God cares about the toilet paper.

A week ago, I stepped into the unknown and trusted that God would provide every step of the way.

It’s been a week of peace and reassurances, despite a lot of unknowns.

He clearly showed me a house that met all my wants and needs so I began renting a house that, on paper and according to my budget, I couldn’t afford. Technically, I still cannot afford it, but God can. Not only was I able to pay for rent, but money has also come in to buy some small things to make it more like a home.

As I was telling my sister recently, I never thought my first place would be in Africa. I’m almost 28 years old and, besides living in the dorms for two years in University, I’ve always lived with my parents (or been traveling the world hah). But, that’s not even the craziest part to me; I never imagined my first place would also happen when I have no job.

I know that being a support-raised missionary is a job, just as much as being a journalist with a salary, but it’s also different. Instead of having an overabundance of money, or at least enough to get by with a little to save, I am living on a very tight budget (think meals of noodles like Ramen and eggs) and saying, “God, I know you’ll provide toilet paper this week.”

It is definitely stretching my faith. 

I never thought I’d be relying on my monthly supporters in order to buy toilet paper or a tray of eggs.

Do I feel slightly silly when I pray and ask God to provide toilet paper? I do. 

Would I change my situation where I had a giant account full of money while I’m here? Honestly, I don’t think I would.

In America, it’s very easy to place God in the background. We have everything we need and we can sustain ourselves. Until something happens that seems like it’s out of our control, we tend to rely on ourselves, our money, our experience, our knowledge to get through our days.

In Uganda, I can’t make it through a day with God in the background. I have to actively seek him and ask for my every need. I have to have complete faith and utter trust that he will provide exactly what I need, when I need it. It might be something small, like toilet paper, or it might be something bigger, like the ATMs close to me are down (things just stop working here for days or weeks at a time) and I have two hundred shillings to my name (about $0.05) and I have no food for the day. Logically, I have no way to eat for that day. But God prompts a friend to treat me to lunch, with enough left over for dinner.

I have to pray that the water is there for a shower after two days of no water; that the power outage will not happen tonight because I want to talk to my family for the first time in a week; that avocados will be in the market because I’ve been craving them for days and no one has them; that my boda driver that says he knows where the place I’m going is, actually does and I will arrive safely; that I can negotiate well with the small money I have and get food for the week; that I can buy the things I both want and need for my house to make it my home; that I won’t get sick from eating a street girl’s chunk of moldy bread that she offered me as a thank you for coming to her school (refusing someone’s food offering in Uganda is very rude).

And that’s just to name a few recent prayers from this week that I can recall. Some of them might seem silly to you but all of them have been answered and showed God cares about the little things just as much as the big things.

So, is it sometimes difficult to live a life of total dependence on God to provide your every need? Yes.

And sometimes I feel like I’m constantly asking for more money from people and checking my account balance, waiting on how and where God will provide. 

But since stepping out in faith, I haven’t had a single minute of a day where I doubted what I was doing or where I was supposed to be.

I know I am supposed to be here, in the Pearl of Africa, and that God will continue to provide if I seek him for my every need-- even the toilet paper.