Month one in Swaziland the Lord asked me to look for his thoughtfulness. He told me one night during worship that I’m not only thought of and for, but that he cares what I think. The next morning during our squad devotion I asked the Lord, “what should I be looking for?” And he responded “lemon creme”. I was confused because I had no idea what this meant and if lemons even existed in Swaziland, but I put it in my back pocket and went about my day.
It was our first time going to our assigned care points, so we had a full day of meeting our kids at the care point. Just before heading back home, I saw an older girl throwing stones at my friend Gift, a little boy I had held that day. He looked about 2 years old but was maybe 4 and really couldn’t do anything to defend himself. I asked our Shepard (the head of each care point), Umfantini, if we could walk him home. He said yes and we took off. Gift understood so much more English than we originally thought and it was fun to ask him questions and see if he would laugh or show off some of his english. We would ask him where his house was and he would point then go onto babble in siswati explaining the situation. We passed house after house in the bush and many herds of goats. Just as I was starting to question where exactly he was leading us, we came upon a group of buildings. He ran ahead into a small shop, smiled at us, and waved goodbye. As we turned to walk away, laughing to each other that we just walked through the bush with a 2 year old giving us directions in another language, a woman called out of the shop waving for us to come in.
She looked just like gift and had another smaller baby strapped to her back. We spoke broken siswati with her and marveled at the cold drinks she had for sale. As soon as I walked in I was reminded of the word “lemon creme” from that morning. I looked up to see that sitting on the shelf right in front of me were lemon creme cookies. WHAT! It was such a reminder that God does what he says he will do, even when I don’t understand exactly what He is doing. Such a small thing represented just how intentional the Lord is in pursuing me. He is such a thoughtful Dad. He is such a gentlemen. Ever since that, Jesus has asked me to look for things. Some small, some big, but always to remind me how close he is and how I can operate out of the peace of rest he gives me. ALSO, he without fail, shows up time and time again. He cares about giving me cookies in Africa and he cares about healing people and he cares about providing food for all his kids and he cares so deeply in small and big ways. How cool is the heavenly Papa we serve?
