The Battle

We have a pretty big announcement to share with y’all. After months of prayer, we have felt God’s calling and leading for Wyatt to begin working full-time with Clothed in Hope (as Zambia Operations Director) after the conclusion of his internship.

We prayed, we sought counsel from those who we respect, we shared with friends to get feedback, we prayed some more, we wrestled with wondering if we were truly hearing God’s call, and landed at yes, we have.

Instead of the anticipated great celebration and much happiness, we are hurting. We know that past blog posts have been light and silly, and it’s not to say we haven’t experienced joy, because we certainly have. We feel like Zambia is our home. We love the people, our mission together, the little quirks even. But for the longest time we couldn’t come up with the words to share with y’all to explain how difficult this season has been for us.

Words are still lacking, but time is up. We are hurting, and this is difficult. This season has been anything but easy. This season has been the hardest of our lives.

Now we know that a calling of God is met with great opposition, and that’s a good thing. But if we’re being honest, which we want to be, right now it is just hard. We have experienced more opposition, more oppression, more injustice, more hardship than we ever saw possible for this season. Ones we trusted have turned on us to leave us at a very difficult place. We have been betrayed, kicked to the curb, taken advantage of. 

This all probably sounds vague, as there are too many details and intricacies to even dive into the meat of the issues surrounding us. We will say one thing- we are in the middle of a battle. A battle that wears at our souls each day. A battle with a known Victor whose Truth we cling to. A battle testing our endurance, our strength, our courage. A battle we weren’t prepared to fight but fight we will. A battle that challenges everything we know about life, our calling, our Victor.

A hard battle.

We know the outcome will be okay, as God will never leave us nor forsake us and that is good.  We know that we need to have faith to endure our current struggles. We know and trust every Word of God that He gives us. But some days (many days) it’s difficult to choose those truths over our feelings. It’s difficult to put fear and sadness and anger aside to submit to the journey God has us on. We’re just being real here, and we would go as far as to assume that we aren’t the only ones who struggle with this.

So, friends, we share all this and we say all of this because we need your help. We are inviting you to join our ranks in our battle against the opposition and discouragement we face. The confusion we feel. The financial hardship that brings us to a crossroads. We are tired, we are hurting, we are weak. We need your prayers, for you to join us in kneeling at the feet of our King Jesus to ask for strength, endurance, and most of all discernment and clarity for the next steps we should take. We will be making a pretty (very) weighty decision just one week from today. And even though you don’t know exactly what that is, we ask that you pray knowing that God knows every detail of what’s going on.

We are blessed to have people who care. We apologize for leaving you out of our battle for so long, but we are grateful to invite you in today. Thank you for caring for us and for loving us in such a way that shows us (and the world) the very heart of Jesus.

Blessings to you all,

A&W