A Change of Plans...

When we arrived on monday at the Village of Hope in the beautiful Middle Atlas Mountains, we all anticipated a week that had been set aside completely for manual labor and service. We were anxious to serve after time spent adjusting to and understanding the culture around us. But our first day we received no work. This made us all the more anxious, and when our project was delayed the next morning there was a general feeling of uselessness and and impatience; however, we soon received all the work we could want. We were asked to sand the walls of a room in preparation for paint. At the end of the day we were finished, and many of us had sanded our thumbs raw. But at that point the status on the rest of the project was up in the air. As the pictures show, the room was too tall for us to sand everything from the floor, and although we were told that there was scaffolding available, we were unsure of how safe the equipment was, and we never followed through on trying to find were it was stored in the village. The ambiguity of the project combined with the lack of urgency we sensed from our instructors, the prescence of other volunteer groups, and some health issues caused by altitude, led us to the decision to leave Ain Leuh on Wendsday, two days earlier than planned. Anxiousness had been replaced by awkwardness, and a feeling that our plans to serve had failed. Should we have left? Could we have tried harder, or been more patient? Were we leaving simply because we were not serving on our own terms? These questions crossed through my mind as we returned to Fes. But in our daily group discussion we came to realize the truth expressed in Proverbs 19:21,

"Many plans are in a man's heart, but it is the LORD's purpose that prevails."

We had gone to Ain Leuh completely assured of what we were going to do. It was all planned out, scheduled on our trip calender. But we were not aware of God's purpose. Our plan didn't work, and that did not feel good. But we know that we are exactly where God intends us to be. We've heard prayers offered at church that God would use us and teach us how to serve Him. We're connecting with Moroccans. By the grace of Christ we're reflecting His image. And we're exicited, anticipating God's plans, not ours. And that feels good.