Now living in Iowa, PJ, the Short-Term Program Director of AIM’s International Office, wrote the following reflection while living in Africa.
When every short termer goes home, we spend an afternoon together talking about their time here in Africa and about what it looks like to go home.
Today, I had the privilege of sitting with a young couple who have been serving in Nairobi for the last four months. We had pizza, coffee, and some great conversations.
I asked them, 'What is one thing that you wish you would have been told at your orientation when you arrived in Africa?'
Without missing a beat, the young woman smiled and responded, 'How to change a heart!'
We laughed a little bit at the audacity of such a massive concept, but beneath her partial joke, there was a lot of truth.
My generation and the generations after mine were told we would be world changers, and we are determined to be just that. We don’t want to settle for small change; we want to see big change.
The reality, though, is that while we want to change the world, we don’t know how to. And when we are brutally honest with ourselves, we admit that we don’t even know how to change one heart, much less the world.
As we sat there talking, I thought about the many other conversations that I’ve had with short termers this year. And I realized how many changed hearts I’ve seen.
I’ve sat with, prayed with, laughed with, and cried with so many people who have been changed by their time in Africa.
They came to change the place, but the place changed them!
I still don’t know how to change a heart, but I keep seeing them get changed regardless, and I think that I’m getting more comfortable realizing that while I can’t change hearts, I work for SOMEONE who can.
Pray.
For changed hearts. For wisdom. For opportunities of discipleship, prayer, and relationship building. For short termers as they go, while they’re on the field, and afterwards, as they return home changed from their experiences and now have to navigate those changes. For the people they meet along the way.
About the Author: PJ is the Short-Term Guy. Growing up in Iowa, PJ had a heart for sharing the gospel and went on several two-week mission trips with his youth group. While those two-week trips were great for exposure to missions, he wanted to know what it was like to serve for longer. After getting married, he and his wife led a short-term team through Africa Inland Mission to Kibera, Kenya, where they lived for a few months working alongside Africans to minister to the community there. This experience serving in Kibera had a profound impact on his and his family’s life. PJ now serves as the Short-Term Program Director of AIM’s International Office, which oversees all of Africa Inland Mission.