When ALL is Stripped Away

Nine Months. I’ve now been living in Malawi, Africa for nine months. The journey has been wonderful, amazing, life-changing, and difficult. Most of my posts have discussed the miracles, beauty, hardship, and culture I see all around me. Although all of this is important and impacting, I want to share a bit of what’s been going on inside me- my personal struggles here. As much as I love it here, I would be lying if I said it has been easy. I have grown immensely in the past nine months, and particularly in the past thirty days. I am going to take a big step and be vulnerable in this post.

 

Everything I depended on or put confidence in has been knocked from under me. Before coming here, I felt secure in who I was and what I was doing. I graduated with honors, excelled in my teaching experience, felt I had solid friendships, an amazing family, and I was headed to fulfill my life goal of teaching and spreading Christ in Africa. Not many people can say they reached their objective at 22. Little did I know what God had in store. I am separated from those I love, unable to rely on them, and everything has been slowly breaking. It started with my teaching ability…

My classroom management was suffering, my grading system was a mess, I was overwhelmed with the small class of fourteen students, and I was failing. Parents were upset, students felt hurt, and I was at a loss on how to fix it. My good intentions and pride in my own ability led me to a place of disappointment and disorder. I was wrong and had to figure out how to mend what I had broken.

 

Then to top it off, the friendships and relationships I have here and back home have been distant.

 

Skype is unpredictable, email is impersonal, and Facebook is just not enough. Not to mention, the time difference makes it almost impossible to connect regularly. Naturally, life in America is moving forward and I am not a part of it. Friends are getting married, graduating, starting their careers, and just doing life while I am thousands of miles away. I have felt very detached from home. The closer I come to returning, the harder it gets to wait and be patient. I felt my first waves of true homesickness in the past month.

My small security and community here at ABC has also been tested. Gossip and bitterness have severed relationships and brought distrust. It is very complex and thorny to have your professional and personal life cross and intertwine. Any mistake you make is open for public discussion. It is like living in a very, very small town. Although there are so many benefits (such as close relationships, a tight knit community, Bible studies, support, etc), the negative side is that people like to talk. In addition, illness has hit our campus. Malaria has been affecting those I am close to, and it is frightening. When I haven’t been teaching, I’ve been acting nurse.  

By the end of last week, I had nothing left to give, all my strength gone. I was running on minimal sleep, reevaluating my whole style and philosophy of teaching, dealing with homesickness, feeling isolated and confused, and beginning to question what in the world I was thinking when I jumped on a plane to Africa. Spring break could not have come at a better time.

Literally, everything I hope in has been stripped away. This weekend I have had to decide, what do I have when all else is gone? I have been broken down to the core. All I have is Christ. There is nothing else to uphold me. In Him I must trust, and in Him I must find my rest, joy, and peace. Though all else may be shaken, tumultuous, and a web of confusion, it is in His arms I can regain my vision.


I trust that He is still in control and ultimately, my purpose in serving Him here in Africa is still in place. I don’t think I can say it any better than Paul did in 2 Corinthians 4:7-18. God doesn’t place His glory in pretty, little packages of perfection. Instead, He delights in using broken jars of clay. He is the only one who can bring beauty out of ashes, and joy from pain.

^“But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. ⁸ We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; ⁹ persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. ¹⁰ We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. ¹¹ For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. ¹² So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.

¹³ It is written: “I believed; therefore I have spoken.” Since we have that same spirit of faith, we also believe and therefore speak ¹⁴ because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you to himself. ¹⁵ All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God.

¹⁶ Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. ¹⁷ For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. ¹⁸ So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”

Troubles come and go, but my foundation remains the same.