"The Joy of the Lord is my strength"

This verse from Nehemiah was on one of the letters that people sent with me to read during my time in Africa. It was extremely encouraging to me. Tonight though, I saw it lived out. Tonight I saw contentment. Tonight, I saw grace.

• Donovan, Heather, Sarah (my intern buddy), the Drew’s kids, and I all went to Salvakop tonight to hand out blankets and join in on the bible study that Randy Clark does there. On the way, Donovan explained the situation to us. We were going to an area that used to be a suburb but now is more of a shantytown. It is mostly full of refugees from Zimbabwe. There are houses just like the one the baby home is in, but these are rented out to LOTS of people. Then, in each yard, there are tin huts. They are made of scrap metal and about at the size of one of those tool sheds that we would buy at Home Depot. Whole families live in these, sometimes more than one family. They are not warm, they have no running water, and they all share another hut that has a hole for the restroom. While I was bundled up in my North Face coat, children were running around in shorts and Tshirts.
  
  I’m not sharing this to tell how bad the conditions are of someone’s lives, I’m telling this because I have been so very humbled tonight. At home, we don’t want to invite anyone into our house unless it is perfect. We might choose not to be hospitable or host something at our house because someone else has a bigger, nicer one and we would be embarrassed. Tonight one of the ladies from the church invited us into her home with a genuine smile on her face. She took pride in what God has given her and had decorated the 10 by 6 foot home of her’s. One of her decorations was a framed picture of her recent baptism! She did not complain or apologize ever, even when we had to wait to go inside for the electricity to start working. She showed me contentment, and she showed me what the grace of God does to a person. She was so thankful for the home that God provided and she would not compare it to what he had given other’s or hang her head because He saw fit to give her less. She may have lacked in earthly possessions, but she was rich in heavenly ones.
  
  

  

  Me, Sarah (The swiss intern whom I love!) and three little girls from Salvakop!

  
  After this, we walked down the street to a school auditorium for bible study. Praise God that the gospel went out tonight! Randy shared the gospel despite the language barrier and did fabulously at a very hard job. Nickson is an African seminary student who helped Randy to lead. Many of the people who came to the bible study did not speak English as well as they did their first language (Shona) and Nickson was invaluable as an interpreter. He boldly shared the gospel tonight as well. Everyone was quiet at first but after a while, they started asking questions that revealed what they had understood about what was taught. One woman asked “what is sin?” and then we sat for about 5 minutes while a bunch of people talked extremely fast in their first language. There were some new converts in the group as well and it was so fun to see them speaking up and telling their friends what they now know – even if I could not understand a word of it! You could see the faces as sin was explained to them – from, “That doesn’t apply to me” changing to “oh… maybe that is me.” I love seeing God at work!

  New Prayer Requests:
  Pray that the Salvakop bible study would grow, that the attendees would come to understand that they have sinned and need a savior, and that they would repent
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