Monday, June 27, 2011

June 26, 2011 – Hopping Off Horses

    So today I fell off a horse and I have a big cut on my stomach to prove it. It looks lovely. I went out for a ride with Norma to work the second 2 of her 4 horses (she had already worked them a bit in the ring) and I had the delight of riding atop Banner. Banner is an older horse who is quite a manipulative little boy and at the beginning of our ride he decided to give me a go to test my limits. Right after we got out of the gate, he took an immediate right (instead of straight forward on the path) into a dense section of dead brush and thorn trees and I managed to dodge the majority and turn him back on to the path. As soon as he was facing the right direction, he took the lead once more into the same patch of brush hoping for a more successful round of “stick the rider.” This time he won. He took me straight into a dead thorn prickly tree thing. I knew I was going down so I let go of the reigns, grabbed on to the big branches in front of me, squealed, and lowered myself to the ground once I lifted off of the saddle. You really have no idea how much I wish I had the fall on camera – it was absolutely hilarious. After that, I realized that boys must be boys and as long as they are, they will always mess with girls. But what Banner quickly realized was that even though boys can fight, girls can always fight back harder and longer. It was a joyous ride after I forcefully became a literal tree hugger. It’s only 11:00 a.m. here, so I still have a full day ahead of me (including making nametags for a group coming in on Wednesday), but that was a fantastic start.

    After the episode with the horse, Norma and I came back and tried to transfer my David Platt podcasts from my computer to hers via an external hard drive but it epically failed. We tried and tried for probably and hour and nothing worked.. Neither of our external HDs worked! But that’s alright because I just found out tonight that she has a flash drive and those don’t configure to specific programs like Mac or PC so we’ll try that tomorrow. Once that failed, Mason, Dennis and I tried to configure Norma’s internet modem to our computers but the same thing happened. Her modem is configured for a PC and not a Mac. Ugh. Mason and I climbed Polar Bear just to get the best service on the farm and it still failed. So if I can get the flash drive to work tomorrow and you see my blog actually updated, then you will know that it worked!!! I really hope so because I would love for ya’ll to see some pictures and have these updates. It’s actually really fun keeping up with the trip like I have. Let’s hope I feel the same way after day 20 instead of day 2.
    Last night Norma put me in charge of making icing for a cake she made and it turned out looking more like an ice skating rink on top of the cake instead of normal white, creamy cake icing, but it was definitely just as delicious. Tonight she put me in charge of the crepes and they turned out DEICIOUS! I also asked Mason to help me make my homemade whipped cream recipe and he did a really great job for not having an electric eggbeater! It was a wonderful dessert and everyone loved them. Go me! I’m learning how to cook! Simple and easy stuff, but cooking nonetheless. After dinner we laughed and talked all about different accents and road rage. Tomorrow we are making nametags and Mason is chillin’ with Chris and hopefully starting on the cement basketball court Chris and Norma are making as a community center for the primary school kids in Mtopo. The nametags are for a group of 28 local teachers coming from Wednesday to Thursday afternoon to go through some English comprehension workshops to better teach the children. I am excited to help Norma prepare for that, but even more excited to listen in and help the teachers out while they are here. The Lord really is doing some great and creative things here to equip people to more effectively help others. And it is really cool to see how involved and proactive Chris and Norma are to do the best they know how to do. I am really excited to see all I can get involved in and/or bring back to the states once this summer is over.
    P.S. Africans know how to creatively reuse leftovers better than I have ever experienced before . . . Mom, I am trying to watch and learn because we have been SERIOUSLY missing out by just sticking ours in the fridge.
    P.S.S. Mom, I really need your flank steak recipe please because we have already started planning our double day Fourth of July celebration. So far, the plan consists of a bar-be-que, a mock Peachtree Road Race, an American style breakfast (scrambled cheese eggs, biscuits, and I forgot what else), and red, white, and blue attire are required for both days (as well as your resources provide) – from the underwear out. Mom, please e-mail it to me because Chris REALLLLY wants me to make it. Thank you love you!!

June 25, 2011 – Day 1 on the Farm

    Happy year and 3 months, Conner Blair!!! (By the way, I told everyone you said hey and you missed him or her!! Nkosi especially :) I got your back.)
    At the grace and generosity of Mason, I now have a pair of white basketball shorts to sport around with my socks, chacos, blue t-shirt and grey jacket instead of the long black prairie skirt here on the farm in the middle of winter.  4 days down in the same outfit, only 3 more to go! Norma can’t go back in to Bulawayo to pick up my bag until Tuesday evening . . . TIA.
    Today is my first outdoor quiet time and it is glorious. I find it difficult to stay focused enough to finish writing. I climbed onto the rocks, saw Norma’s horses in the next field over, hopped the fence to love on the horses, climbed back on to the rocks, sat and gazed. I can’t stop gazing. The clear and cloudless blue sky is mysterious and captivating, the boulders are everywhere, the valley consumes my periphery, the dam is straight ahead of me, and the breeze and heat of the sun is so refreshing. The Lord is so alive in this day. “This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.” – Psalm 118:24
    When I came back in from the rocks, Mason, Chris, and 3 neighbors and friends of Chris and Norma were building a solar geyser so the girls’ showers, the guest showers, and Chris and Norma’s personal shower can have hot water without having to start a fire under their water tanks! Whoo! I was so worried about freezing cold showers in winter weather again. I am so thankful. Hip hip hooray!!
    We ate lunch and the YL leaders reconvened for one last meeting and now they are preparing to leave and go back to Bulawayo and go to school, go to work, and love on people in the city. I was sooo so glad to be with them and to see Patson and his wife Cindy this morning!

June 24, 2011 – The (Grace) Gospel

    Today was an eventful 24 hours. We were staying at the house our friend Pieter rents a room at in Johannesburg and it was our first night in an African bed. I didn’t have to wake up until 10 a.m. but out of Mason’s boredom, he decided to wake me up at 8:30 a.m. to join him in watching golf on TV. I got my 3 essential books out – my Bible, my journal, and my Jesus Calling – to do a quiet time. After I read a little bit, Mason left to shower and the mom of the house, Sylvia, came out of her room and started talking with me. We got in to the conversation of our ministries – meaning, how the Lord has us best and specially serving people. She started to tell me how her artist friend taught her to paint tablecloths when she and her husband were in need of money and how her success with that let to prayer for ministry. She felt the Lord was telling her to take the method and materials she learned with to make tablecloths to the women in one of Johannesburg’s poorest communities. To help the women start a business, she will bring enough supplies for 60 women to make 1 tablecloth, 6 wine glass markers, and 6 napkin holders. They are allowed to keep 1/3 of the profit, use the next 1/3 to buy a new package of materials for themselves, and use the last 1/3 to bring a new woman and teach her to make the same materials. How creative and how wonderful!! Please be praying for her ministry.
    She drove Mason and I to the Johannesburg airport and dropped us off 3 hours before our flight was scheduled to leave. In the car, she started giving us advice for life and the very first thing she said was, “Do not trust anyone.” She proceeded to tell us crazy stories of God’s protection and grace in their family’s lives in the face of physical attacks and concluded her advice with this: “If you truly understand the reality and concept of God’s grace, then you will never overstep your boundaries because once you understand that grace, everything you do will be done in joy and thanksgiving.” I thought about this and realized how truthful that wisdom was. I constantly find myself pushing boundaries, crossing boundaries, and intentionally not creating boundaries in all aspects of my life. When I catch myself doing that I always blame the power of my selfish and sinful nature and I usually get stuck in a state of disappointment and shame. And because of her comment, I now see that shame as another way for Satan to hold my heart captive.
What I think she was saying is that once you truly feel and know and understand God’s grace that was given to us through His Son’s death, then we will have such a deep respect, honor, and love for Christ and the value of His sacrifice that we won’t even want to overstep His boundaries. When we have that humility from understanding the magnitude of God’s grace for us, then all we should really want to do is to do EVERYTHING for His Glory and His honor to try and return that gift – and that is where the joyful living comes from. That every moment feeling of thanksgiving and humility overflowing from our hearts in a spirit of joy because of the deep, deep love we hold for Christ in our hearts. So where me blaming my selfish, sinful nature and motivations is not incorrect, I must now remember to always come back to the cross in every moment, decision, conversation, etc. – even when I mess up – because that is where we were covered in grace and that is where we learn to truly glorify the Lord. What a beautiful transaction!!
Paul talked a lot about preserving the mystery of the Gospel (especially in Galatians), and
to me, that mystery is the fact that Christ came to give us FREEDOM. “My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loves me and gave himself for me. I do not treat the grace of God as meaningless. For if keeping the law could make us right with God, then there was no need for Christ to die.” – Galatians 2:20-21. We cannot truly live without being covered in God’s grace and living in praise of that, because rules, regulations, and sinful nature would hold us captive and under shame if Satan had his way. Remember Christ died to set us FREE from all of those things and more. I challenge you to LIVE under the grace of God – I know He is challenging me to do the same.
    “When I think of all this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth. I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God. Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power and work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. Glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever! Amen.” – Ephesians 3:14-21.

    Now back to the trip – Mason and I flew in to Bulawayo via the unreliable Air Zimbabwe and received a visa and passed through customs with NO problems! That is almost unheard of for foreigners. Norma picked us up and we helped her go grocery shopping in town. It was an interesting experience and an interesting environment. We are SO spoiled with our American grocery stores. We picked up Chris’ brother and picked his grapefruit tree to make juice and headed on our way to Morning Starr. Now, to all my Chi Omegas – we almost hit a GIANT owl in the middle of the road on the drive to the farm and no one could understand how excited I was at the sight of it! Hootie hoo! The sun had already set, but before everything went completely dark, the sun left a midnight blue color painted on top of the horizon with stars scattered all above in the dark black. As the blue added and back took over, more and more stars started to appear – what an artistic and romantic God we love and serve! It was a magnificent welcome home. Nkosi, Godfrey, Montana, Lloyd, Sharon, Pierre, Rentia, Quinton, Pumba, Footie, and Chris were all waiting for us and it was a glorious reunion. We ate at the fire, stayed up and talked, then went to sleep. Talk about living for the Gospel to be spread, these YL guys really know how to do it. They LIVE and WAIT for even just one more conversation or question or opportunity to discuss or display the beauty of the Gospel. I really want to learn from them – I am so sad they are going back to Bulawayo tomorrow!

June 23, 2011 – Johannesburg Flight

God, I know I can never doubt whether or not your timing is perfect because it always is and always will be. And there is no doubt that you honor those that seek you and honor you. So I want to thank you for that and being the faithful God you are and blessing my time in your Word directed in today’s Jesus Calling. How cool is it that the chapter (Ephesians 4) with the verse that is the title to my blog is one of the directed readings. Thank you for that reminder and the faith challenges that come along with that chapter.
We are to live in the light so we can be a light, and I pray that you can lift Mason and I up as we seek you through this trip so that we may be able to salt the earth and be placed on a hillside to light up a city, god, and maybe even a nation. Zimbabwe desperately needs you. I pray how David consistently did in Psalms that you would please frustrate the plans of the wicked and ultimately save their souls. God, protect the people of Zimbabwe and be their support. I pray that Mason and I could just be encouragers for that. “I will praise you forever, O God, for what you have done. I will trust in your good name in the presence of your faithful people.” - Psalm 59:2. You have led our hearts to these people and to this trip, and ultimately, we have followed you. We have not been perfect, but we have been persistent.
    Forgive me for what I feel a lack of preparation mentally, spiritually, and emotionally specifically for this trip, but thank you mightily for the time I had with Conner, contemplating and experiencing our relationship. Please use all that I have learned and felt during those 5 weeks with him to bring glory to Your name here. Please let me be clay in the Potter’s hands and mold my thinking, feeling, living, etc., in any which way you please so that I may bring more glory to Your Name. And I pray that even in the moments, weeks, or months where my flesh is trying to battle Your will, that I could bring You glory in the form of communication, questions, patience, and then my humility. Blessed be Your Name.
    I pray that Deuteronomy 31:6 would be forever on my heart and I can remember it and call it out to expel all fear that leads me to doubt You or cling to my own human forms of safety and security. I pray that trust and boldness in You and with Your Name would couple together to change someone’s heart and open their eyes to the power, love, grace, and freedom given access to us through the cross. Your Son’s death is a sacred thing, and I pray that I would live a life that honors His sacrifice. And as Ephesians 4:1 says, “…lead a life worthy of your calling, for you have been called by God.” And Ephesians 4:30 says, “And do not bring sorrow to God’s Holy Spirit by the way you live. Remember, he has identified you as his own, guaranteeing that you will be saved on the day of redemption.” Let me honor my Father and follow the Holy Spirit’s leading in my heart in everything I do so that I may help His Kingdom come by glorifying things of heaven and not of earth.
    Lord, you know my fears and you know my heart. You see my bitterness, jealousy, unforgiveness, selfishness, insecurities, ugly words, actions and thoughts, and You have chosen to look over them and instead look at the heart YOU first created for me. I pray that You would reveal more of it to me and I would continue to learn how to use it as a greater reflection of Your own heart You have placed in ME. Help me have persistence to try and live by and with that heart, covered in Your grace and glory, not the heart covered in fleshy motives and sin. You can overcome ANY human weakness.
    “So be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid and do not panic before them. For the Lord your God will personally go ahead of you. He will neither fail you nor abandon you.” – Deuteronomy 31:6.
    Love, Me

Thursday, June 23, 2011

3/4 of the way there.

Hey guys, just wanted to let you know that I am in Johannesburg and at Pieter's house. We just got back from a great burger restaurant called Dros. Their hamburger buns are gigantic and their pickles taste funny, but a cow still tastes like a cow over here. I'm exhausted but Mason and Pieter won't let me fall asleep yet because it is only 8 p.m. over here. It hasn't even been 24 hours since I left the U.S. and I am already dying and feeling like I've been here and been traveling for a few days now. I miss home and everyone so much already.

Delta didn't get my bag on the plane, so now I won't have my hiking pack until Monday. Mason and I are going to still fly in to Bulawayo tomorrow as planned, but we will just have to stay there at Pierre's house until the Bulawayo airport receives my bag and then Chris will come pick us up and take us to the farm! Thankfully I have just enough medicine until Tuesday night so that is relieving, and I have travel sized soap, shampoo, conditioner, deodorant, toothpaste, and a toothbrush. The fun in the situation is that I am stuck in this floor length black skirt, chacos or toms, a white tank top and a thin blue tshirt, and a fleece until Monday. Go Africa!

Once I get to the farm, then I will be helping Norma make mosaic cabinet things for women in the villages. I love arts and crafts, I love Norma, and I love African women, so I am stoked.

An opportunity arose where I might be able to get a real cheap flight to Cape Town at the end of our trip to possibly stay with my friend Emily and visit my friend from school, but also just to see how beautiful it is since I have come this far already. I would stay for 2 nights I think and still fly back with Mason from Joburg to Atl on our scheduled departure date. I would hike Table Mountain, maybe see Robin Island, go wine tasting, visit friends, and see stunning scenery!! We're also gunna go see a Rugby match in Pretoria on August 6th! Ballin'. We'll see.. I have a long time to decide on plans.

Just wanted to give you an update!! Love you all!

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Finally Here

So the departure date is finally here. I have 30 mins until I have to leave for the airport, and roughly 3 hours until my flight is scheduled to leave. IT is seriously surreal that I am actually leaving. I was talking to my mom over lunch today and told her how I was thinking about the last 5 weeks at home and how that isn't even HALF of my summer. I have the incredible gift and blessing to spend it IN ZIMBABWE! How cool. I am so excited and so nervous and so confused all at the same time. I don't quite know how to process all of this, but I do know that God has it all under control. My family, friends, and boyfriend at home, my future best friends and international family in Africa, any unexpected circumstances Mason and I may find ourselves in, and the list goes on. I can wonder and worry about them all day long, but as Matthew 6 says, worrying cannot add a single hour to our lives. The preparation for, departure to, and perseverance through this trip are all giant leaps of faith for me and my relationship with the Lord. I am learning to trust Him and His sovereignty over any other worldly security I may try and cling on to, and it is great. Pray for a NONdelayed flight because it just started pouring, but also pray for a safe one. HERE WE GO!!