When my squad of 15 women began this 2 month mission in Africa, the original route was 1 month in Jeffreys Bay, South Africa and 1 month in Manzini, eSwatini (formerly Swaziland). We were scheduled to travel on June 28 from South Africa to eSwatini.
One of the themes that I have been talking about with our squad is learning to live a life that is open handed. This means giving God our lives and trusting Him to lead, guide and care for us well. We live in a Western culture that tells us that we are the masters of our own destiny, we can be in control of every aspect of our lives.
The opportunity to live life with open hands begins when we learn that, no matter how tightly we close our hands, life will refuse our attempts to control it; life will not be bent to meet our every desire and dream. Contrary to what we’ve been taught in the lecture halls of our lives we are not the masters of our fates and the captains of our souls.
God is the master- not of our fates- but of a life He made in secret and He is no captain; He is THE King. Proverbs 16:9 says it this way, “The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.”
God alone is in control and I have a choice: either I trust Him or I don’t.
It’s only when we surrender control and trust to God that we’re able to live life with open hands, but trusting God is nothing less than life altering and it can be scary.
I think God knew how difficult this would be for us, so, in His infinite wisdom, He demonstrated His trustworthiness by repeatedly opening His hands to us. After creating man, after literally giving him the breath of life, He opened His hands and gave him everything else He’d already created. When His people got hungry, He opened His hands and provided manna. When they suffered from thirst, once again, He opened His hands and provided. His open hands provided laws and commandments for guidance, a Promised Land for a home and His written word for you and me. In a matchless demonstration of what it means to live with open hands, God the Father gave us His own Son, Jesus. His Son, Jesus walked this earth just as you and I do today and constantly demonstrated what it looks like to live life with open hands.
In the ultimate expression of living with open hands, the Son of God allowed His open hands to be nailed to a wooden cross where He would die so you and I might be reconciled to God.
The week of June 20, the Covid alert level in South Africa went from 2 to 3 and we learned that the eSwatini border had closed to foreigners. This meant that our squad would not be moving to eSwatini. This was a challenge that many on the squad were struggling with. There were expectations for the 1 month in eSwatini that were now not going to be met in the anticipated way. This was also an opportunity to test and see if open handed living is possible and if we can trust that God is trustworthy with our lives.
Sarah and I encouraged our squad to remember that God does have a plan for us all and that God knew this would happen long before we came to Africa, even before God made the foundations of the world! We asked the squad to sit with the Lord and to express what they were feeling, thinking and ask questions. Our Father can handle every question and all of us. We don’t have to hide from Him.
Our hosts Global Leadership Academy, (GLA) in Jeffreys Bay, South Africa were able to host us for another month, meaning that we could stay where we had been month 1. GLA partners with many ministries in and around Jeffreys Bay, and there was a need for us to stay and work with these ministries.
On Sunday, June 27, the president of South Africa, Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa moved the Covid alert level to 4. This means that group gatherings are not permitted at this time. The two ministries that we partnered with month 1 Beats and Books and LXP involved children and after school activities. The two ministries we are partnering with month 2 One Village and Timion are people focused and though there are restrictions about meeting together, we are able to help with other aspects of their ministries like tending their gardens, cooking food in a central kitchen for the soup kitchens to distribute, completing some work projects to improve the properties and having a willing heart to do whatever is asked of us.
Rioting began in eSwatini on June 29. This is the first time this has happened in eSwatini and if we had gone to Manzini, our squad would have been in the middle of the protests and violence. You can read a bit about the protests and riots here https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/w/swaziland-tipping-point-curfew-imposed-urb-democracy-protests
We would have needed to leave Manzini for our squad’s safety. Wow! It’s not always so quickly that we can see a reason for our plans not working out. This is even more confirmation that we can and should trust God. We can live an open handed life, learning more each day what it means to trust Him with everything! He is in control and trustworthy. We can see that His ways are higher than ours because He knows the beginning from the end.
Praise the Lord! I knew it! ????????????
Wow, Tina! You are so gifted in expressing your thoughts and how God works in our lives even when we think He is not, and reminding us of what He tells us in the Bible.