Registration of Refugees and Blanket Sorting

Yesterday afternoon, Avril, John’s wife phoned us and asked us if we could come out to the refugee camp and help with registration. When we arrived there were approx. 500 people outside lined up to get into the gates. We first parked outside and then decided to ask the police if we could take some things into John Thomas and they told us to drive on through. When we got inside the gates, Avril immediately put us to work registering mostly Somalia’s that have been displaced. Most of these people have had their stores looted and they have been run out of the communities. It is a horrible site to see people confused and not knowing where to go next. We were told they were setting up a second camp just for the Somalia’s so the tension would not be so bad between all the foreigners. What I learned last night was that most of the Somalia’s are Muslim and trying to stick to their “laws” eating Halaal food or fasting when they are having a crisis. They had separate tents for the food and separate tents for the men and women. John Thomas was appointed to “be in charge” of the entire camp site area and this is more than a one man job. Please pray for someone to come along side or even take over, as John has asked, to take on this position. After everyone was registered John asked us to come help pass out blankets and this would help lure the Somalia’s to the other campsite. This worked and it was amazing to see how many blankets had been donated. They had organized the blankets really well and knew exactly how many blankets they had. The only problem was they didn’t know how many would show up to receive them. They had passed out some blankets the night before, but not all had gotten one. Long story short, we passed out all the blankets and there were about 10 guys that walked up and Mike said, “guys you need to make a queue” (line). John spoke up and said we are totally out of blankets guys you need to go to your Somalia brothers who have 4 or 5 and ask them to share. As they started to walk away, someone said here is another stack of blankets, and I know to most of you it won’t be a surprise because this is who God is, but the last guy was standing there and Mike asked me if we had anymore blankets and I had one more in my hand. Need I say more?
We will have more details in our newsletter in a couple of days. Pray for our safety. However, we don’t feel threatened at all.

Riots in Townships in South Africa

As I type, situations in townships all over South Africa are unfolding. There are Somalia’s, Zimbabweans, and Malawians that have moved into the country without the proper paperwork and have taken up residents in these townships. The Xhosa’s don’t like them in there because they say they are taking all the jobs away. The reality of it is the Xhosa’s don’t like to work hard and the others do. Beginning last night they began threatening them if they didn’t get out they would begin to harm them and take all their posessions. We have become friends with many of them and feel like our hands are tied behind our backs because we don’t know how to help them. Please pray that God would protect them. Approx. 80 of them go to King of Kings and they are allowing them to come to the church as a safe haven tonight but we don’t know how long it will continue or if it will ever be safe for them to move back in. It costs a lot of money for them to go back to their country which most don’t have. We are being asked for help and don’t know what to do. It is not safe for us to go into the townships because they will know we are helping them. They are desperate for help. All we can do is pray for the Lord to stop this situation before it gets out of hand. I will keep you posted

When I said no, God said yes!

The most amazing chain of events took place over the last couple of weeks and I want to share them with you. Mike saw a women’s conference in the church bulletin and suggested I attend. I went back and forth about going said I would go, then I said no. Well less than a week ago Avril, John’s wife, sent out an e-mail to about 10 ladies and yes my name was on it stating, “the ticket is already paid for reimburse whenever you can.” So you know the rest of that story. It turned out to be fabulous. I met some new ladies from the church and saw a part of town I had never been to before. But the story doesn’t end here. The two guest speakers were from America. (this conference was the Women of Faith tour) One’s name was Carol Kent and the other Anita Renfroe. Neither of which I had ever heard of I thought. Just a few days before leaving Nashville, a friend of ours Janell Fadler gave us a gift, a book titled Speaking in Public with Confidence. She knew I needed it more than Mike. I must confess I have not read the book, but I did read the testimony on the back so I knew her story. While I was sitting in the conference, and Carol started sharing her testimony I thought to myself I have heard this before but nothing clicked the first day. The second day about half way through she mentioned this book and the light came on. I could not believe the coincidence and as soon as I got home I showed Mike and he couldn’t believe it either. We had a good laugh. Anita turned out to be the Christian comedian that has hit it big with the “momsense” song on you tube and has soared to stardom. Ok it doesn’t end here either. They were giving away many door prizes and I meant to put my name in the box before we left the first night but I forgot, turns out I didn’t need to, I won something anyway. It was a start up kit for gel nails including the lamp and all. I certainly didn’t need this but the Lord knew it would be a perfect small business for Living Way to launch for a female that goes through our entrepreneurship program. I am so excited about this. Ok it still doesn’t end here! On Monday, Avril had arranged for the ladies to come to Living Hope to speak to the support group facilitators so after they had finished I went over to meet them. I took my book of course to get signed!! While chatting with Anita it turns out she knows Mark Kelly Hall, a friend of ours at Brentwood Baptist and this was how they ended up coming to Living Hope. Man it is a small world.
Ok here is the Grand Finale. Anita was asking me how long we were here and what type of work were we doing at Living Hope. I explained the Volunteer Coordinating Ministry and then told her about Living Way and the entrepreneur program. She and her husband were very interested so I went and got Mike and long story short they, including her church, are going to pray about (but she said it is basically a done deal) sponsoring some start up businesses with the capital needed to get them going. Our God is an awesome God.
I am so glad I said no because it allows me to share a testimony about how much God really is in control!!
By the way I plan to start reading the book this weekend!

Pastor John and Amos

John Thomas has been preaching from Amos the last few weeks and he has really come down on the people of South Africa in comparison to Israel. Israel did the finger pointing to everyone else but never saw them as being in trouble. (He showed us the little trick if you point your finger at something or someone there are 3 fingers pointing back at you) He is warning the locals that if we don’t turn from our wicked ways, that God could allow the happenings of Zimbabwe to happen in South Africa and all over Africa for that matter. He is challenging everyone to make a difference in the community and it has impacted a lot of people in the congregation. We have about 80 or more black people from the Masi township, (mostly Zims) that are coming to our church and he is preaching the Word of God about helping the poor. A lot of you know his heart when he comes to Nashville to share stories and he has really opened his heart to his own church. He is reminding us these people are in our back yards. Mike and I have been watching American Idol, which we never did, but this past week was Idol give back. They raised over 60 million dollars in one night to help people in Africa and other places. I can’t believe the humanitarian effort that one show can produce but if all that money was strategically placed, and people were teaching about God’s love, I believe it could bring about some change. However it is not about the money, what we have to remember is God allows things to happen for different reasons to bring His Children back to Him. God is a loving God and what He wants more than anything is for all of us to turn from our wicked ways and seek Him with all our heart, mind and soul. When we have that right relationship with Jesus, we can do all things through Christ that strengthens me. Phil 4:13
Pray for opportunities for me and Mike to make a difference and to share God’s love with someone who needs to hear that right now.

The Reality of Poverty

The last couple of weeks the reality of the poverty amongst the people that live here are
overwhelming. Yes, you see people standing at the robots (red lights) begging for money and lots of people looking for work on the sides of the roads and even people standing outside of restaurants saying, “I am hungry could you spare something for me”. This is one of the toughest things to face on a daily basis. We have been told over and over you must not give them anything or they will never learn to quit begging. That is easier said than done. Each week the maintenance man gathers up everyone’s trash and takes it to the bottom of the hill for the trash collectors to pick up early the next morning. Over the past couple of weeks on our way home from work, we started noticing middle aged men walking up and down the streets with raggedy old backpacks. We didn’t realize what they were doing until we reached our place and found a couple of guys rummaging through the bags. At first we wanted to tell them to leave the bags alone, but soon realized that as soon as that one was gone the next guy would be going through them. I was blown away by this and said to Mike, “do you realize the leftovers or things that have gone bad are being gone through?” to us it sounds disgusting to them it is a way of life. We made a decision this week that the things we throw away, will be placed in baggies (could get a little expensive but it is the least we can do) so they don’t have to sort through all the rubbish (trash).
Another reality that set in a couple of days ago is the weather. The poorest of the poor live in tin shacks where all the elements of the weather blow right through their homes.
They have sand that blows all the time and covers their floors and winds that never stop and blow coolness on them at night. 2 days ago, was the first cold, windy, rain we had and driving through the townships the next day we realized how tough it is for them to survive in the winter months. Trees were blown down and tin etc. was not where it had originally been. I can tell you how it sounded outside my concrete house with windows, but I can’t imagine what it sounded like or felt like for them. I had to get up and put a folded piece of paper in our sunroom window to keep it from rocking back and forth in its track making a loud noise. I am sure for them it sounded like a freight train coming through. All we can do is pray for them to have safety and enough cover to keep them warm.
There is yet another reality that we witnessed a couple of years ago when we were here on a short-term trip, and that was a fire in the township. They use paraffin to heat with and negligence or winds will cause fires to break out in the winter months. Because all the shacks are built against each other, it can destroy as many as 400 to 500 homes in no time. Living Hope/Way wants to have a team of volunteers in place, so as soon as a fire happens we can have the necessary supplies available to go over and help them to rebuild their homes. Please pray for us to be able to get this in place and have the volunteers available when disasters like this happen. I wanted to share some of these realities so you would have a better understanding of how to pray for them. Pray for us to continue to find ways to tell them Jesus loves them even when they are going through the toughest times.