a sparsely populated country to speak softly once more of His truth and to reveal more of Himself to me. I guess that makes me cliché though, because that is exactly what happened. Seronga isn’t densely inhabited by any meaning of the word; it’s in the bush – goats outnumber the people and threaten property invasion anytime a gate is left open. Cars brake for the donkeys and cows that meander down the roads built by men, for men. As the sun sets, the sky explodes into a seemingly impossible array of colors, as if God uses it as a canvas to reveal more of His majesty to the people living here…

As many of you know from your own experience or stories others have shared, mission trips typically have some huge obstacles. Whether it is sickness, missing loved ones, the living conditions, or cultural shock, mission trips can be hard. . After receiving some pretty heart breaking news while on the trip, I have found myself struggling with counting down the days until I am home. From my missions experience, I have rarely been homesick on a trip. It isn’t that I don’t miss my family, because I most certainly do (Hi mom), but I usually fall so in love with the people or place that I never want to leave. This news, however, broke my heart in two and I found myself wanting to be home with my loved ones. I was depending on their comfort. I was pretty much a crying zombie for a…

“I’ve been looking for a sound that makes my heart sing; I’ve been looking for a melody that makes the church bells ring; Not looking for the fame or the fortune it might bring in love, music, or life” (Zac Brown). I’ve been listening to these lyrics over and over during the past few weeks while trying to figure out what it is God is leading me to do in life. In today’s world kids are expected to have a plan coming out of high school and are pressured to feel as if they don’t it’s not okay. Well here I am now having just turned 21 only days ago and the feeling of uneasiness has yet to change. As where most of my friends are years into their college degrees and many of whom will graduate over the next year I am not even close. To make it all that much better I am also trying to decipher wh…

The team is having a blast and getting along great! They are in the bush of Africa and loving it! God has been doing alot already in the team. They’re doing a building project, helping with a preschool and working with the children in the villages. Stay tuned for more updates! 

Hi families and friends! We have arrived safely to Seronga, Botswana, where we will be doing ministry for the month. We will try to post blogs as internet allows. Since we do not have easy access to internet, check out our ministry’s pages. The blog is www.deltacrossmissions.weebly.com and the facebook page is Delta Cross Ministries. Our hosts have already posted some pictures of us. Everyone is safe and doing well!

It has been just about a week since I have left for this mission trip. I cannot believe how fast the time has flown by so far and I hope things start to slow down, because frankly, I’m not quite ready to leave this beautiful country. Most of the trip so far has been travel days and let me tell you, the 16 hour flight and about 24 hours spent in a bus to arrive in Seronga, Botswana have been completely worth it. Our hosts could not have been more welcoming if they tried. Their hearts radiate Christ more than most people I have ever met. There are some awesome things happening in this area and I cannot wait to be a part of that. While reflecting on this past week, I have learned a huge lesson: things rarely turn out the way you expect them to. I’ve come to find out that essentially everythi…

Endurance: (noun) the ability to endure an unpleasant or difficult process or situation without giving way. I am so thankful. Thankful for this opportunity and the call of the Lord. It is an amazing privilege to live for Him and to do His will. But, sometimes, you have to endure a lot of hardships, difficult circumstances, or things you never knew would happen. The first day of this trip, I woke up unable to hear out of my left ear. With excruciating pain, I decided to attend my flight to ATL and prayed that I would go to the doctor. Well, praise the Lord! Right when I got off the plane, a church family member of mine, Larry Kaskel, was on the exact same flight as me. He was in ATL for business and was willing to take me to the doctor. With a flight, ear ache, and the…

Leaving for this trip was definitely different than any other mission trip I had ever embarked on. If you know anything about me you know how much of a planner and perfectionist I am, so going into the unknown was a pretty hard thing for me to deal with. This wasn’t like going with my church family to Haiti or Peru for the first time. I didn’t know anybody on this trip and I just barely knew what I was truly getting myself into. I was definitely being placed outside of my comfort zone, which I’m starting to realize the Lord loves doing. I was being bent, but wasn’t being as flexible as He would have liked me to be (God knows how stubborn I can be). About a month before I was ready to hop on my plane to Botswana, I started actually getting nervous for what was ahea…