Last Days of Talhado

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My Most Wonderful Family and Friends,

This week has
wrecked my life in so many ways, I cannot truly express to you how much God is
truly working in and wrecking my life. I am so happy for the change, though
change comes with so much responsibility. I am not sure how ready I am for
this, but I gladly accept the new change that is accruing in my life. I don’t
know how I could ever go back home now and be the same, yet I know there is
such great temptation to fall back into the mold of norm. I truly feel that
this “easy” Christianity is no longer for me, and it is time to have faith in
God, have faith in His abilities, and just rely on Him with my life. Blair,
“one of my brothers,” has been so stunned and quoting so many times from a book
he is reading, “What in your life right now requires you to have faith?”  How amazing would it be to completely put
yourself in a position where you completely and totally relied on God for ALL
your needs?

But first things
first, I have so much to tell you about Talhado. Last Friday we felt so lost
with our team. We had no idea what to do, and were just broken deep inside for
all the things that had happened that week. To each other, we realized that we
had not been completely faithful to each other and needed to change some of the
things we were doing. The girls appointed me as a leader for the group, and we
decided to start meeting for breakfast to pray together for the day. Every day
we spent time praying for our ministry, for our team, for the teachers and for
the leaders and workers at Talhado. Wednesday we decided to start having more
focused prayer, based on a sermon Tag had given in Somerset.

First off, lets
jump to that sermon. He said that so many times, we are like little kids going
to God. We are like the kid on the playground that had a ball stolen from him,
he goes to the playground coordinator frantic and crying to the coordinator, mumbling
so much that they can’t understand what we are saying. We go to God so often in
these frantic modes wanting things, when really we should get down to business
and pray concentrated prayer. We did this on Wednesday, we prayed for times to
have the girls open up to us, and that day they talked about their boyfriends,
“which is HUGE because they had never even talked to us earlier!”

But back to what
we did at talhado, this week we spent times getting to know the kids so much
better. One day we made edible play doe!!! We also made pretzel necklaces,
Root-Beer Floats, “or cream soda floats, or orange soda floats… hehe.” We had a
lot of fun food crafts, but it was just so wonderful to be able to have fun
with the kids and just be there to play, tickle, hug and love on the kids. God
opened the doors for so many opportunities to just LOVE on the kids we
ministered to. I have posted a few pictures of me and Sylvano in my pictures.
Please have a look. I love this kid to death!!! Sadly, Thursday was our last
day with Talhado, because it is closing down for the summer, “I know I know, it
is strange for me to be going into summer when all you people in America are
just getting into winter!!! Haha.”  It
was so sad to say goodbye to all them, but I know that it is not forever, and
we will see them when we start our new ministry… house visits. This is a whole
God thing that I will talk about in a few paragraphs…

Today we had a
day of going to put stickers on cans for fundraising with Talhado, and the next
few days will be spent wrapping presents for the Christmas party next Tuesday.
This morning when my team met, we decided to pray for efficiency with our work
so we could get to see some of the people in the township of St. Francis. I
feel so much like Christ was just giving me so much joy today working with an
elderly couple to put stickers on cans. There were so many things going wrong
at first. The wrong kind of stickers had been purchased, so it was extremely
difficult to peal the stickers. There were 7 boxes full, probably 200 cans in
each box. The work was slow, and a few of the people were just frustrated with
it all, then God kicked in and gave us new ideas on how to make everything go
faster, and guess what? We got all the work done watched a movie on Africa, and
even had AMAZING GLORIOUS South African tea, “YUMMY!!!” all within 2 hours. Isn’t
God wonderful to answer prayer?

Now to get on to
our new ministry, our team has so much felt like God has called us to start
doing house visits in the townships. In between our time working at Talhado,
God has opened the doors to three families in this one little community spot.
What do house visits do? Well, house visits are FULL of ATLs, “Ask The Lord.”
“You can check out my first experience with this in Septembers blog.” You go
around and do what God wants you to do in communities. From praying for people,
ministering to people, serving people, praying for people, visiting people, to
basically anything here can be up for grabs. God just keeps confirming and
confirming that this little community is where we need to start our ministry.

Once when Faith
and I were taking a kid to his home, “who actually lives in that community,”
because he had sprained his ankle, God told me when we walked in there, “This
is your home base for House Visits,” and Faith confirmed that feeling later on.
Another confirmation was involved in Samuel and Christina’s House… read under
that section below.

I am going to go
through the people we have already visited in that little community, and I
would love if you could remember them in your prayers.

Ellen- Ellen was the first person we met
from this community. When we first met her, she was very sad, and had been
crying because to her, her life was going downhill. She had been smoking too
much, she was involved in drinking, still lives with her “boyfriend” and
actually has skin cancer. When we first visited her, she was sick to the
stomach and was very shy, but after praying for her, her stomach ache went
away, her face looked clearer and clearer, and looks like it just gets clearer
and clearer every day. She is still in need of prayer that she will draw closer
to God, and that she will stay strong and away from drinking and smoking.

Samuel and Christina- This is a family that
Leah and Alyssa have been visiting. When we first met them, Samuel needed
prayer for his side. He has been out of work for three years ever since he was
stabbed. The stab wound has never healed, and when Leah and our leader
Christina first saw it, the scar was oozing and pussing out gunk. Leader
Christina and Leah prayed for his side that God would heal it. Sure enough,
today when we visited them, he ran out to tell Leah and Alyssa that the pain
was gone and it is actually healing! One thing that they also said today, which
was also a confirmation that this is where our home base is, township Christina
said the first time she saw us, she saw Jesus leading the way, and us following
Him into that community. Please pray that God will continue to heal Samuel, and
that Christ would bless them, and that we will get a translator, “they speak
Africance and it is hard for them to say a lot, but they have a lot to say as
well in English.”

Christopher’s Family-I think I have all my
facts straight when I say this, basically there are three women who live
together in one home. They have no husbands, and have 8 kids to take care of,
two of whose had just been orphaned in the beginning of October. Their father
had AIDs and died from that disease. Sadly, they both also have AIDs, and will
probably not live to be 20. Their father who has died is not yet berried, and
when Faith and I were in the house they kept pointing towards the kitchen,
“most likely he is in another house still because he wasn’t in the kitchen
clearly when they were pointing over in that direction.” They talked about how
they don’t have enough money to bury him, “it cost 2,000 rand or 200 dollars to
bury Him,” and all the money they make needs to go to feeding the kids. One of
the girls that also live there who is between 5-7 was raped last month, and
this has also been very sad for the mothers who live there with their kids.
Faith and I will most likely go there to watch the kids so the moms can have a
break. Please pray for them as well, they desperately need the prayer.

                God
has also been wrecking my entire foundation these past few weeks. As I was
saying earlier, I need so much more to put myself in a position where I
completely rely on Him. Soon we will be writing our own statements of faith,
and I have so much to ponder over. Monday we talked about God, Wednesday we
talked about the Bible, and Friday we talked about the Church. All these
sessions have completely wrecked all of us in different ways. We have so much
more to think about and do when we get back home.

                Right
now we are going trough “The Spiritual Disciplines”. It is SOOOOOO good, I
would totally suggest it for anyone who wants to richen their life in Christ
and in themselves. I will also soon read a book called “Irresistible
Revolution” written by Shane Claiborne, an amazing radical Christian. My
team-mates have told me so much about it, but I don’t know if I should tell you
too much about it at the moment, since I am not even half way through the
introduction yet. I will post some quotes and let you know how it goes.

                Well…
love you all and have a wonderful day!!

In Christ,

Andrew