Nonge

last week our group crossed the border to Burkina for a morning...

If you’d asked me a month ago if I could be in Ghana, just a border away from Burkina, and not make my way up to Yako, I would have told you absolutely not. Part of me still wants to give this response. And I’ve been fighting the response that I am now going to give. “Not this time”.

As my program draws to a close (finished today!) and I consider the extra week I’ve given myself in West Africa before flying home, I have continued to pray for direction with regards to where to be. Originally I'd assumed I would be spending this time in Burkina but, I have been trusting God to show me what he has planned. The more I prayed, and trusted, the more I realized God was saying “not now” to my requests for him to send me back to Burkina. I thought about it doing it my way. But, I’m fairly confident he has it a bit more figured out than I do. So despite the fact that I am so close to Burkina I won’t be spending my last weeks in Africa there this year.

I still love those kids with a huge chunk of my heart. So much so it’s inexplicable. Mam nonge fo ( I love you).

One the one hand I have a heavy heart: I am disappointed I won’t be in Burkina. However, as I look back, I can see how God has been preparing me (and my heart) for this shift. Most of all I can see little ways he’s been showing me what else he has planned. So I am at peace.

And I’m pretty excited about what the week after my program holds. It’s a God thing... It’s not what I expected at all, but that’s the best kind of God thing. It’s something he’s placed on my heart in a way I couldn’t ignore, and so I am confident he is asking me to pursue this week, and that he has it figured out.

I’m super excited to share more with you about this coming week. Maybe I’ll share it with you over a cup of coffee in Calgary sometime this summer. Or in whatever, other random way, we tend to share our stories. I can’t wait for it.