GREEN-LIGHT revolution

Hey gals! Well, if you remember, I have currently spent the first part of 2010 in Cape Town, South Africa! In that time, I have met some incredible people and have gotten a much bigger understanding of how God is building His Church! I'd like to introduce to you one of my guest bloggers for the week, Caryn. This lady is incredible--she is the doctor at the health clinic that Jubilee runs, where I have volunteered at during my time here. She grew up in Cape Town, and spent 4 years as a missionary in India before returning to Cape Town. This lady has some serious wisdom, and I have learned whenever she is talking to LISTEN because God almost always teaches me something through her! Not only a doctor, she surfs, hikes mountains..I'm not sure if there is anything she doesn't do! So enough from me, enjoy!--Martha

Reflections on transition

A battle raged inside me as I walked along the familiar mountain path in the Himalayan foothills. I was leaving. Grief rose in my throat to choke me, and I tried to think of something good to look forward to. But all I could see was loss - loss of my Indian Family, loss of the beloved community of multinational friends who had willingly given their all for Jesus, loss of a job and people and place I loved…

I looked up the steep ravine to my left and stopped in awe. An explosion of colour – hundreds of glorious flowers, of every shape, size and hue – greeted me, overwhelmed me. And gently a familiar Voice spoke His love and hope into my heart, reminding me of a promise given almost a decade earlier – “You shall enter a season of flowers”. It had been spoken in a time of sadness, as my young son, Matt, and I waded through the aftermath of divorce. Matt was now 15, having spent the past 4 and a half years happily growing from child to man in a foreign land, while his mother served the people as a doctor in a mission hospital. After months of deliberation, counsel and prayer, we had decided to return to our native South Africa so that he could spend some time living close to his dad. I was so grateful that Matt and I would still be together, enjoying a treasured friendship, but struggled to relinquish the dreams held in my soul for half my lifetime.

India had been my focus for so long, had crept into my heart and I into hers. God had clearly led us there, providing all we needed miraculously, keeping His promises to replenish all we had left behind for His sake (see Mark 10v29&30).

As God reminded me of His promise on that beautiful mountainside, He began to prize my fingers off my own plans and schemes, until I was freefalling….into His tomorrows, His love, His grace, His purposes. In those years in India, through challenges, tears and joy, I had come to know Him as kind, altogether good. And now it was time to walk in the reality of that knowledge, into an adventure of uncertainty.

What did the future hold? I didn’t know, but I knew the One who held it, and that needed to be enough for me.

(to be continued….)

Going green!

Caryn