Monday, May 28, 2012
Quote from Chip's Thoughts and Ideas Blog (http://chiphuber.blogspot.com/
...."Tonight
we had our final debrief time as a team on our Zambia trip…each of us shared
memories, highlights, the moments and experiences that affected us and impacted
us most deeply over the last 11 days in Africa…we also talked about what we
sensed God is moving us to do in response to this trip when we return to the
States…and we closed our time by praying for each other and chose to pray all at
the same time, just as our friends in Zambia regularly do as the passionately
and personally life their praises and requests to
God…
It
was truly a rich time, full of incredible reflections, ideas, and even deep
questions…things were shared about the incredible people we met and the
relationships that were developed, the moments of personal suffering we entered
into with children and families, the vision and vitality of the African church,
the joy in seeing how God is already so much on the move and at work here in
Zambia, the prayers that were answered while we were here of African friends,
and all the things that we were taught and that came alive as we saw them in the
lives of women and children and men whose faith transformed ours in ways we
couldn’t have predicted or imagined…
Zambia
has been a place of joy and laughter, sorrow and suffering, soccer and more
soccer, dancing and eating, hope and life, and even sickness and death for all
of us…and we are not who we were when we left Grand Rapids two weeks ago…and we
are so hopeful that we will become who God has called us to be in light of our
privilege to come to the other side of the world as servants of
Jesus…
We
come home wanting to sponsor children, to build clinics in places where none
exist, to provide bed nets for thousands of families, to pray daily for those we
now call friends, to provide supplies for those who care for the least, to make
a high school education become a dream realized, to share stories through our
photos and words, to even come back to Africa for a much longer time, and
perhaps most of all, to invite and inspire our family and friends and our CU
campus to enter into this story together with us as we live life in full view of
all we have seen and heard from the voices of our African brothers and sisters
and our God…
Please
be patient with us we come home…we are still in many ways trying to process all
that has happened and our level of emotional and physical exhaustion might be a
little high than normal…we might even be somewhat upset at some pieces of
American culture and life that we didn’t mind before because of the lack of
resources we have seen available here…we’ll come around but it might take a
little time as we re-enter life in the States…and as we try to live differently
don’t be afraid to ask us why and try to hear the details of our experiences and
thinking…we really can’t wait to share our lives and our stories with you
all…and we’d love it if you would pray for us as we come home and try to figure
out what God wants us to do as His advocates and agents of change on behalf of
the people of Zambia in the communities we have been in over these last
days"…
