Heart

If there is one thing I know with certainty, the time I have spent in Africa has very little to do with what God desires to use me to do here and almost everything to do with what God desires to do inside of me while I am here. God has used Africa to change me. This beautiful country has invaded my heart in a way I cannot describe.

We gathered last night with a group of pastors and leaders that have come from 16 countries from all over Africa. It moves me to hear people worship God in their native tongue. It gives some small glimpse of what I imagine eternity to be...people from every nation and tribe and tongue gathered around Almighty God...my finite mind cannot even begin to comprehend the majesty of my Father.

This week has been a whirlwind of emotion...really the past four months have been that way for me. Something within me shifted the last time we were here. It has been a season of my faith and trust being stretched further than I ever thought possible. However, the result has been a deepening in my relationship with my Father and a level of trust and intimacy I would not have known otherwise. I am overwhelmed with gratitude at His unending faithfulness and provision. Through my own fear and doubt and confusion and questions His love and faithfulness have been unrelenting. "Who is like the Lord our God, the One who sits enthroned on high, who stoops down to look on the heavens and the earth?"

I have known the Lord was asking something of me that within my own strength and ability I am completely incapable of. I have wrestled and struggled and pleaded. God spoke truth and peace into my heart yesterday. I have been consumed with asking God to speak clarity and guidance and direction. In many ways just in His sovereignty He already has, but I continued to question. He pierced me with this statement yesterday..."Stop asking me to tell you what I am going to do and start asking me who I AM...I may not tell you what I am doing, but I will always tell you who I AM." God then used a pastor last night to reinforce that truth to me. He asked the question, "Do you live for God or do you allow God to live through you?" With all my heart I desire for God to live through me. I know apart from Him I am nothing and only with Him living through me do I truly find life. But when I sat with that statement, I realized that there is still so much within me that just tries to live for God. I have a deep gratitude for what the Lord has done for me and the bondage He has delivered me from. My gratitude makes me want to live for Him. I want to serve Him. I want my life to bring glory to Him. Those are all great things, but the most important thing and what God really wants most is my heart. And when I start focusing on living for God, my focus begins to shift away from the heart and toward obedience and it leads me toward bondage...just give me a list of things to do and let me get busy doing them. I realize that is why the last couple of months have been so hard for me. God knows my heart and He knows this about me. He isn't interested in giving me a plan or a list and allowing me to start moving toward it. Plain and simple, what He wants most is my heart. He wants me hanging onto Him with everything I have and allowing Him to press His life through me. That's all that matters...that's the only thing of value and worth...God doesn't need my works or my gifts. He is the Giver of every good gift. It all belongs to Him in the first place. The world doesn't need my gifts or works either. What the world needs is the Giver of every good gift. May my obedience come in the form of resting in my Father..in allowing Him to change me and align my heart with His, in laying down my own life so that His life through me may be seen.

May we be a people that hang onto Christ with everything within us...that allow Him to press His life and glory through us to the people around us...Then, I believe we really could change the world.

"You are the light of the world...let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven." Matthew 5:14-16

Inside the community of Sweetwaters...

At first glance the community of Sweetwaters is a beautiful town tucked amidst lush rolling green hills. It is estimated that the population of this community is somewhere around 100,000 people. I have found it to be a place full of gracious and beautiful people. However, it is also a place of extreme darkness, death and poverty. This community is considered the very epicenter of the AIDS pandemic for South Africa with an estimated 50% of the population being either HIV positive or full blown AIDS. It is beyond my ability to be able to put into words the destruction that this disease has created.

We went back into the community today to do home visits with Zanele...

I am almost certain that I will never in my lifetime meet a person as selfless as this woman. Zanele has worked with Tabitha ministries for the past ten years. As I have already said, she is Tabitha's central person living in the community...she oversees all the Zulu mobile moms and hospice caregivers, food distribution in the community, training and programs for the children at the community center, has 26 additional children living with her at the shelter, and makes daily visits to the sick and child-headed households herself. Before we met up with her today, she had spent the entire morning at court trying to get justice for a 7 year old girl of the community that had been raped only to watch the perpetrator walk free again.

Waiting outside the house of the first patient, we learned that the person had just passed away this week. Mama Gail expected such because when we walked up some of the boys were in the yard preparing a spot for burial.

Walking up to the second house we found it empty...

A neighbor saw us and came to tell Zanele that this man had passed away this week as well...

and this is where this man spent his last days...

We found this house completely locked up with a patient on the inside that we were unable to get to...

Gail says it is not uncommon for family members to be left like this to die...in some instances when the person is in the last stages of death, they are moved outside to await their death as a way of coping and separating them from the rest of the family.

The community of Sweetwaters is broken up into 9 different areas...currently Tabitha ministries only works in 4 of those...just this past week alone in the 4 areas that Tabitha ministers to, there were 140 deaths...which leads to why so many children are left abandoned...

This is a typical child-headed household...

The children's mother and father are buried right outside of the front door. Within these four walls lives a 14 year old girl, 9 year old twins and a six year old...

Please pray for the people of Sweetwaters...that the hope of Jesus Christ would permeate and pour out over these hills...please pray also for Zanele and the ministry that God would continue to strengthen and go before them...

As I type this I cannot help but think of the 30 children that are sleeping in the room down the hall from me right now...all miracles that the Lord redeemed from the community of Sweetwaters. I have a deep gratitude knowing that nothing is impossible for my God. He rescues and redeems and loves with a love that is beyond all comprehension...

"And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." Acts 2:21

A day in Sweetwaters...

Yesterday we went back into the community of Sweetwaters to assemble food parcels for the month of December. These food parcels are given to the home-bound, sickest patients that Tabitha ministries is involved with as well as to the child-headed households. If you are not familiar with the term child-headed household it is when children, mainly due to the death of their parents, are forced to take over as head of the household and take care of the remaining siblings. It is not uncommon for the oldest sibling to still be under the age of 10 themselves. These children do not live with relatives or in any type of shelter. They literally in an instant are unfathomably catapulted from a child to a parent. It is estimated that there are close to 6000 children living in this situation in the community of Sweetwaters alone. This is a photo of the typical food parcel that Tabitha distributes...because it is Christmas though they wanted the people and children to have something special so we added a bag of candy, package of cookies and jelly. The monthly food parcel generally includes a bag of rice, maize meal, soup mix, sugar, salt, tea, 5 bouillon cubes, soap, candles, 2 cans of beans and 1 can of sardines.

Packing the parcels...

Some of the sweet caregivers that helped pack the parcels...

These caregivers are considered mobile moms and hospice caretakers...they check in with the child-headed households at least once a week and make weekly visits to check on AIDS patients.

After hours of packing this was the reward of our labor...over a thousand bags filled with food to be distributed the day before Christmas!

We then came home to prepare for a much anticipated grand event...

Four of the children from the orphanage take gymnastics classes and their program was last night. They were so cute and did such a fantastic job! Introducing Lulu, Becky, Timmy and Nellie...

We went back out into the community again this morning to do a program for some of the child-headed household children at the community center. When we were last here back in August only one room of the community center had been built. Since we have been back home, God has graciously provided Tabitha with the funds to complete the center and so far a good portion of it has been built...

Zanele's house, the shelter and the community center are all inside a small little compound. This is a photo of Zanele's house...

And this is the shelter that is right next door where the 26 children I mentioned yesterday live...

The children that came for the program today...

Sandwiches and kool-aid for the children...

This sweet little guy made me smile...during prayer he squeezed his eyes shut as hard as he could and kept them that way the entire time...

The harsh reality of a child-headed household...

This sweet little girl is only eight years old and is responsible for her one year old sister. I took the baby to give the little girl a break so she could enjoy the program. After about 30 minutes the child started to cry and myself or the other women weren't able to console her. It broke my heart to see this young girl only a child herself, step away from the program to come and comfort her sister. She did it without a second thought the minute she heard the baby crying. It is unfathomable to comprehend, but the way of life here...to watch the children still only children themselves taking care of their siblings and putting their younger brothers and sisters needs ahead of their own...

I'll leave you with some final images...it was a great day and I am so thankful for the opportunity to love on these children and to speak to them of a God who loves and cares for them.

"He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." Micah 6:8

Journey back to South Africa...

When we took this photo back in August, I never thought I'd be standing in the same spot again only three months later going back...

Not only going back, but taking people back with us this time...

We arrived back at Tabitha Ministry on Wednesday...Honestly, I felt like a kid the day before Christmas. It seemed like forever ago that we told these little ones goodbye and my heart has ached to see them again. It has been such a sweet, sweet time of being with them... I can't wait to show you how much they've grown.

We spent our first full day here in the community of Sweetwaters yesterday. God has given me a love for the people of this community and it was good to be back there. We did a formula and porridge distribution at Tabitha's community center for some of the women of the community...mothers and grandmothers who aren't able to adequately supply food for their babies...once again I was struck by how humble and gracious and appreciative the people are.

Apart from the orphanage in the city, Tabitha Ministry also has another house in the community that is able to provide an immediate refuge for the kids of the area. For those of you who remember Zanele from our first trip here, this shelter is actually she and her husbands old house...her new house actually sits just a few feet from the shelter and the community center. Zanele and her husband have three children of their own and amazingly have taken in 26 more children of the community. The idea of this house is for it to be able to provide immediate shelter for the most at-risk children in the community...those whom have been victimized and abused and whose lives are endangered. Some of their bedrooms...

The kitchen...

And the sweet 28 year old girl that lives in the house as the "house mom" with them...

I look forward to sharing more of the trip with you...

"For You have been my stronghold and a refuge in the day of my distress. O my strength, I will sing praises to You. For God is my stronghold, the God who shows me lovingkindness." Psalm 59:16-17