Travelling through Africa

Sometimes I look at where I am and I am filled with amazement! I can't believe where God has taken me! I am in Nairobi, Kenya at the moment and not only is it amazing to be here it has been an amazing journey to get here. I am travelling with my team of 7 people and a baby and so far we have travelled through South Africa, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Malawi, Tanzania and now Kenya. We are 1 month in with 2 more to go. I have loved seeing all the different parts of Eastern Africa and I can't wait to see more.

I love the diversity of the people and the land. From urban cities to hutted villages there is no end to God's creativity. And a specific highlight was being able to visit the Ngorogoro crater which is part of the Serengeti. Driving around and watching wildebeest, lions, zebra and gazelle right next to our car was amazing!!! I literally could have reached out and touched them (and believe me it took every inch of my will power not to;). I will show you all pictures soon! Seeing the beauty of creation on land was just as thrilling as seeing it in the ocean off of Zanzibar. While we were there we were able to go swimming. Not just any swimming though, it was swimming with dolphins! Yes, dolphins! It was beyond words!! It was almost unreal being so close to them and watching them underwater and then with that seeing the variety of fish that live on a small reef there was beautiful! I can't say enough how privileged I feel to experience the world in this way! Even as I right this you must be laughing that I even call this a mission trip right..;) I think that is what I am enjoying most about it. Everywhere we have gone so far we have been able to catch a part of God's heart for the people as well as enjoy what He has made. Everyday, as I hear the Muslim call to prayer, watch the Masai people walk down the streets herding their cattle, and watch people eek out a living from the land it puts such a huge passion on my heart to work among these people and see God's love transform their hearts and lives. The more I see and experience of Eastern Africa the more I fall in love with it! I love looking at it all and seeing how beautiful God made it to be and how much more beautiful it can be as God redeems hearts.

I look forward to sharing with you all more as we have more adventures in the coming months (which I am sure there will be;) and especially as we begin exploring the villages and the people groups that God opens up to us.

Preparation

Time is flying by! I only have 4 more weeks until I leave with my team to start driving up into Africa. I can't believe it! It feels like there is so much to do. I am in a season of huge transition right now. Before the trip I will be moving out of my place and selling my car. So along with helping with different details of the trip I will also be packing up. Fun times! Just so you know, the main reason I am letting go of my flat and my car is because my South African visa expires in January so I after coming back from the trip I will be praying about what to do next. I can either try to extend my visa and stay here in Cape Town or move on. Please be keeping that in your prayers.

Anyway, I also wanted to fill you in more on my upcoming trip. Right now we are a team of 8 with room for 1 more...hint, hint. ;) We will be starting from Cape Town the 5^th of September and driving through Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Malawi, and Tanzania where we have a long term team that we are visiting in Zanzibar. We will then drive up through Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda and hopefully we will also be able to visit Rwanda and Burundi. We will be visiting contacts that we have in the different areas as well as exploring new areas. We also have a few people that have invited us to do trainings for them while we are there. We want to spend time with people we know along the way but we also want to be open and flexible to what may happen along the way. We really want to explore areas for unreached people groups and see if doors open up to send more people and teams to work in those areas later on.

Our objectives for this trip will be:

• To explore unreached people groups/areas


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  To engage in/explore ministry opportunities


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  To follow through with any ministry which may open up to us - To share God’s story and to start DBS' (Discovery Bible Studies) where we can


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  To give opportunity for those who are looking long term to see and explore east Africa
  

We are all getting really excited about this trip and we are very expectant for great things to happen! We can use a lot of prayer as this trip will take us into some unknown areas. We can use prayer in these specific areas:

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  The Journey: As mentioned above there are some rough and potentially dangerous areas we need to travel through.


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  Vehicles: For the necessary fitment and preparation, and durability for such a long and rough journey.


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  Team: For the individual team members, for team dynamics, for 1 or 2 more people to join.


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  Ministry: For our connecting and relationship building with those on the ground, for the teaching engagements, for the spirit to lead and highlight unreached areas and people groups to target.


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  Finances: Our journey can get very expensive with border crossings and fuel so please be praying that all the necessary funds come in so that we are able to go to the areas that we are hoping to explore and reach unreached people groups.

If you would like to help me and my team financially for this trip you can use the link on this blog .

Thank you all for following me thus far on my journey. I will trying to update you on our trip as much as possible so that you can follow me and my team as we travel up through Africa!

To the States and back

I cant' believe its almost been 3 months. It has been so full that only just now I feel like I am catching up. My time back in the states was amazing! Packed full with weddings and catching up times. The time literally flew by. It was so great to see everyone and catch up on families, new babies, school and jobs! Life doesn't pause for any of us that's for sure.

After being gone for a year and a half, 7 weeks in the states almost didn't feel like enough time to see everyone but God worked it out perfectly. I even got to celebrate the 4^th of July in my own country for the 1^st time in 3 years!! I know that may not mean much for those of you not from America but it was a blast! I also had the honour of being back for 3 weddings of people that are very important to me! Two of my sisters and one really good friend. I was so thrilled to be able to be there and witness them starting a new stage in their lives. I can't believe my baby sisters are married! ;) As if that didn't make me feel old enough I got to see all my nephews and nieces and they are growing up SO fast! I know, I know, they all do..haha. I also got to meet my youngest niece for the first time and she actually likes me. That may sound funny to say but wouldn't you agree that there is always that hidden fear that maybe the baby won't like me even though I'm their aunt. I don't know, maybe I'm the only one with that fear. :)

So, that coupled with seeing friends that I haven't seen in years made it a very memorable trip. There isn't room here for all the stories but I thoroughly enjoyed every minute and had lots of laughs. Besides the fun times, I was also able to share with many people about what I have been doing and what my upcoming plans are. Thank you to all of you who were interested and helped me out in my passion to work in Africa. It means so much to me. Needless to say that seeing and spending time with everyone almost made it hard to leave as is always the case when I leave my home town. It even felt a little strange to touch down in Cape Town. My time felt like a blur and probably was because we were so busy with weddings and catching up that I didn't have a lot of time to savour the moments. But I didn't have a lot of time to think about that either. I came back on a Saturday and went straight to a youth camp on Monday to help out. Besides the jet lag it was an awesome time! I got to help with the teenage girls which I absolutely love! True, they can be the hardest ones sometimes but they are the ones my heart connects with the most. So, as I got to work with them and also going back into Red Hill and seeing my girls it reminded me of why I love doing what I am doing. It did feel at times that I was working so hard and the girls didn't really care. But when I came back their reactions told me different. I was greeted by screams, big hugs and exclamations about how much they missed me and how bored they were without me. I had such a good laugh with them. It was a good reminder and encouragement that even though it is so hard for me at times to leave behind my family, it is so worth it when I look at these girls, see the change in their lives and think about the ones I have yet to meet. Who knows where God wants to send me next but no matter where I go as long as I am working with the young women I am happy.

As I settle back in I am getting very excited about my next journey coming up! I am going on a 3 month trip up through Eastern Africa. We are visiting long term teams and exploring areas that have not been reached yet, in hopes of maybe sending teams on a long term basis to work there. I will post more on this trip soon. We still have room for two more people if anyone is interested. ;) Please be keeping us in your thoughts and prayers though. We still need money to come in to finish paying for our trip and we are praying hard for protection and health as we travel. So if any of you feel led to help me and my team out on this trip you can use the link to send money and/or just follow my blog as we travel and catch up on all the adventures that I am sure are waiting for us.

Coming back!!

Time is flying by. And although sometimes I feel like I don't have enough time for everything I am getting very exciting for the things coming up. Let me share some of it with you.

Hopefully on May 15^th I will be heading to the States for a visit/fund-raising time. I will be in Alaska from May 17^th-25^th and then I will be heading down to Oregon for a few weeks from May 26^th-June 17^th. Then I will be finishing off my time in Alaska until the 7^th of July. I know it is going to be hectic and busy but I am so looking forward to it. By that time it will be almost 18 months since I have been back. Does that sound like a long time to anyone else? So, if anyone of you wants to make sure I get a visit in let me know and we can plan a good time for me to come and hang out with you!

While I am there I also want to share with you what I have been doing and what I am dreaming of in the future. Should I give you a quick overview? Oh, why not. Basically, I want to share what I have been doing in Red Hill and all that I have seen God do and what He has put on my heart to do in the future. I have been working a lot with young women and girls helping them discover their new identity in Christ and their value. I love helping them start dreaming and see how all that is within them starts to come out as they see who God has made them to be and how important of a role they can play. This love came from helping Justice Acts last year and their safe house for trafficked women. I am not helping them in as big of a capacity as I was but I am still partnering with them in small ways. The experiences that I gained from working with Justice Acts has given me the passion to work with young women all over. I would love to start, what I like to call, 'Healing Homes' in different places that give young women a safe place to come where they feel loved and safe to open up. They wouldn't necessarily stay in these homes but if they need to they would be welcome. I want it to be a springboard as well for all sorts of training that will help them. The opportunity hasn't presented itself to do this in Red Hill yet for various reasons but there is a team going to Eastern Africa to explore and visit some of our long term teams there. Eastern Africa has been on my heart for a long time and I am really hoping to go on this trip. I am wanting to go and see if doors open for me to possibly move up to Eastern Africa and start Healing Homes there and work with the young women there. There are so many other details going into that but I will share them with you when I see you.

I would love to share this vision with everyone so if you or anyone else you know of is interested in hearing it and possibly partnering with me in it, let me know.

Also, please be thinking and praying for me as I go forward in this. I need to buy my plane ticket to the states(and they aren't cheap) and I still have my apartment here that I will need to pay rent on. Then when I come back there will be the issue of paying for the East Africa trip with all the visas and also paying for my apartment if I decide to keep it. Sometimes these issues of money overwhelm me but God is constantly reminding me of how He is taking care of me and will provide.

Please be thinking and praying if you would like to partner with me in this next stage of my journey. I am so thankful for your help in anyway. If you would like to support me monthly, help me with my plane ticket, or simply give a gift you can send money to my parents to deposit into my account or there is a link on my blog which you can give at and it is tax deductible. Thank you so much for your help so far. I am so blessed by you all.

The Young Ladies of Red Hill

Well, it hasn't been nearly as exciting of a month as in January with my trip to Zambia. I am simply settling in and it is finally hitting me that it is already February 2011. I have one more year left on my visa in South Africa so a lot of this past month I have been thinking about what I want to do about that. Should I go through the trouble of renewing it and continue living in South Africa or should I move on to somewhere else? I do know one thing for sure. I will be coming back to the states for 2 months starting at the end of May. I can't wait to see everyone!

I have been thinking about what I want to focus in on for at least the next 3 months and that is the young women in Red Hill. Right now I work with two different groups of young ladies. One group is ages 12-14 and the other group is ages 16-mid twenties. I love working with this age group and I think one of the reasons is that I want to help them find their heart and true identity. In the overwhelming sea of poverty, alcoholism, abuse, drugs, and sickness in which they live they have lost something. As they live in survival mode just to get by they don't see their true potential. Somewhere inside of them they do have dreams that they want to reach for but they don't know how and most will probably never try. I want to help them reclaim their hearts and their passion for life so that when I leave they are the ones living lives to the fullest and passing it on to others. I want to take them through a healing process so that they can see what the wounds are that are holding them back and how we can heal them and move forward. Sounds like a grand idea right? Well for me saying it is always far easier than actually doing it so let me tell you some ways that I want to help these girls.

1. I want to take them away for weekend camps to a place where we can have times of heart to heart sharing and really digging into our hearts to find what is there. I want it to be a place and time where they can feel safe to be vulnerable one on one and in a group. I want it to be a time where they discover who God has made them to be and help them take the steps to walk in it.

2. I want to do sports ministry with them. Almost all of them play netball (a form of basketball) and I want to use that as a time of building friendship while having fun. It is also such a natural time of gathering together in a group so it can be a good time to have good conversation with them as well as challenge them to keep pursuing what God has for them and the freedom in their lives that they can have. I have seen how powerful it is to build a friendship with them in the midst of everything else. One of the girls I have been discipling, Pam, is such a different person now after simply spending time with her, building a friendship and helping her find the freedom in her heart that she now has.

This is just the beginning of course. One day I would love to have a house/'healing home' where people can come and know they are welcome to stay and be loved, prayed for and find people who will help them walk in the freedom they were meant to have. (I will tell you more about these 'healing homes' some other time).

I am excited to have a few people joining me for two months that have a heart to work with these girls so we will see what we come up with together.

I want to invite you guys as well to be a part of all of all of this if you would like. If you want to help fund me personally or send money specifically for camps, sports materials or anything else you feel led to give please let me know and I will let you know how to do that. Thank you so much for always following me in my journey and please keep me in your thoughts and prayers as I continue to work with these young ladies.

Zambia

So, most of you know that the first part of December doing 10 Days for Jesus. I felt like I was a chicken running around with my head cut off. Very busy and barely time to think. It was wonderful in other ways though, trust me. After that hectic time I cherished my Christmas holiday. I spent most of it at home honestly. Enjoying the quiet, reading, enjoying the sun, and just generally enjoying being back at home. I really didn't do much. I spend a lot of time reflecting over all that happened in the past year and looking forward to what is in store for this year.

Well, by the time New Years came I was ready for another adventure. I wasn't fully ready to start my normal schedule (wait..do I ever have a normal schedule?) and God provided for me to go to Zambia. It was such a wonderful way to spend part of my time off. I got to see friends that are as close to me as family and I got to be in the real Africa. ;) It was exactly what I needed! I got to rest and visit with my friend Shannon who works at Kwathu which is an orphan home in Livingstone. It was so fun there, not only seeing her but also getting to know the kids and the couple who runs it. I haven't had the chance to just sit and play with kids in awhile and it was so much fun. There are 9 kids there who all come from broken or abandoned backgrounds. Their stories are heart breaking but when you see them now and how they have blossomed within a healthy family environment is amazing! If you guys want to hear more about them or help them in anyway check them out their blog at kwathuhome.wordpress.com. I personally look forward to one day going back to see them.

The other half of my time was spent with Dan and Regina who are starting an All Nations base there in Livingstone as well as continuing their project called Loves Door. They have already built a house that will be used as an orphan home in one of the surrounding villages and they are working hard to build more bridges into the community. If you guys want to learn more about what they are doing their website is www.lovesdoor.org and their blog is loves-door.blogspot.com

The villages are so different than the city you almost get culture shock every time. But they love it and that is where they have been called. They are starting to build up a team around them. They have two full time staff so far with more coming to join soon. In the mean time they have short term teams and interns coming through to help them out. God is good in the way that He has provided for them so far. I look at both of these places and see how hard it must be. It is still a somewhat new country to them with a new language and culture but they are learning fast. It gets really hot, sometimes the water and/or electricity goes off, little projects that shouldn't take that long always turn into much bigger ordeals but they wouldn't choose anywhere else to be. I observed them and I remembered how much I loved being on Zanzibar in the village. I won't deny that I love being in Cape Town. One of the most beautiful places on earth with the beaches, oceans, and wonderful hikes but there is something inside me that misses the villages and working in them. Some aspects of life are definitely harder in the village but it is also so much more simple. Maybe it comes from me a small town girl. Don't worry, I am not leaving Cape Town anytime soon. But after visiting Zimbabwe and Zambia something was left in my heart. We will see what this year has in store and where it leads. I am ready to be surprised and ready for God to tell me what the next step is.