Made it to Bulawayo, Zimbabwe!
Been here almost a week and it’s already exceeded all of my expectations.
This month, my team and I are working with Youth for Christ. So far we have gotten to know the staff we are going to be working with, we have learned a couple skits to perform at schools, we have done an all night prayer (8pm-6am) (not easy to do), we have gone to a couple all-girl schools and taught lessons from the Bible, and we have been preparing for a packed-full week of events we are calling Proclamation Week “Jesus for Bulawayo”. The word “Bulawayo” means death. So the hope for this week is to show that Bulawayo is not forsaken, that Jesus has turned His attention to this city and sees the harvest.
I’m excited to see the harvest.
I’m going to shift gears a bit and tell you about something really cool. You ready?
Ok, so… on Sunday my team and I went to an all-girls boarding school. We were a tad late because, African time, so from the moment we pulled up, we could hear the beautiful voices of the girls worshiping inside the school. As we stepped inside, I couldn’t stop smiling. These girls were leading their own worship, no instruments, and perfect harmonies. I looked around and saw their pearly whites. Such beautiful smiles. Such beautiful girls. My team and I stood up in front and introduced ourselves and told them a couple fun facts about each of us. Following that we played a short game, partly stalling so that one of the YFC volunteers could get there to teach the lesson (the taxis were on strike that day). A little time passed and we were asked to do the lesson instead. Scrambling to think of something while on the spot, Autum shared the story about Esther. She talked about purpose and how we all have been given one from God.
Somehow during that time we started talking about the lies we believe about ourselves. In that moment I had the idea to ask the girls what were some of the lies they were believing so that we could speak truth over them. At first the girls seemed shy but slowly slowly their hands started going up in order to share. After each lie that was shared, I asked “Is that true?” followed by “What is the truth?”. These girls were speaking truth over each other squashing each lie like a bug.
A couple things to note… I do not like public speaking and I had been struggling with some lies myself (mainly feeling like what I have to say isn’t that important).
But at that moment, I didn’t mind standing up there, all eyes on me. I didn’t feel like I had nothing important to say. Instead, I felt comfortable up there reminding these girls just how worthy and loved they are. Together, we took those lies and sent them straight back to hell. Together, we listened and spoke the voice of truth.
Isn’t that just cool! God is so good! He used me to speak truth to these girls as well as speak truth to myself. God is working, I just need to take Him out of the box that I’ve put Him in. I need to stop limiting Him. He wants to do so much, I just need to let Him.
Thank you again for all your prayers and support. I appreciate all of you!
Talk to you soon!
ITR
