This morning, we woke up around 7:00AM and went to a restaurant called Zigzag. At Zigzag we ate delicious breakfast foods like French toast, muffins, and English breakfast. At breakfast, we talked about how we are going to explain our experience to others back home. We all have struggled to put into words what this trip means to us because of how impactful it has been. We were led by the current missionaries in this session on re-entering the United States. We discussed what is okay and not okay to post on social media, as well as ways to not overwhelm friends and family with everything that we have learned. We talked about how to stay connected with the individuals of the organization that hosted us and how to give back to it. At the end of breakfast, we said our goodbyes, and we were sad to leave yet were excited to head back home to tell others about our experience here in Zambia.
During this trip, we learned how big the global church is. For a lot of us, we did not realize the full extent of God’s work around the world. This trip allowed us to see that although we come from different backgrounds, we still worship the same God. At first coming to Africa, most of us focused on the physical poverty of the area, but throughout our time we learned that these are their daily lives, and they are very rich spiritually and in other things. This trip has changed all of our lives because now we know how much God loves all of his children whether they are in the U.S or Zambia, and we now want to continue to grow deeper in our faith. This trip has brought up 14 brothers and sisters that will continue to walk towards Jesus together in any way that He calls us. Several people have considered different ways that they can stay connected from the experience that we had, whether that is to give back financially to the organization, apply for the summer internship that Poetice hosts, or to consider the missionary field as a career option in the future. Over the last week, not only did we grow closer with each other and Jesus, we also grew closer with all of the Poetice staff. They helped us understand the love of God in the community and spoke God’s truth to us and to the community members we worked with. These are people that we will never forget and are people that we will continue to stay connected with. Thank you for everyone following our daily blogs and the continued prayers of support. We are now headed back to the United States and are excited to share the fire that God has started in all of our hearts with you all. We cannot emphasize enough how thankful we are for this experience and how blessed we are to walk along side Jesus.
Britta Johnson, Sara Plohetski, Alli VanderStoep