Revelation in Relationship with God

During my journey (preparations and travel) to Africa, I knew God had something new for my life. Of course crossing over seas and moving into a whole new continent and culture for a year is a new experience, but I felt this change would be deeper than the physical and seep into the spiritual. I had expectations to experience God in a new way like previous events such as a good sermon or Christian concert would. God continued to confirm these expectations through others I have met here. However, I didn’t feel anything changing, but continued to believe that God was moving and our relationship was growing. As the weeks and months went by and nothing seemed to change, I wondered if they would. The other day I explained to someone on staff that I knew God was near and I could feel His presence, but I couldn’t hear His voice anymore. After talking about it a while she said maybe God doesn’t have anything to say, He just wants to hold me and spend time with me. I realized how true this was. I thought over how much God has been speaking to me and now He wanted to just spend time together. Again I have been busy being a Martha and haven’t sat down at Jesus’ feet like a Mary.
“The Lord replied, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” Exodus 33:14
“I will betroth you to Me forever; Yes, I will betroth you to Me in righteousness and justice, in lovingkindness and mercy; I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness, And you shall know the Lord.” Hosea 2:19-20
I want to encourage you to take some time to rest in God! I will be going on a 2 hour retreat with Him this weekend. Pray that He will reveal Himself to me. Thank you.

Lunch with Rebecca

Thursday morning I woke up and thought to myself, “Thursday,…Thursday!!! I’ve been waiting for this day!” I didn’t think I would actually get excited about a Thursday. It’s hard to come out of my comfort zone every week and try to build relationships with the people in Intabazwe. But after meeting our two new friends and being invited back to share the Bible and eat some food our Thursday’s have turned around.
Our friend Rebecca wasn’t home when we came by for our planned Bible Study. A neighbor told us today was pay day and she went to buy what she needed for the month. We figured she didn’t realize that last week when we made our plans.
We went ahead and showed up early at Lilian’s house. She didn’t mind a bit and already had food cooking on the stove. We had tea until the food was ready, and then ate the traditional pap and spinach the traditional way. With our hands! Next week we hope to cook an American meal for her. We will see how that goes with our little experience cooking.

Game Fun

To start off our day at LaunchPad, we played a game of blind bean bag tossing! After putting the cover over their eyes they tried to toss the bean bag on the frisbee. They enjoyed the fun and we enjoyed the show.
Our lesson today was about the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. It was a challenging topic since it isn’t preached about often and there are many different beliefs about it. It took some preparation and discussion. Jenna and I were both happy to have our pastor, Abram, interpreting for us since he would also help with any questions the students might have. At the end nobody did have questions but while driving back to base we found that a couple of the prayer requests were prayer for them to receive the Holy Spirit.

Grand Friends

This week was very rewarding after our week before of wondering around to many families but all too busy to invite us in. A couple older ladies invited us back since they were busy at the time and one said she would cook for us and teach us how to sew. Even though most of us would be fasting at the time, we took her offer very excited that she wanted to spend this kind of time with us.
This week we returned to both of the ladies houses looking forward to the time we would get to spend with them. The first, Rebecca, was very excited to see us again and tickled that a group of young Americans wanted to be friends with her. Unlike most of the Basotho people we meet, she was very talkative and shared a lot about her family. She was especially proud of her nephew who is graduating today. After serving us with tea and bread, she brought out her Bible and we all shared our favorite verses at the time. Before leaving she invited us back next week and said she would have her friends over to hear the Bible too! I don’t know who was more thrilled! God is amazing and we were all very encouraged.
When we arrived at our next grand friend’s house, Lilian, we found that she had been distracted with other company and didn’t get to cook for us. In her group of visitors were her daughter and granddaughter. Jenna is holding Lilian’s granddaughter in the picture. Her friends left soon and she apologized and said she would cook for us next week. That worked out better since this week we were fasting. She also shared her excitement to become our friend and said she would be a grand friend to us. She then shared her tea with us in beautiful tea cups. After tea she showed us her bed comforter sets and traditional dresses she sewed. They were very beautiful and we all decided we wanted her to sew us a dress sometime. Our prayers changed our most challenging ministry to a very rewarding week.