Bliss

Let me just paint a picture of my life right now.
It's 8 o'clock in the morning.
The sun has been out since 6, but in a beautiful subtle way. In a way that suggests it's lightly tapping you awake, saying "come out and dance with me." rays of light try to sneak their way into my room around the curtains.
I'm sitting on my bed writing this post. To my left, is the hall, where I can here the melodies of soft worship songs streaming from a guitar. The voices singing, slowly and collectively, grow louder, then softer, then louder again, and there is a peaceful content-ness to it that is simply one of those feelings you can't quite describe right in words. Almost like the feeling you get driving by yourself with the windows down on a summer day when you got nothin' to worry about.
To my right, my suite mate is showering and getting ready for the day, but she has her iPod on and is boldly singing to a beautiful black gospel choir.
And behind all this noise is the soft and cheery sound of birds chirping.
Not a bad morning to be on the mountain if you ask me. :)

Passion

Let me just be very frank for a second.
The life I've chosen to live can sometimes suck. Majorly.
Every time I get on Facebook or get a letter in the mail, I get to hear about how awesome University is and I get to read about all the experiences I've wanted since I was 12.
I never see my family. When they drop me off at the airport each time I fly back to South Africa, I stare at them through the other side of the terminal window for a few moments, sizing them up and praying that I can remember their faces as clearly as if they were always behind some distance transcending window. If I'm being honest, I forget. I forget the slate grey color of my fathers beard or the way my sister burrows her eyebrows and sticks out her tongue when she concentrates. I start to replace the details with only fractions of them, as if changing from HD TV to regular. It just gets a little fuzzy.
I get lonely. Living on the mountain allows me to live in tremendous beauty at all times, but it sometimes feels as though I'm locked on an island because there are limits to when and how often you can come and leave the mountain. They are not limits set by JAM, but ones I inflict on myself. I could always walk down the mountain,  but even then, who would I see? I know very few people in Cape Town and even fewer are within walking distance.
And then there's the simple fact of never really knowing where you're going. In university, you get chances to take classes and test where it is you want your life to be heading. If you don't like your major, scrap it and pick another. There are endless possibilities. But at least in this phase of my life, I have no clue where I'm going or what I'm doing. Will I just be in ministry for forever or not?
And lastly, there's an aspect of alone-ness that comes with simply doing something no one else is doing. It gets really frustrating when no one your age or really no one from your world understands what it is to live in another world. Coming home for this past 6 weeks has been such a blessing don't get me wrong, but I had this impossible expectation for the people I love to understand what it is to be in the situation I'm in. To know all the questions to ask and feel all the things that I have felt. But that is not even possible. You cannot expect a bird to understand what it is to swim.
So all these things and more I have been wresting with for several weeks now. I've been trying to decide what the next step for me is after JAM. I've been losing my passion and direction for what we do in JAM and even in missions in general. I thought I was starting to lose interest in missions entirely.
And then Passion happened.
Passion is a HUGE christian conference for people ages 18-25. I went this year with a vanful of some really good friends of mine. The speakers were all great and enlightening and the worship was very powerful. But the one thing that touched me the most was a prayer time at the very end of the conference.
It was hardly a main event of the conference but a few hours before it ended on Saturday night, Louie Giglio, the founder and main speaker, first asked everyone to stand in the stadium who wanted to accept Jesus into their hearts right now. The amount of people that stood was actually uncomfortably low, but no matter, Jesus is doing what He is doing and I rejoice in the handful that did.
But then, Louie asked everyone in the stadium to stand up if they felt a call to the nations, aka, overseas missions. I have been praying for a few weeks now for the nations. It has been burned in my heart a brokenness for all the people in the world who do not know Jesus, especially the ones who do not even have the opportunity to because of political or religious oppression. Even within South Africa, a country who can freely have the Word and love Jesus without having to worry about jail or death, my heart still breaks for that country. Whenever our JAM van pulls up in a community for kids ministry or something, they come RUNNING to it. I don't know the individual stories of each kid, but when we come, we give them love, we show them the love of Jesus, and I just don't know that they get to experience that very many other places. Jesus gives them a hope they cannot know from what their world teaches them. Most of our kids and adolescents are growing up in a world of 25% unemployment. That's one out of every four people without a job. Very few of them will leave the town they grew up in and even fewer will leave the country. Most of them will grow up to be a part of a gang, or perhaps they'll die of aids very young.
My heart breaks for the nations. And I pray even though the workload is great and the laborers few, that God would send our generation as the hands and feet for Him. Every person, I believe has those couple of things they pray for as vigorously as they pray for self-centered things. If I think about it, I spend an awful lot of time praying for things in my life, internal struggles, or even friends, but praying for the nations is one of those things God has given me a broken heart for and I pray just as strongly for that as I do for myself.
Anyway, during Passion, Louie asked everyone in the stadium to stand up if they felt a call to the nations. Hundreds of students stood. Hundreds of 18-25 year olds have already been marked as ambassadors to the nations and I just started crying in my seat. I mean really crying.
I have seen very few things as beautiful as that. And all at once I got an overwhelming conviction that loving the nations is and always will be my calling. I have never been more passionate about the world and about missions. And I am overjoyed to be heading back to my brothers and sisters in South Africa tomorrow.
It's a sad and awesome thing to know that your home is changing and your world is changing.
So many times during the previous 5 months, all I wanted was to go home. And now, I've been home for 6 weeks and for the past 5 weeks, again, all I wanted was to go home. Only, I finally have realized, I'm going home tomorrow.

The shortest blog post ever.

Xandra left. It sucked. Jesus healed. I'm better.

Why "See Jane Run" was worth it.

Sometimes, we really take for granted what others have worked so hard for us to achieve. 

We had a camp this weekend with the IY girls (for those of you who aren't up to date, IY is a community we work with weekly). The focus was 2 things:

1. Use what you have. God has given you SOMETHING. Use it to glorify Him.
2. The self discovery bible study process which is a way to conduct a bible study that will eventually replicate into more study groups. 

We really wanted the girls to encounter Jesus and to start developing skills and a desire to pursue their relationship with Him long after the camp.

Some of the girls who attended the camp were girls we've been working with for years, so they have an understanding of who God is and what it takes to be a disciple. For those girls, we really wanted to empower them to start taking on a leadership role in their communities and to start actually making disciples of their own.

For the rest of the girls at the camp, they seemed fairly new at their walks with God if any existed at all, so for them, we really just wanted them to be able to experience Him and to continue that relationship afterwards.

Most of the gals at the camp were between grades 7-9 and if any of you out there has ever worked with junior high students, it's not always easy. 

There were so many moments where we would be in a session or a group setting and none of them would talk, or they would say something ridiculous as a sign of attention deficit. 

But these girls all had a really genuine heart and we got to see amazing breakthroughs throughout the weekend. Walls came down. The Spirit exploded. Tears were shed. 

But as we were doing bible studies with them, I was getting a little frustrated at the lack of participation. As our team debriefed later on, I came to realize why that was. These girls couldn't read and comprehend. As we read passages, they would look blankly at us as we asked them questions about the passage. They could all read aloud well, but they couldn't comprehend what they were reading, to them it was just a matter of if they could actually pronounce and read the words on the page. 

I kept thinking back to the third or fourth grade when our teachers would make us test on reading comprehension. We'd have to read some boring passage or a book or a poem or something, and then we'd have to answer questions based on what we read.

One of my teammates who has lived here for years said during our debrief that most of these girls might not have that skill. They might not be able to read something and then answer questions about it because they don't have good reading comprehension skills.

It would have NEVER crossed my mind that that could be why the girls were so intimidated by reading the bible. 

It's amazing what we take for granted. Being able to read the bible and understand is truly a gift. Even if you don't really understand everything it says, if you can at least retell the general basis of a parable or chronologically recount your favorite story, you are truly blessed. If you can read the words and know where the sentence starts and ends, you are blessed. If you even HAVE a bible, you are blessed.

As we prepare to do an underground church service this month, our team is reading about all kinds of persecuted christians all over the world and it's amazing how many places the bible is banned. If it is caught in your possession, that is worthy of death. 

And as I thought about the fact that for some of these girls, reading and comprehending the bible on their own isn't always an easy realty (attainable, but not easy), it means that real tangible encounters with Jesus are so necessary. God WILL reach and pursue His children. Most of those girls had an INSANE prayer life because that's what they have. They don't always have bibles on hand, and they can't always understand it when they do. But they have Jesus, and they have prayer, and they have gifts and they USE them.

I never thought I'd say this, but, thank you Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Best for making me read those silly "See Jane Run" chapter books and then testing me on it. Thank you every English teacher since that has been testing me on my ability to process words.

And thank you Jesus for pursuing us.

Dreams. Watcha gonna do about em?

Now for a rather serious post.
There's something God has really been working in my heart for a while now.
You know when you're little and even when you're old I suppose, people will always tell you to never stop chasing your dream.
"Don't give up," they say.
"Life isn't worth anything if you don't have a dream," they say.
It might even be more so in my household because I grew up in a house that loved Disney and Walt Disney's biggest platform was that a dream was always worth chasing no matter how long it took, how much you had to sacrifice or how hard you have to work for it.
On the surface, it's all a nice notion, but God has really been teaching me how very wrong that idea is.
I have a lot of dreams. I'm a dreamer. I've gone through so many passionate phases of dreaming of owning a cake bakery, or being a photographer for National Geographic (before they went entirely to freelance), being a poet or a writer or you name it. But the newest dream and the longest lasting was I wanted to be a writer.
I feel like I've wanted to do that for so long and to help me get there, I wanted and dreamed and wished to go to this school in Chicago called Columbia College Chicago where I could major in literature and creative writing. As a part of their program, as a junior and senior in college I could work on my own book and my senior year, the school would publish it for me. The professors are still currently working in the writing field and could have taught me how to make writing into a career. I could have found a place in the city and take a train back home whenever I felt like I needed to visit my family. It was never too far away. It was a splendid dream. And one very attainable.
I wanted to study/minor in film and possible become a documentary filmmaker as well, traveling around the world documenting what god was doing in it. Kind of like the Furious Love, Finger of God, and Father of Light guy.
But the longer I'm here in South Africa, and the more stories I hear of how God has His own plans in peoples lives, the more I come to realize that I might never see any of my dreams come to pass. And the crazy part is, I've got to learn to surrender that.
The minute I said yes to Jesus, and every day since, I've had to wake up and "die to myself" and that includes let my dreams die. Because anything I could dream for myself is way less fulfilling than what God could dream for me.
Sometimes it can be a little hard hearing from all my friends back home either through snail mail or Facebook or instagram or whatever because most of them are freshman in college and I hear about all of these things I've always dreamed of having. I hear about the dorms and the classes and the food and the people and the freedom and just the college life. I think about the fact that perhaps that will NEVER be in God's plan for me. Perhaps I will never go to college. And that literally breaks my heart.
I think about the fact that perhaps I will never be a writer. Maybe I will never be a film maker. Maybe I will never live in Chicago or have my little puppies or a flat in the city or husband with a child. I've no idea.
I think about all these things I've dreamed of, all these dreams I would give anything to achieve. My heart breaks at the thought that my dreams might never happen. But there's a quiet resolution that I must just surrender them to God. Because sometimes our dreams can hold us back from the fullness of His plan.
I always thought dreams were such a great thing. They gave purpose to life, a goal and something to strive for. But then again, when I chose Jesus, I chose Him as my purpose in live, the Father as my goal, and eternity as something to strive for.
As much as I don't want to and as hard as it is, I must learn to be content with the prospect of a dream dying. I must learn to content with the possibility that they might never happen. But I must understand that God will give me a new dream that matches His plan if they don't now.
Yeah, a dream might be a wish your heart makes, but isn't your heart deceitful?

Bullet point memory week two of outreach

Ok, so the whole previous post was JUST week one of this amazing outreach, so as an infomercial would say: BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE! And here is week two's things I want to remember.

Background: For week two, while we were in the Koue Bokkeveld, we stayed in this church that had an adjacent kitchen and gym/auditorium/stage/hall kind of area. We did kids ministry in the mornings and in the afternoons and evenings, we worshipped and prayed with the youth.

• Jesus in the gym — in the middle of the day, we had a bunch of free time our second day. I decided I just wanted to pray. Out loud. By myself. And somewhere where I could yell. So I went to the gym. I put on some music, and I just had a really honest, real time with Jesus. I got loud. I yelled. I listened. I sang. It was awesome.
• Crazy worship night — Things got cray. I stood on a chair for a long time. Impromptu poetry started coming out. People were getting visions. God was speaking like crazy. It too was awesome.
• Conversation with Lisa — I got to have a really cool conversation with Lisa just about struggles and my life and stuff. It was cool because I've been semi-bad about opening up.
• Making a new song — one day during free time, Gareth, Lisa, Thinus and I decided we just wanted to mess around, so we ended up making a worship song complete with animal sounds and crazy other sounds. Check it out on Facebook. :)
• Learning Ballet — Xandra taught us how to be ballerinas on the stage. I couldn't sit comfortably for a few days. I have so much respect for dancers.
• Getting locked in the bathroom — CRAZY STORY! Ok, so one morning before breakfast, I went to take a shower and when I had finished I was going to leave. When I tried the door handle, I had been locked. From the inside. And I was no where close enough to any of the team members for them to hear me screaming for help. So I stayed locked in there for a while trying the door. I had no phone or anything. I was starting to get frustrated, a little bit scared. So I prayed. I decided to try the handle one more time. The door came right open. CRAZY! Prayer is so powerful.
• LoEllen's smile — I'm sure I didn't say his name right, but there's this really cool dude in Opi Berg who loves Jesus so much and just has one of the most beautiful smiles I've ever seen.
• Jesus in the gym #2 — One of the nights, we decided to do an all night prayer in which we each took time slots during the night where we would wake up and pray. That way, there was always someone praying throughout the whole night. I decided to do extra and I took 4 hours during the night and I wanted to do my time in the gym area. At first I just worshipped for over two hours. I could only really play one song because I'm still learning, but after a while I just started to make up my own lyrics and it was cool because it was like I was really singing to Jesus what was on my heart. Around 12:30, the demons started to come and let me tell you I was TERRIFIED! I have never been more scared of them. I wanted to run, or wake someone up to come pray with me. But then all of a sudden, I really was filled with the holy spirit and I just heard this voice say: "sing. Just sing."I was filled with all sorts of courage. I grabbed the guitar, started to play and just sang. Instantly, I saw this ring begin to expand around the building and the demons could not enter the ring. God reminded me how much of a spiritual battle this side of eternity is and I immediately began praying protection over our team and for Koue Bokkeveld.
• Magic tricks — Gareth decided he was going to be a magician. It didn't work out so well. Lisa really is a magician and showed us some crazy card tricks!
• Lastly, I want to remember all the people who accepted Jesus on this trip — we were truly blessed. We got to see so many seeds drop on fertile soil.

So that was everything I want to remember about our two week outreach. I know I didn't give much detail on what we were doing in each place, but you can read about it somewhere on the JAM website I'm sure. This was just the outreach from my perspective.

Bullet point memory week one of outreach

Ok! Outreach! In case some of you out there don't keep updated with JAM or any of their social media websites or get their newsletters or any of the other marvelous things they do to keep in touch with people all over, then let me fill you in. Our team (well, majority of our team) went on a two week outreach first to Prince Albert and then to Koue Bokkeveld (spelling is so butchered; I'm sorry).

It was nice because, well many reasons, which I will list and briefly explain below, but especially because of how small our team was. The super six included: Myself, Tessa, Lisa, Xandra, Gareth and Thinus. And that was our team — just the six of us. It was quite nice with the flexibility of a small team and the "homey, family" feel. But here's some things I wrote down that I wanted to remember about this outreach.

• Mixed CDs — I got to make some killer mix CD's for the 10+ hours we spent in a car over the outreach. I included all the best like some Disney, some '80s, some techno, some oldies, a little bit of this, little bit of that. But bottom line, they were awesome mixes and it was SO much fun to rock out with the team in the car
• Mountain Update — in case you are slightly behind, Gareth, Masi and I have started a youtube channel all about the life we have living on a mountain. Don't worry, we DID do updates while we were on outreach. 
• Card Games — almost every night, the team would have some time where it was just the six of us and we would play super fun card games like UNO or this one game called Mao. Looking back on the card game moments, we kind of looked like a cheesy hallmark movie where the family sits down and plays a game together, but it was PERFECT!
• Tent collapse — the first half of outreach, we were staying in tents and one of the nights/mornings, there was a HUGE thunder storm. While everyone was running around grabbing bags and things, our tent literally collapsed on me and I was stuck there for a while, haha! It was quite hilarious.
• Braii — oh man! We had such a yummy braii with Tannie Heleen and Oom Karl. It was lamb chops and bread and other yummy things, oh my word!
• Job — Every morning the first couple of days, youth from a surrounding town came and helped us build  camp activities for the Prince Albert base. One of the mornings I got to lead the devotional and I decided to do it over Job. It turned out to be super blessed and was exactly what some people needed to hear. Go Jesus! :D
• Worship with Kalisdorp — oh my word! We did a weekend camp in Prince Albert with two neighboring towns' youth and their worship! These people were such worshippers! All of it was beautiful and most of it was made up on the spot. It was so lovely and blessed
• Testimony at the cross — during the camp, we "hiked" up to a cross near the house where I got to give a Little snippet of my testimony which was cool because it was really only the second time I've done that in all my life.
• Smores — 'nough said.
• Enslin & rap & poetry — I met a guy who will be joining JAM next year named Enslin. And he's awesome. I got to perform some poetry for him and a few other guys and in return they all started rapping. They were sooo good! All their raps were about Jesus.
• Create a song — during one of the camp sessions, tannie split everyone into 4 groups, and each group was given a verse in the bible in which they must make a song out of. It was SO much fun and so cool how the spirit showed up.
• Tannie's session on blessings and encouragement — Tannie had a session all about speaking words of life and encouraging each other. We got to stand in two circles (an inner and an outer) facing each other, then we took turns telling each other encouragement. It was incredible!
• Tannie sayings — throughout our time with Tannie Heleen, she would randomly just say such encouraging things to us. Things she told me: You're lovely. You've got a beautiful instrument (meaning my singing voice). You're a great composer. And, others enter into God's secret place because of  your one-ness with Jesus. So encouraging eh?
• Response to testimony — there were two young people, a guy and a girl, who each came up to me and said how much they needed to hear my testimony at this point in their lives and it was SO awesome to know that God had used me in that way.
• Sheep Tending with the Haus' — I got to herd sheep.
• Playing guitar on the porch — I'm reteaching myself guitar and I got to play on our lazy day where I was overlooking a sheep pasture, and the mountains and this beautiful sky. It was so surreal

So that all was from week one of outreach. My next post will be week 2.