There are times when I am overwhelmed and baffled by how God takes my weakness and overlaps it with his power. It would be so much better if I realized daily how he is in control and is guiding my steps. God showed me several ways – through some people in South Africa – that he is the master and will use me in whatever capacity he wants.
One. I would consider myself to not be great with children. I’m good with child singular, but with 60+ kids it’s a challenge for me. This week my team (BBH) and I got to spend time at an after school program in a township called Phumlani. These children desperately crave attention and to feel loved. They have very little not only in the way of possessions but in physical contact, loving discipline, and being cared for. They’re not taught how to handle social settings or how to interact with each other, and it shows in the way they treat each other and the people that are trying to care for them. In spite of that, as soon as we get around them, they are wanting to be held and hugged as much as possible in the small amount of time we get to be with them. They “fight” over being in our arms or on our laps, from the seemingly meanest of the bunch to the over looked to the seemingly happiest. God changed me in the area of physical touch this week. I could not get enough of the way they clung on to me. It was odd, yet I knew God had to be doing it. These kids would climb on us with snotty noses that they wiped on their clothes, but after a while I didn’t care.
Two. Last week we got to go work at a school for disabled kids in Tembaletu called Hillsong House. We only got to be around the kids for their lunch time, but it was so fulfilling. Most of the time I danced with a girl in a wheelchair.
Three. Yesterday morning I was reading my bible going through my REAP journal, and was fairly deep in alone time with God. He was showing me some things about himself from Exodus. When God’s people were traveling out of Egypt they kept grumbling against Moses, but ultimately they were grumbling against God. God kept pointing this out to Moses – that they weren’t rejecting him but they were rejecting God. Moses had to remain faithful. Our housing host, Richard, walked in to the room I was in and asked me to give him an encouraging word. My initial reaction would typically be to be nervous, but God made me not. So, I shared with Richard what I had been reading, and we got to have a discussion about it. He was having a rough morning, and said that he needed to hear from God what we were talking about.
As I read back over this stuff, it seems to me a bit scatter brained. I hope it comes across expressing what I’m feeling.
We on our last few days in South Africa. It has been wonderful and challenging. It is beautiful.
