Four weeks...

It is now just less than four weeks until Candace and I leave the M/V Africa Mercy.

We'll be spending some time in Europe before heading south to Cape Town. I am hoping to still be involved with Mercy Ships - at the South African office - while Candace is looking at the possibility of volunteering at a hospital until a work permit can be sorted. We will be in Cape Town for the foreseeable future, listening to where God would have us go next. We have an idea of where that may be, but God must be the pilot at the helm.

It's strange to think that our time here is running down. Every other time I've left the ship (apart from at the end of 2008) I knew I'd be coming back in a few weeks. This time it's different. Because, truth be told, I'm not sure when we'll be back. That's what makes our future so uncertain. And yet, in the uncertainty, there is hope. As Oswald Chambers says in his book My Utmost for His Highest:

To be certain of God means that we are uncertain in all our ways, not knowing what tomorrow may bring. This is generally expressed with a sigh of sadness, but it should be an expression of breathless expectation. We are uncertain of the next step, but we are certain of God. [...] Leave everything to Him and it will be gloriously and graciously uncertain how He will come in—but you can be certain that He will come. Remain faithful to Him.

We will remain faithful to God and trust Him in this new exciting path we are about to take. But for the moment, we are still here in Guinea, West Africa. And we are both determined to finish strong.

That being said, stay posted for more blog posts from the ship over the next month, and from Cape Town in the New Year. God bless you all!