Live, Love, Africa

Hi all!! Sorry it has been so long since my first post, but it has been a crazy last 2 months. I’ve been working a lot to raise money for my tuition. Our school partners with a catering company, Levy Restaurants, who does the catering at major events, like the PGA championship and the U.S. Open in New York. I worked both of those jobs, and returned from working the U.S. Open 3 days before starting my first year at the school of ministry.

But anyways, I just got through the first week of school, and can I just say wow. Wow, wow, wow, wow!!! God has showed up big time already. To give you an idea of what our daily schedule looks like, we start every day with worship. The rest of the day we have 2 classes and our track, which is like our elective we get to pick. My track for the first 3 months in prophetic arts, but I’ll get to more on that later.

So every day during worship this week, God was rocking me. He was either telling or showing me something new every day. Since I got back from NY, I’ve had an awful cough. I don’t feel it in my head or my nose, but the cough is intense and has almost taken my whole voice away a few days. That being said, it isn’t god for me to sing because it either hurts my throat or will take my voice away the rest of the day. During worship our first day, we sang a song that said, “my soul will sing…” And right away it hit me. It’s not about using my voice to sing, and it’s not about just singing the words of the song, but worship is about letting my soul sing and cry out to God. Worship is a time for prayer and to hear God also. So this whole week that’s what God is teaching me. The majority of the time during worship, I’m not even opening my mouth. I’ll whisper praises and prayer to Him, listen to him, and just sit in His presence.

One day we were singing a song about how He’s numbered all the stars and knows them by name. So I started thinking about how he knows us, His children, by name, which leads me to think about Him knowing my name. Then suddenly I heard Him say, “Stephanie, I love you.” Wow. I don’t remember ever hearing Him say my name, so of course I lose it and start crying (which happened a lot this week, but in such a good way). But did you know that? Like really know that? He knows your name, and He loooooves you so much? I don’t think I understood how much he loves me until that moment, when He said my name.

Another day during worship, I went up to the alter and just talked to Him the whole time and sat with Him. For a while now, whenever I would picture God during worship, I would see Him sitting on His throne above me, as the King of my life. That was how I was picturing Him that day too. But after a while, I went from kneeling to sitting criss-cross applesauce, to be politically correct. And all of a sudden, I see Him sitting (criss-cross applesauce) right in front of me. Like He came down off His throne to sit with ME! Little Stephanie Carole Meadows. This blew me away. I was literally sitting with Him, Jesus. What? Yea, He loves me so much, that He wants to come sit with me to listen and talk with me. That was so crazy!

So if those experiences weren’t enough, God is now sending me to Africa! Yea, Africa. Kenya, Africa. For 2 and a half weeks. Our Pastor brought the idea up to me a few days before I had to give a definite answer (we leave October 30 and had to get the plane tickets ASAP), so I only had about 60 hours to think and pray about it. But during that time, all signs pointed to me going. In our prophetic arts class one day, we all had to draw a name, and create a prophetic drawing/painting for that person. A fellow first year, Joy, drew my name, and the drawing she did for me was definitely straight from God. 

Her inspiration for the drawing was from John 3:8, “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” The swirls of color represent the wind, which as this verse says, blows where it wishes and we do not know where it goes. The message to me is to go with the Spirit. Go with the wind wherever it takes me. And this wind is taking me to Africa. The flowers she drew represented shedding parts of my old self (the dead stuff), but also dropping new seeds of life as I grow. I believe I’ll be able to drop many seeds in Africa through ministry and loving the people there.

Over the summer, I have been so blessed and have been able to save up money to put towards my tuition and to help me get through the rest of the school year. I am putting $1,400 of my own money towards the trip to buy my plane ticket, but I still need your support both through prayer and financially to raise the remaining $1,100. So the trip totals to costing $2,500. If you’re reading this and would like to support me financially, you can send cash or check, please email me (stephcmeadows@gmail.com) and I’ll give you more details on how you can do that. The dates of the trip are October 30- November 18. We will be traveling in Kenya from Nairobi to Kisumu to Mombasa. Most of our time will be spent praying, ministering, moving with the Spirit, and in Mombasa we’ll be working with a boarding school and hanging out with adorable kids J. With almost a month before we leave, I ask you prayer that I would continue to grow deeper and more intimate with my Father, that Satan would not have his ways with our team, and that God would continue preparing me for the ministry we’ll be doing.

So as you can tell, this has been an amazing week. We serve an awesome, loving, faithful God. I’m learning how to make worship a lifestyle and how to see God actively revealing himself to me. I hope these testimonies have been encouraging to all of you, and that they open your eyes more to God’s power and love.

God bless you all!

Steph