October 15, 2007

I will apologize in advance for this really long blog. I really just want to share with you what the Lord has been doing…

          So two weeks ago (the week of October 8^th) was definitely a lot more challenging than the previous weeks. Living in community with 35 other people started become a lot more real. It was a big stretch for me that week. We have moved past our honeymoon stage now- it is real- and it is life for the next 9 weeks and another 5 months after Christmas. Before this trip my only experience of community was my freshman year of college with three other girls, which was easy because it was easy to just leave the room if I needed alone time. And it was very easy to go to the store and replace anything that I shared. So the Lord is really stretching me in the area of sharing. I thought before I was good at sharing. I was wrong; it's so petty and stupid to be so selfish. I no longer have any rights of my own- my computer isn't mine, my water bottle isn't mine, my food isn't mine(that's the hardest one). I really had a hard time the first few weeks finding my place to spend time with the Lord. I think I was frustrated like every morning because I felt like I couldn't get alone with the Lord. I'm certainly finding out how much more the Lord has to work out in me. It's always bittersweet to know the refining love of the Lord. Although its uncomfortable and painful for my petty selfishness to be revealed and uprooted… it is so comforting to know that I'm alive in Christ and he is bringing me closer to him each time he burns away all my junk. I didn't realize how much time and space I had at home to spend time with the Lord- just to talk out loud in private. It really makes a difference when you aren't able to have complete solitude with Jesus for a month. I love to get alone just me and Jesus… I love to pray out loud in private. So that week it hit me hard that I had to find somewhere other than my bunk to spend time with the Lord. Praise the Lord I finally found a place. My friend Ben and I are cleaning it up. It is a garden area with a gazebo right outside our house. Every morning we are starting to have prayer there. Its going to be amazing when we finish cleaning it up and planting new flowers.

So as of this week we are choosing our permanent ministry places for the next three weeks. Its really cool to know that we are all focusing on one place to invest in relationships with people. There are four different ministry places: Mameloadie, Atteridgeville, Eskom, and Marie Kloppers.

Mameloadie is a school/ daycare located an hour away from Alabanza. It is one the poorest communities around here. C hildren from infants to 15 years old go to this school. Little shacks stretch for miles with mounds of trash piled all along the road sides.  Atteridgeville is about five minutes from Alabanza. It is a poor community as well. Our focus there is relational ministry. There are a couple of bible studies we are starting. There is one for men at one man's house, and another ladies bible study at the cresh (the daycare). We also are doing street ministry with the children who aren't able to attend school. This is where I hope to stay for the next three weeks. Erin, Stacey, and I went there today. I hope we can really begin to pour into these children. They know very little English and have probably not heard the gospel before.

Eskom is another cresh about 30 minutes away. Most of the children there are about five years old. I would say that this is the most challenging place. They are very rambunctious and speak very little English. I think a few girls are doing street ministry there. I don't know a whole lot about Marie Kloppers, but I think it is a cresh for orphans. I think the focus is toddlers and a little bit older children.

This week has been amazing! The Lord is definitely immersing us into ministry. A couple of us girls are going to Atteridgeville everyday. We have been spending time with Francina a lady who lives there. She is awesome! She isn't a Christian, but it is really cool that we can just build a relationship with her day by day. She is real with us… she doesn't pretend to be a Christian like a lot of people do here just because they know we are. She dropped the F-bomb the first day. It was so funny. She just kept right on talking after she said it too. We had cookies with her the first day and she asked for a bible.  We are getting to know her friend Julia also. We spent time with her on the first day just helping her plant grass in her yard. She loves to garden. She has several different fruits and vegetables growing. Katie brought up the story in Matthew about the seeds and the fertile ground. It was really awesome, because it was so perfect. It made me think about how much more she can understand what the story is saying because she does plant things. It made me think about my grandparents, because they garden. It just makes it a lot more meaningful because they have that perspective.

Francina lives with her boyfriend of eight years. As we have spent time with her we have asked her if she wants to be married, and what Michael (the boyfriend) is waiting on… and she says she does want to marry, but she thinks the issue is money. In a lot of parts of Africa it is common and a tradition for men to pay the woman's family a set number of cows or money before he can take her as a bride. It is actually a really cool thing, because in a circumstance that the man should die the wife would not be left without and money to survive on. She would have a way to provide for her children and herself. In some instances it is way of giving the wife's mother money to survive for the rest of her life if her husband has already passed. This way the mother isn't left with nothing after spending so much of her life raising children.

So day two we went back to visit with Francina, and we ended up carrying two big water buckets to her house for her. In this township the little shacks are located on a steep hill. There isn't running water in the houses, so they have to carry it by gallon buckets. So it was a funny sight to see four white girls carrying two big buckets of water up the hill. Women here are so strong and skilled. They carry water up steep hills, and a lot of the women carry water and everything else on their head including a baby on their back. That day we went back to Francina's house and talked with her. Michael seems to be a really nice guy. He gave Francina enough money to buy a coke for us the night before, because she told him about us. Francina had a few questions from Romans 8. We had underlined a couple of scriptures for her to read the previous day. So it was really neat to talk with her. She asked specifically about demons. It led us to talking about how demons can try to attack you, and Francina said that she thought she had demons trying to distract her when she goes to church. She said that she knows the pastor will be talking, but she can't hear his words. She talked about her mind being cluttered where she couldn't focus. We aren't sure if the Word doesn't penetrate her heart because she isn't a Christian and the veil needs to be removed. So we just explained that all she had to do whenever she felt the enemy trying to attack or distract her in anyway all she had to do was tell it to go in the name of Jesus and it would have to flee because there is so much power in the name. Satan has power but God is so much more powerful. We also just explained that whenever she felt her mind was being cluttered with idol thoughts all she had to do was lay each thought before God and ask God to clear her mind and give her peace. So please pray for Francina … that God would remove the veil and unstop her ears… that The Word will penetrate her heart whether a pastor is preaching or if she is reading her bible at home.

Day three (Thursday) of visiting Francina we only were able to spend 45 minutes with her. We invited her to go to a local church with us, but she already had plans to visit her sister in law who is having a baby. We get to go to a local church this Sunday with some awesome women of God we met at the cresh. Before we walked to Francina's house we walked to the other side of the mountain. We walked back to a house to check on a girl who had been screaming the previous day. We were playing with the street kids at the top of the mountain and as we were walking down we heard loud screaming and wailing coming from a nearby house. We tried to see what was going on, but it wasn't a good situation to walk up on for us and the children with us. So we decided to go back and check on the girl. We found out that she was fighting with her boyfriend and he was beating her. We think that the girl is only 17. It is really sad and frustrating, because when we tried to talk to them they laughed at us. We continued to walk to the other side of the mountain and met a lady named Sherry. She wanted us to pray that she would get married soon. She also asked us to pray for her little boy who was sick. We talked to her and her friend Dora for a minute and found out that there is an orphanage there in Atteridgeville. It is really exciting because we were told that Maria Kloppers was the only one close. We plan to visit it on Monday, so please pray that the Lord will open the door for us to spend time there. We also noticed today that one of our street baby's hand was swollen. We got Sherry to translate and ask her if it hurt and what happened. Her name is Catoue. She told us that a snake bit her and that her mom used a razor blade to let some of the blood out because it was swelling, but it didn't work. Later when we walked to Francina's house we asked her about it, and it turns out that Catoue is Juila's neighbor. Francina and Julia told us that it was not a snake bite, but that Catoue's parents beat her. The mother just told her to say that it was a snake bite. Francina said that she also has a mark on her leg. It is a very sad situation and it makes me angry. Apparently the step dad doesn't want Catoue to leave the yard and play with other children. He tells the mother to lock the gate. So when she does leave he instructs the mother to beat her. It's sad because Catoue doesn't understand what she does wrong. She is a very quite and calm child. She is so precious. It is a tough situation, because we want to take her to the doctor, but we are praying over the weekend about it. Julia says that the parents are really weird and do not talk to any of the neighbors. We do not want to make the situation worse for her by talking to the parents. The parents probably don't want anyone to know that they caused the marks and swelling on her hand. So please pray for Catoue and her situation, and if it is possible for us to take her to the doctor that he Lord will provide the means to do it.

I think everyday we get more and more new little friends. They all follow us as we walk up the hill. I'm really excited to see the Franica's grass grow over the next two weeks, and I'm also looking forward to seeing the Lord grow in her life.

          Please continue to pray for my team and I. It seems like some of us are getting a little sick off and on, because the weather has been a little crazy. It has just this week started to get hot, but its our rainy season so it gets a little cold off and on with the rain.

In His arms,

AShley