A new year brings me a new adventure– Africa! God drew my heart to Africa about five years ago at a conference at Mars Hill Bible Church in Michigan. I attended a break-out session on the AIDS pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa. As I listened, I knew that I had to go to Africa one day. The sole reason that God placed on my heart for going was to show the African people that they are loved, that they are not alone, and that I care about what’s happening to them. The message I felt in my heart was that it’s not okay for me as a Christian to sit idly by or “look the other way” while suffering endures. It’s not okay for the church to continue to ignore the stark ramifications of this horrific disease, which include multitudes of orphaned children. So I waited in anticipatory expectation of the time that God would ask me to go. And now it’s here!

Initially, I was hesitant to tell my family and friends about my “calling” to Africa because that word is fraught with meaning. I didn’t feel worthy of the weight of it. The desire that you placed on my heart, God, was to love them. Can that really be a “calling” in itself? Doesn’t a genuine “calling” require loftier goals? A greater purpose? Then I was led to revisit 1 Corinthians 13, the “love chapter” of the Bible. I know I’ve read this chapter hundreds of times in the past. But as the Word often does, it reflected new meaning to me in the light of Africa. This chapter declares that love is all that endures. Prophecy will be fulfilled. Fragmentary knowledge will be made complete and lose its value as it is superseded by truth. But love [which the Amplified Bible defines as “true affection for God & man, growing out of God’s love for and in us”] will abide, along with faith & hope. But love is the greatest among these abiding traits.

God reconfirmed my calling by gently reminding me that love is the greater purpose. In fact, verse 3 says, “Even if I dole out all that I have [to the poor in providing] food…but have not love (God’s love in me), I gain nothing” (Amplified version). So the heart of my calling is to love God’s creation out of His love for and in me. And that is a worthy calling in and of itself. I pray that God gives me the grace and the courage to live out His calling to His beloved in Africa.