Sitting in the silence

God's timing is a funny thing. It would seem that after this past year of preparing me and sending me again to Zambia to be apart of His plan there, I would come back and all things would just fall into place here for Extending Hands. But that has not happened yet and once again I sit and wait on God. I have learned though, that waiting on God in His silence takes far more than patience and the will to "hold out". It is about experiencing what God wants you to know in the seeming absence of answers we so desperately want to hear.

When I came back from Zambia last year I spiraled into a very dark place in my soul. I was frustrated and broken on so many levels. I knew God was putting on the gloves and getting out the scalpel to do surgery in my life. I had to give God permission to search my soul. Psalms 139:23,24-"Search me, O God, and know my heart, test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." He brought some pretty sobering things to the surface that needed to be addressed. I didn't know it at the time, but God was beginning to prepare me for what He truly wanted Extending Hands to be. I had assumed that Extending Hands would just be a Fair Trade business that would benefit the widows and women of Zambia and would also bring other assistance to their community. I was wondering though, when we were going to get moving on Extending Hands, as that is why I had went to Zambia to make some good contacts and connections. But God was silent. In no way was I lead to move forward with Extending Hands at that moment. God had other plans for me and the ministry that Extending Hands would become. The cleansing was just the beginning to a long process of allowing me to heal from so many things in my life. It was the beginning of the bigger picture of how God wanted to use me not only here but in Zambia.

That brought me to some counseling that I didn't really think I needed but at my pastors recommendation, I started. Boy, had I known where that was all going to lead...it was like falling into the abyss of lost emotions and tears I had not known were missing. I walked through some hard things form my past. Things I had erased from my memory or chosen to believe was my fault. It also brought my husband to his own journey. After watching me for awhile and seeing the growth I was experiencing, he too decided to start counseling and deal with the past and the secrets of his own life. Once again, had I known....


This put both of us into total arrest on the table of God's surgery. Our life, our marriage, our family, our future was all at stake in those months of not knowing if we were going to make it. It was then and there that I had to decide once and for all, if I trusted the God I had grown up with. I had to choose my own way or God, pure and simple. I had to decide if I was going to make the right choice, the hard choice. You can't get up off the table in the middle of surgery. Well, you can but you will not see the power of how God will work through the circumstances of your life if you trust Him. With the help of solid, godly people in my life, I made it through this "near death" experience and allowed God to finish surgery.

The next step for me included, picking the right "nurses" to assist God in this process. I just got done reading a wonderful book called "The North Face of God", by Ken Gire. In one of the chapters it talks about how choosing the right "team" makes all the difference. The difference of living or dying during a mountain expedition. He talks about how it is the same in life when we have to divulge our hurts, our secrets and our pain to someone. That someone must be willing to save you in the midst of horrible circumstances. They must be willing to put their own lives on the line to pull you out of the frozen cavern you have fallen into. I have had those people in my life. Those who were willing to put aside their own hurts, their own problems, their time, schedules and other priorities to walk along side me and make sure I got to the other side. And not just get there but get there healthy, whole and healed. There is a difference between getting through something in one piece and being better after the experience. That is how I made it back to Zambia, which was the other side for me.

God allowed me the opportunity to go back to Zambia in May to get Extending Hands going. I had paper work to do over there and wonderful days with the widows who are making me jewelry. Miraculously I got my paperwork done while I was there (which I guess was an astonishing feat!) and I had assumed that maybe, just maybe that meant when I returned, all things would fall into place here. This is where I am now, waiting for money to fall out of the sky to get everything that we need to buy, get done, file etc. This is where I say, "I will not just sit in the silence, but I will listen in the silence, and I will not miss what I am handed every day as I talk to God and follow His plan for my life, my marriage and my family, first." And I will remember that His ways are higher than my ways and His thoughts, higher than mine. It is easy to say that stuff but do we live it? Are we willing to follow a God that doesn't go by the rules and ways of men? A God that does not measure success in American, get 'r done, terms. I have to ask myself if I want to do this in my own strength, my own pull up your bootstraps strength, or let God show Himself by leading me down a path that won't make sense to most people for His glory and His honor. Is my life a walking memorial to the grace and faith that He has so wonderfully bestowed to me as I seek a God that does not need to show Himself or do miracles to demand the praise He so deserves.

I know God has created Extending Hands and He will bring it all to fruition. I know He is right now preparing the people he wants on the board and the money that will get this all going. I have one job, to continue to praise God for who He is, not what He has done or not done in my life and to live like I believe that He knows better than I. That His silence is not the absence of His power but a chance to show my trust in His power unseen by the human eye.

Oh African Morning

There is something about morning in Africa....

It calls me from the rest I so desired the night before.

It lays bare my soul to the unending possibilities that linger ahead but
like the sun that slowly shows itself, Africa slowly takes back any thoughts of greatness.

It humbles me into a place of dependence on God like no other.

It draws me out of comfort and has me long for the dusty, dirty hand of an orphan or the desperate hug of a widow.

It overwhelms my heart with emotion and hardens it at the same time.

It makes me want to run away and yet draws and envelopes me in a desire to dwell in it's hold on me.

Africa has my heart, my soul. It owns the places that I have walked. The places where I have sat and stared out at the vast expanse that lay before me.

And as I take a deep breath in awe of it's beauty; at the same time, Africa removes life from a soul that has known no other place.

Then at the end of the day I am ready to lay down my mistakes and seeming failures because of the smile and hope in a child's eye.

It then calls my gaze upward to the night sky and the stars that seem brighter and I am reminded that tomorrow will bring more unending possibilities to love, to care, to show compassion in this place called Africa...

By-Kristin Choitz, written in Zambia May, 2010

Zambia Video

This video is a personal walk through some of my more emotional days and times during my trip in May. The first girl is our "ex" sponsored child Agness. She is not in the sponsorship program anymore but we have chosen to keep in contact with her because I will be going back and forth and will be able to see her when I am there. We are very fortunate that we have the option to continue our relationship with her. She is my daughter Brianne's age and it is difficult seeing the difference in the lives that they lead.
Then there is Precious and her children. Sheryl and I went and prayed with her at the end of my 2nd day out with the widows who I am involved with now. We were both tired and hot and I had packed up my camera for the day as I thought we would only be there for a couple of minutes. We were going to go and pray with her as she had just lost her husband a couple months before and has 4 children of her own and was caring for an orphan. As we filed in (all 15-20 of us) to her house and sang songs and met her and her family, something inside me said, "get your camera out." I argued with God(surprise, surprise)and said in my head that it is all packed up and we are leaving soon. I finally stopped arguing and got my camera out just in time to take a picture of Sheryl praying with her. Then, we stepped outside and all her kids happen to be right there and I had Sheryl take a picture of us. At the time, I didn't know why I took that one either. We said goodbye and left. That was Thursday...Saturday night I got a call from Reberiah, my connection with these widows, who told me then that Precious had died on Friday....Had I not taken out my camera these 5, now orphans, would not have a picture of their mother. Nor would her story be able to be told. This was a very sobering night as the reality of why we were there, why we have to get involved, get dirty, be apart of these people's lives, was so very clearly shown. The reality that there are now 5 more orphans in Africa....

 Never let go, by David Crowder Band

Home but still there.....

I have returned from Zambia with my body here and my soul still there. The difficulties every time I come back are always unexpected. I struggle with the longing for the mornings in Africa, the rawness of what Africa lays out in front of you, the unexpectedness of what lies ahead. It is like I have returned from another world, a far away place that holds part of who I am in it's grasp.

It is a place that allows a person to have full access to their soul. To feel, seek, search out their true self, their Africa self. I find out things about myself there. Things like I am stronger than I think I am. I am weaker than I think I am. That I posses a deepness in my soul that I didn't know existed.


But it is back to reality now. I have come back to the task of re-doing and doing paperwork for Extending Hands. I do not find this part fun but know it is necessary. It is a little overwhelming and beyond my comfort zone. Believe it or not, being in Africa is not outside my comfort zone, just paperwork and deadlines and finances. That part is taxing.


I keep telling God He has got the wrong person for this job. That I do not know what I am doing but I continue to hear His voice confirming that He has called me to this and He will equip me for the job. God keeps "showing up" in so many ways and especially in Zambia while I was there. This trip was about me and God. About me trusting and leaning on Him completely and wholly. Understanding His sovereignty in difficult situations. About worshiping Him despite circumstances and feelings.


I now move on to trust Him to provide what we need to get Extending Hands registered as a non-profit, financially and also the time and energy. The widows in George compound who are making me jewelry are in desperate need of the help this could bring them. It could be the beginning of a new day for them. A new day in Africa.