Still Here and Smiling

I often walk around for a week saying to myself (often out loud) “I need to write a blog” but then when I sit at my computer I have no idea what to write! So here I sit on another beautiful day in Mozambique not quite sure what to tell my faithful readers. Let’s start with a story (or three)!

Just over a week ago I had the opportunity to lead a group of 18 people on an outreach into the bush bush. It was an intense outreach and yet God still showed up and we still got to experience his goodness. You must know as warning the stories that follow are not common and if you want to come to Africa do not let these stories stop you!! As we arrived in the village and started setting up our tents one of our team members felt a sharp pain on her thigh, upon investigation a relatively not small spider came away from the source of the pain. Redness started spreading up her thigh. We had 3 nurses and other medical professionals with us and when this happened everyone came to my tent looking for me. My reaction inside was “WHAT, a SPIDER bite, I am a STUDENT I do not know what to do”!!! So I ventured out with a first aid kit, praying for help under my breath. We were 4 hours away from the nearest medical care and outside of cell phone reception. Prayer was the only thing that I could do, we prayed intensely and we watched the redness stop spreading and it even receded a bit, the swelling went down. I drew a circle around the bite and we watched for the following days... She is now totally fine.

The next night I was sharing stories from the back of a truck, as I spoke my translator had two jobs, one was to translate and the other was to remove giant flying bugs that were landing on me! He picked them out of my hair and off my shirt, THEY were HUGE, but I kept sharing and it was good. I have a bunch more stories about removing bugs and spiders from my body and off of others on my team but I do not want to gross you out too much... okay only one more bug story...

Around 5:30am on our final day of outreach I was feeling a slight tickle on my face... I opened my eyes to find ants crawling all over the wall of my tent. The smaller ants got through the mesh and were crawling over my stuff, my clothes, my body, and my face!!! I did not freak out as they were not fire ants, I simply got changed and evacuated my tent and gathered myself. Then I packed up all my stuff and continued on with my day... I never want to wake up with bugs on me EVER AGAIN!!

Over all I am doing well, learning how to give up control and just letting be. I have moments of missing home but other than that I absolutely love being here. I am leading another team on outreach next weekend. I would appreciate your prayers over myself and my team. Wisdom is highly valued and needed on these trips.

Thank you for loving me

Candace

“If you don’t quit, You win!”