The following post is by CBF field personnel Missy Ward who serves in Uganda. Keep up with Missy and learn more about her ministry at Missy in Uganda.

Exactly two years ago this month, I embarked on the journey to start a ministry program for refugee women in Kampala, Uganda. The deep need that had been presented met with my greatest passion and life calling.

Though this new journey was an exciting opportunity to fulfill my life calling, it has been filled with continual challenges and bumps along the road. These challenges have had a way of further opening my eyes to the reality that we are not in control and cannot rely on our own strength or passions, but God.

This past week, just one week before the shelter was scheduled to officially open and begin taking in residents, I received the shocking news that one of the full-time women’s ministry staff has resigned due to a difficult unforeseen circumstance in her personal life.

While I understand that this circumstance is fully out of her hands and was not avoidable, the timing of this news made it even more difficult and shocking.  I had been working with this person for the last two months, conducting training, coordinating policies and procedures for the shelter and planning the long term schedule and strategy.

With the completion of the setup and the opening of the shelter in full sight, this news felt like I hit a wall. I sat in my office in silence, unable to move.

The advocate tendency to “do” and take control kicked in. Within a few minutes I had my browser open to send an e-mail to neighboring refugee organizations to request CV referrals. As I began, I found myself without the ability to type.

I had a strong conviction and desire to read my Bible and pray. I have never felt this urge so strongly or profoundly.

As I read and prayed, God reminded me of the passage that I had been meditating on throughout the week in preparation for preaching a sermon on Sunday.

This passage was Luke 24: 13-31.

In this passage, Christ accompanies two of the disciples as they travel to Emmaus from Jerusalem, shortly after the resurrection. They were broken, hurt and dismayed about the events that had just taken place and this prevented them from recognizing Christ’s presence as they traveled. I identified with how these disciples felt: confused, shocked, saddened, and left wondering—where do I go from here?

While praying, God revealed to me that God was also there with me just as Christ had been with the disciples on the road that day. Just as the disciples’ eyes were opened as they broke bread with Christ, my eyes were opened from the nourishment of prayer and scripture.

This event and many others this week further reminded me that no matter what happens—as difficult, challenging or impossible, as things may seem—God is with me.

God is walking alongside of me and carrying me through when I feel like I can no longer move. It is God who has called me to this ministry and vision and it is God who will bring it to completion at God’s timing.

And throughout it all, I am called to keep my focus on Christ, walking, serving and loving in faith, with a full trust and dependence on Christ.

It is God who is able and has done infinitely more than we can ask or imagine and it is God who will continue to do infinitely more.

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.”