Our Glorious Savior

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“Do not be anxious
about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving,
present your requests to God.” Philippians 4:6

Hello
to everyone…I am so encouraged that you all are reading my blogs and responding
to them. It is so nice to know that
people are keeping up with what God is doing here in Africa. This past couples of weeks have been so good
since God has really been showing me how important it is to bathe my days in
prayer and fully rely on Him to make changes in peoples lives, and not
myself. God has made this realization
evident in my ministry at Talhado Haven. 

       My teammates and I have been struggling with running
effective programs and relating with the older kids. One day we decided we just needed to take the
4 hour ministry block and have a meeting and just pray and figure out what we
are doing wrong and find out what Gods wants us to do.  Last Friday, our ministry was closed, so we
were allowed to stay in J-Bay and meet with each other. Our team has been having some rough times
getting along and being on the same page, so we decided we just needed to put
everything out on the table and admit the things that we, individually, were
doing wrong that hindered our teams effectiveness. I was nervous about it at first, but it
worked wonders, after I spoke up and said how much “I sucked”, to my surprise
two of my other teammates did the same thing. It was so encouraging and it really helped us figure out what we need to
do differently to work as a team and for each of us to be one hundred percent
in our ministry. The Holy Spirit was
working in this meeting and none of us had any idea what great things He was
doing for us. We decided that we should
appoint one person as leader to make sure we stay on track and that we are
always prepared for our ministry. We
only have one guy on our team, so we thought it would be amazing if he stepped
up and took the leadership role so that he could have practice being a spiritual
leader and us girls really wanted a MAN to take control. After that we decided that none of us gave
our ministry the time and dedication that it deserved, so we made some plans to
make that happened. We all vowed to pray
for the children that we knew by name in our own time and that every morning we
would eat breakfast together and pray over our day and our ministry. Let me tell you how well that planned
worked…everyday last week we met for breakfast and talked some about our nights
and how we were feeling and such, then we prayed for each other and for our
day. Every single thing we asked for,
God would deliver into our hands. It was
so amazing how well behaved the children were and how open they were to the
activities we planned to do with them. God blew me away this past week and I am so happy that He did. We have talked about prayer in our small
groups and how important it is to be in constant communication with our Father
so that we can always be in His will. I
fell away from it for a few days and it really showed in my attitude and my
ministry. But after this past week, I am
back into the routine and really encouraged to do nothing except talk with my
Father every chance I get. 

“I lift my eyes to the hills-where
does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and
earth. He will not let your foot slip-he who watches over you will not slumber;
indeed, he who watches over Israel
will neither slumber or sleep. The Lord
watches over you-the Lord is your shade at your right hand; the sun will not
harm you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord will keep you from all harm-he will watch over your life; the
Lord will watch over you coming and going both now and forevermore.” Psalm 121

           

After such an amazing and productive week, sadly
next Wednesday is our last day at the Haven. It closed this past Thursday for the holidays, but we have our Christmas
party on Wednesday. As a team, we feel
that God is really calling us into the townships in that community to build
relationships with the mothers and grandmothers of the children we have met and
have ministered to so far. Friday, we
helped the lady who opened the Haven and one of her friends, who helps her
raise money to sustain it, put labels on soup cans that are set out all over
the place for people to put their spare change into. It was a ton of work, but we prayed for
efficiency and not to our surprise, God blessed us with that.   Once we finished that task, we decided to
try and visit a few of our friends in the township that we have already
met. One lady, Ellen, was not home, so
we left the message that we stopped by. But another couple that Leah (teammate) met a couple days before were
home, so her and I stopped by to see them and have a follow up conversation. Their names are Samuel and Christina and they
both love Jesus and know that He is their savior. However, we are not sure they truly
understand WHO He is and WHAT He did for them. We asked them if they would like us to buy them a bible and Christina
got so excited when we said that we would bring her one in Afrikkaans (their
language.) Another wonderful thing that
happened with this couple is that the last time Leah saw Samuel he had this
huge cist on his right arm that was just oozing puss everywhere and he said
that he has had it for 4 years now and he has been to the hospital and all they
can do is drain it…nothing else has worked. So Leah and our leader who went with her prayed over Samuel and his
arm. When Leah and I were there, he said
that he had no pain and he showed us his arm and it was dried up and so much
smaller than it had been. Praise God
that He has started healing this man. Although it is not completely gone, Leah and I have faith that God is
going to heal him so that he can go back to work and help get more money for
him and his wife. They were so joyful
when we left; they walked us all the way to our car and were waving and
thanking Jesus for us. It was such a
touching experience, we knew then that we were right where God wanted us to
be. 

                In light of all this, we feel God calling us to
continue building relationships in this part of the townships and really just
seeking out new people to meet and pray for. This is going to be our new ministry starting Thursday of next week. Please pray for our obedience to God and His
will…we will be doing several ATL’s (Ask The Lord) searching for the voice of
God leading us one way or the other. I
am really excited about this new opportunity and can’t wait to see what God is
going to do.   Thank you for all your
prayers and words of love and affirmation. 

God put a verse on one of my
roommates’ heart and I want to share it with you all because it really spoke to
me this past week: