Ruins

You SERIOUSLY need to check out Bebo's new album.
This song is rocking my world right now.

Ruins

Laying flat upon my back,
All the world in motion
Everything goes by so fast
I feel like I’m frozen

After all is said and done
Did I fail to mention
Everything I haven’t done
All my good intentions

This is my holy hour
this is my world on fire
This is my desperate play
this is where I am saved

I’ve no fear of height or depth
I’ve no fear of crashing
The single thing I fear the most
Simply feeling nothing

This is my holy hour, this is my world on fire
This is my desperate play, this is where I am made
This is my kingdom come, this is my freedom song
This is my helpless state, this is where I am saved

Let my ruins become the ground you build upon
Let my ruins become the start
Let my ruins become the ground you build it on
From what’s left of my broken heart

the week at Sommerset

Ultimately, at the end of it all, it was impossible to deny God’s presence throughout the week. Stories like '25 of my 27 students accepted Christ’ and ‘not only the farm workers, but the farmers stood up and chose abstinence at the age of 50!’ rained through every evening’s debrief times and we were overwhelmed.

The allowance of seeing fruit really challenged some of us, especially when we’re not promised that. We count ourselves blessed to have been a part of God’s story in Sommerset East.

It was an exhausting but wonderful time and everyone’s eyes were opened to the possibilities of what God can accomplish in even the span of a week!

Please join us in prayer that the Lord would bring permanent “gardeners” of His seeds… We’re hopeful that more missionaries will come, that the churches will unite and keep going out into the schools and townships, and that ultimately leaders will rise up out of the muck and lead their people.

Amen.

The whole crew... minus some important people that had to leave early.


Cookhouse High School, where my team worked.


Some intense jump roping! :D


Me and Dory, the puppy that Jillian and I lived with!


A piece of Cookhouse.

freedom through truth

I stood beside someone while they found out that they had tested positive for HIV the other day. I don't know if you've ever been in that moment... imagine it. Imagine standing next to a 16 year old girl while she learned that her actions had led her to a sentence of pain, sickness and ultimate death. (I know that anyone could get hit by a bus tomorrow. But the reality of AIDS and the lack of a cure is something entirely different.)

What would you do? What would you say? How would you handle that?

How would Christ have reacted?

All I know for certain is what I did...
I rubbed her back as the nurse spoke to her.
I hugged her and didn't let go until she did.
I cried with her as she cried in a chair while her friends looked on not knowing what to do.
And then she looked at me and asked if we could pray.
And so we prayed. Her in Xhosa, me in English... all to the same God.
The God of redemption. The God of restoration.

I believe that women's lives will be changed by this young girls' testimony one day when the dust settles. She is a mover and a shaker among her class and when she speaks, people will listen. God will redeem this.
I have to believe that. I can do nothing less than believe that this too will bring Him glory and people will come to know Him through it. Come to understand the freedom in knowing Him and being known.

I was blessed.
Not only to be with her for her test, but to receive her hugs when my test came back negative.



Praise Him who is holy.

God has already won, and He continues...

Today was a day of warfare in the most literal way you can imagine. Yet again, nearly everything went wrong, from the car starting to smoke, to my attitude. I was fighting it all day, knowing it was a trick from satan. (He was trying to tell me I had no place on this team, not only for Beat the Drum, but also in the FYM program as the worship leader.)

I persevered, but barely. I almost gave up in the afternoon when I was at my weakest. Teaching didn't go all that great...my perception...and I was doubting. I got back to the hall with my team and immediately my students perceived that I wasn't myself. Three of them prayed over me and though my head knew what was what, my heart still refused to believe that God had purpose for me on this team.

Tonight was the youth rally and the last place I wanted to go was a hall full of hundreds of screaming teenagers. However, I left with a few of my girls and we spoke of God's provision along the way. My heart was catching up and by the time the worship team strummed the first chord, I was alive and well in Christ and knowing that the Lord has reason for me in Africa yet again.

A young boy came and sat next to me. I noticed that his face was half covered in what looked like a birth mark. He struck me as a loner in that he seemed to know many people, but none of them acknowledged him. We talked, only briefly, and by the end of the night, I was blessed with the opportunity to pray with him to receive Christ.

If for no other reason, I was used tonight by the Almighty Lord so that that young man could be prayed over and encouraged by his sister-in-Christ. I consider it an honour I'll never deserve.

God has reasons for you. God has plans for you. Will you be obedient and persevere?

love

Cookhouse. my heart.

I've been honoured to be working in a township called Cookhouse. It, the people, the land, have completely stolen my heart. I fear I'll have nothing left to offer a husband when he comes along, as so much of my heart is spread out in Africa, North America and among people I love all over the world!

sigh

It's a stunningly beautiful and desperate place. Today as we watched the movie "Beat the Drum" with the students in their classrooms, I watched their faces. I wondered what they might be thinking. I wondered what their home-lives are like. I wondered if they had someone in their life that they trust. I wondered if anyone has ever let them cry on their shoulder. I wondered what their dreams are like. I wondered if they know what love looks like. I wondered if they know the strength within them.

Lord, bring me back here.

love

k

FREEDOM!!!

Today was our first day in Cookhouse, the township that my team is teaching in. We're in the only highschool in the town, and are in grade 8 through 12 classrooms. It's an awesome opportunity to teach about abstinence, and we're blessed to be able to teach it from a Christian perspective.

We learned today that Cookhouse has the highest AIDS rate in the whole world in regards to area and population... sigh. I don't know if that's the honest truth, but the fact of the matter is, it's a rampant problem - 1 out of every 4 people is HIV positive. No one talks about it, no one hears about it. If people die because of it, it's blamed on TB.

Today, anything that could have gone wrong, WENT wrong. Among other things, half the students didn't show up to watch the movie, and the whole curriculum is based on the movie. And the last 20 minutes of the movie wouldn't play... AAHHHH!

But you know what? God was there. The students were SO excited to meet all of us. They were very enthralled with the part of the movie they saw. And we're hopeful about the relationships we'll be able to build while we're here this week.

God will use this, even the mess that happened today, to bring Himself glory. He is the Great Redeemer, and somehow all of this will bring light to the lies that have swallowed up to this community for so long.

Please pray for us and all the teams!
I'll keep you posted.

hugs and love
kristen

small town living

Well I've been UNBELIEVABLY blessed to have a super awesome host family that even lets me use their internet!
Just a quick note to tell you about Sommerset East. It reminds me a lot of a one-road town in Ontario somewhere. However, one BIG difference would be all the different colours of people. We've been very welcomed, but it is noticeable how much we are being watched by the people around us.

Tonight we start things off with the 'kick-off' where we'll let people know what we're up to and have a screening of the video. (Which I'm glad for as I still have not seen it and I need to start teaching from it soon!) Then tomorrow we all head off to our schools and show the students the movie. And on Tuesday we begin teaching! Madness...

So far we've been in a church hall with 100 other volunteers learning the material, eating, confessing and singing/dancing worship music together. There's a distinct energy about the place... I can't quite place my finger on it, but it smells of FREEDOM! Freedom in Christ!

I'll keep you posted.
Please keep us in your prayers.
hugs
k

Beat the Drum

Hey there team!
Just a quick note to let you all know that I will be away from the internet until October the 18th.
My team, along with some other teams (totaling about 100 volunteers) is headed to Sommerset East, South Africa to do a program called Beat the Drum.

HISTORY OF BEAT THE DRUM
Millions of souls in Africa are currently under the curse of AIDS/HIV. The movie "Beat the Drum" is the catalyst to our response. A multi-faceted approach was developed that continued with a massive campaign to train young people in AIDS prevention, mobilizing people, volunteers from Africa and the US to break up into teams to go into high schools to train the learners in biblically-based AIDS prevention under a brand new project called, Beat the Drum.

MISSION
To serve the Somerset East community by primarily bringing the message of abstinence through the Beat the Drum project and giving them hope through meeting-felt needs in the community.

PURPOSE
To educate on HIV/AIDS
To prevent and STOP HIV/AIDS in the community
To care for our community

EXPECTATION
To see the movement of God
To see believers, Churches and ministries join hands in unity to serve the community

PRAYER NEEDS
Continued prayer for community outreach week.
Families of the community
Finances
HIV/AIDS positive people in the community
Home visitations
All volunteers
Curriculum facilitation
Lasting impact and real value
For God's spirit to be poured out on the people attending
Opening of their eyes to the knowledge and truth with understanding
The Truth of the Word of God
For the overall smooth running of our program

I'll be leading one of the teams made up of students from our team as well as the other two organizations we're partnering with.
There is huge segregation still in Sommerset East, and people are very racist in their lifestyle and comments.
Please be praying for us!

much love and many hugs
kristen

warring through prayer

Tonight my team learned about what it is to be a warrior in the army of Christ.
We prayed through various scriptures together...and Christ showed up, LITERALLY!
One of my students shared with me afterwards that "God was well pleased" and then she went on to share how at three different points she saw Christ praying with us and over us.

AAHHHH!

God is good.
All the time.
All the time.
God is good!

in Christ,
kristen

joy through obedience

I've been struggling trying to come up with what to write for a few days now.
I'm suffering far more culture shock than I expected, facing a very different Africa than the one I've known.
The faces, the landscape, the sounds, it's all so different than what I expected. I should have known. From Vancouver to Halifax it's a whole new world, why would a land like Africa be any different?
It's taken longer to adjust, and yet there's still the familiar. A slower pace, a gentler spirit.
This new-to-me Africa is one I'm still unsure of.
What I'm completely sure of? My team, this time, our adventure.
Miracles have begun - relationships, healings, hugs, laughter, tears, shouting, playing and longings.
It's a miraculous thing - to obey the command of God.

1John 3:23-24
And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.

More of Him living in me brings great, inexplicable joy into my life, and so I obey.
Go and make disciples.
Go, love the poor and the orphans.
It's a simple "Yes Sir" from me and I do my best and pray that He does the rest.

obedience over you today
and the joy of the Lord Almighty in your life
kristen