It's almost the weekend. While here, I try to take in every moment and and not wish my life away, but BOY has this week been tough. We have a wonderful team here this working with us in Capricorn from Shades Mountain Baptist Church in Birmingham, AL. They are fantastic! But the kids have been extra naughty this week, for sure. I am absolutely worn out. Not to mention the fact that some kind of sickness is making its way around the house and I believe it has found me....let's pray against that because I do NOT want to miss a moment of loving on these kids and sharing the Gospel with them.
Let's see. I am attempting to think about all that has happened in the past several days. You should know that everyday I come up with about 5 things that I want to share with everyone on my blog, but when I sit in front of my computer, I forget them. Go figure.
So I will talk about this until I can remember them. The enemy is so at work right now, which must mean that God is too. Spiritual warfare is at an all-time high for the first time since I arrived. I've been spending more time with the Lord and am learning SO much. I go back and forth between reading Radical by David Platt and The Hole in Our Gospel by Richard Stearns and in the Word I am reading through Luke. Yesterday, I got to read one of my favorite stories again; The story of the Sinful Woman anointing Jesus' feet...love it....
OH, I remembered.
This past Sunday at Capricorn Community Church, God truly worked in my heart. The Holy Spirit was alive and active and moving during that sweet service. I couldn't even hear myself sing, everyone was Praising Jesus so loudly. It was beautiful. But we sang a song, and even though I have heard and sung it a billion times, it meant so much this week.
I found that I had experienced all of the verses in this song in the past week.
O Lord my God, When I in awesome wonder,
Consider all the worlds Thy Hands have made;
I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder,
Thy power throughout the universe displayed.
One thing I need to say again, if I haven't said it before; Cape Town is BEAUTIFUL. The pastor said on Sunday "God had fun when he made this place." I think I agree. I have been so blown away, especially recently at how creative our God is. His creation is beautiful. But at the same time, it has come so far from what God intended it to be....Eden. I can see a bright blue sky adorned with waving clouds, almost reached by a mountain towering over the city...while standing in the middle of a township made of shacks with little tiny children running around me who have eaten nothing all day and are getting ready to grow up in a scary unsafe place.....
And when I think, that God, His Son not sparing;
Sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in;
That on the Cross, my burden gladly bearing,
He bled and died to take away my sin.
Something else that I was overwhelmed by was this: I know Jesus. The very same Jesus that I read about almost daily, and tell others about. The same Jesus that healed the sick, made the lame to walk, walked on water, cast out demons, fed 5,000, and died on a cross to reconcile me with my Creator. That same Jesus. I know him. The same Jesus that constantly stole away to secluded places to pray and talk to His Father...yea...I know Him. It just has blown my mind this week. I can't believe what He did. And I can't believe I know Him.
When Christ shall come, with shout of acclamation,
And take me home, what joy shall fill my heart.
Then I shall bow, in humble adoration,
And then proclaim: "My God, how great Thou art!"
This weekend, a few of us went to see The Hurt Locker. I was overcome with a sense of helplessness. I see hurt. I see pain. I see poverty. I see confusion. I see fear. I see so much that I want to fix in the world. And I can't. I can't. I can't fix it all. In the movie, the places that our troops are in, man, do they need love. They need Jesus. Again, I was reminded of how far we have come from Eden. Our land is desolate. Our land is crying for its Creator. Our people are lost. And In the movie, I began to cry, not at the plot or anything, but because I just wanted Jesus to come back. Right then, I just want Him to come and fix it all. Mend what is broken. Comfort what is hurting. I just really really relate to this verse right now.
Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art.
Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art!
Amen....enough said. John 16:33 "In this world you will have trouble, but take heart! For God has overcome the world." How Great Thou Art.
I don't know when I will be able to update again. Internet will be down for quite a while, so I hear....oh TINA.
Love you all and praying for you!
AC
ps- Thank you SO much First Baptist Church, Olive Branch, for letting me Skype in with you on Sunday! I am SO thankful for you prayers, your interest in the Lord's work across the world, and your desire to be a part of it! I love you all! Miss you!
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Friday, June 18, 2010
Someone Once Told Me the Grass is Much Greener- On the Other Side
Today. I drove. On the other side of the car. AND the other side of the road. WHAT?!
Those of you who are well acquainted with my driving in AMERICA (stop laughing Carolina Salcedo and Alyson McHargue) will know that this is going to be quite the adventure for me. My new sweet friend Megan Newsome (go here to read her blog) and I decided that we didn't want to sit in the house all weekend when it is supposed to be such great weather, so we went in together to rent a car for the weekend! And we got the car for SUCH a great rate. I'm SO excited about all the stuff we will get to do without having to bum rides off of other volunteers (who happen to all be going SKYDIVING tomorrow...crazy butts.) Anyway, just wanted to share that bit of exciting news with you all!
Today ended my first week of Holiday Club with the precious children of Capricorn and I cannot wait to post more pictures and stories. I am in the process of uploading my pics and videos to Photobucket so that you who do not have facebook can see them!
Love each of you and Praying for you!
AC
Those of you who are well acquainted with my driving in AMERICA (stop laughing Carolina Salcedo and Alyson McHargue) will know that this is going to be quite the adventure for me. My new sweet friend Megan Newsome (go here to read her blog) and I decided that we didn't want to sit in the house all weekend when it is supposed to be such great weather, so we went in together to rent a car for the weekend! And we got the car for SUCH a great rate. I'm SO excited about all the stuff we will get to do without having to bum rides off of other volunteers (who happen to all be going SKYDIVING tomorrow...crazy butts.) Anyway, just wanted to share that bit of exciting news with you all!
Today ended my first week of Holiday Club with the precious children of Capricorn and I cannot wait to post more pictures and stories. I am in the process of uploading my pics and videos to Photobucket so that you who do not have facebook can see them!
Love each of you and Praying for you!
AC
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
TINA
This Is Not America. TINA. Haha. Just a little joke some of the Americans have going. Thought I would share.
Whew. The past 3 days have been CRAZY! This update is probably going to be long. Fair warning :)
Sunday, I got to go to Capricorn Community Church which, obviously, meets in the community of Capricorn where I am working. It was a WONDERFUL body of believers and I really hope that I am allowed to go back. Living Hope Volunteers are supposed to go to King of Kings Baptist every Sunday which is a fantastic church, but I am hoping to be able to go to Capricorn simply because it's so different than the States and it is, like I said, in the community I work in. I'll be sure to let you know what happens with that. I wrote down what I was thinking during the service just so I could remember the experience well. Let me tell you what I saw in this church.:
1) The people LOVE to sing loud. There were maybe 35-40 people there and I could probably hear every voice. They LOVED singing. They truly meant it too. You could tell.
2) They love to talk to their God. Prayer, I have noticed, is such a huge part of faith here. In every service I have been to we prayed 9-10 times, maybe more. It didn't have to be the time in the bulletin set aside for prayer. And they didn't pray in between two songs that are in different keys to allow the guitarist to move his capo. I'm not bashing these things. I am just saying, prayer is different here. It happens sporadically and often. And I love that they pray for a long time. Sometimes, everyone in the congregation prays out loud. What a powerful thing! I loved when the pastor laid hands on the offering AFTER it had been passed. Two small baskets full of whatever people could give and he blessed it. It was different. And I loved it.
It blessed my heart when the Capricorn pastor brought two of the long-term American volunteers up and asked for people to pray over them. Two men immediately shot up from their seats and you could see it in their faces, they could not wait to intercede on behalf of those two women. It was incredible and I truly felt the Spirit in that place. South Africans LOVE to pray.
After church, Kendra (my roommate here, former Belmont grad, fantastic singer/musician, and a Glee fanatic...yea we aren't much alike at all are we?), a sweet local named Lauren, and myself went to eat at a restaurant called Dixie's. Delicious food, wonderful conversation, and friendships formed. It was a FANTASTIC lunch to say the least. As soon as I got back to the house, I hopped right into another car to head downtown for two reasons. Reason numero uno? Starbucks. There is only ONE starbucks in the whole Cape Town area so some of the volunteers who have been here for quite a while and are also avid coffee drinkers were ecstatic when this starbucks opened up. So we went.
Reason numero dos for going downtown?...Hillsong Church. :) Yep. You read that right. There is a Hillsong plant here in Cape Town that one of the volunteers, Ronnie, goes to every week. So some of us decided to tag along. Joel Houston (songwriter and worship leader for Hillsong Sydney) is here for the week leading worship at a conference and we thought he would be leading, but he isn't until next Sunday. Oh well. I am going to keep my opinions and thoughts on Hillsong Church to myself and simply say that it was an experience. I am glad that I went, but probably will not again.
MONDAY! The first day of Holiday Club and my first day on sight with the children of Capricorn! What a wonderful week it has been. The children are precious and I just want to take them all home with me! Some were really shy at first, but it has been so great to watch them open up and begin to trust us. Others don't speak for other reasons, like language barrier. Some of the children can only speak Afrikaans and very little English, so that has been interesting. I work with the younger children ages 1-7 :) I absolutely LOVE my job. They love learning the songs and Bible stories. In fact, the children are much better than the teenagers about remembering what we learned that day from The Word. The volunteers rotate jobs every day. We all take turns doing games, teaching the memory verse, telling (sometimes acting out...haha) the Bible Stories, and teaching songs. At the end of the day, the children are fed a meal for free. For some of them, this might be the only time they eat all day. Living Hope finds a woman in each community to make the meals everyday and Living Hope provides them the funds to do so. Whatever is leftover (which is usually a lot) she gets to take back to her family. Like I said in an earlier entry, Living Hope is wonderful and pretty much thinks of EVERYTHING. Go to my facebook page to see the pictures I took this week of these precious kids. Hopefully some videos will be up soon as well!
Coloured's and Blacks during apartheid and even since then. This is the first time I have heard someone talk about it. I just learned so much. We talked about missions and what it looks like to go into communities that have so much need, not just for tangible things, but the Gospel; the rough communities, the dangerous communities. We talked about Memphis. Yea. They knew all about Memphis. That hit me hard. We talked about the similarities between Memphis and Cape Town and there are a lot. "The harvest is plenty but the workers are few." Yes? But these are thoughts for another day.
Thank you all so much for your prayers and encouraging words on here and Facebook! Sorry this entry was so long.
Tonight is another big game for South Africa! Bafana Bafana!!!
Praying for YOU,
AC
Whew. The past 3 days have been CRAZY! This update is probably going to be long. Fair warning :)
Sunday, I got to go to Capricorn Community Church which, obviously, meets in the community of Capricorn where I am working. It was a WONDERFUL body of believers and I really hope that I am allowed to go back. Living Hope Volunteers are supposed to go to King of Kings Baptist every Sunday which is a fantastic church, but I am hoping to be able to go to Capricorn simply because it's so different than the States and it is, like I said, in the community I work in. I'll be sure to let you know what happens with that. I wrote down what I was thinking during the service just so I could remember the experience well. Let me tell you what I saw in this church.:
1) The people LOVE to sing loud. There were maybe 35-40 people there and I could probably hear every voice. They LOVED singing. They truly meant it too. You could tell.
2) They love to talk to their God. Prayer, I have noticed, is such a huge part of faith here. In every service I have been to we prayed 9-10 times, maybe more. It didn't have to be the time in the bulletin set aside for prayer. And they didn't pray in between two songs that are in different keys to allow the guitarist to move his capo. I'm not bashing these things. I am just saying, prayer is different here. It happens sporadically and often. And I love that they pray for a long time. Sometimes, everyone in the congregation prays out loud. What a powerful thing! I loved when the pastor laid hands on the offering AFTER it had been passed. Two small baskets full of whatever people could give and he blessed it. It was different. And I loved it.
It blessed my heart when the Capricorn pastor brought two of the long-term American volunteers up and asked for people to pray over them. Two men immediately shot up from their seats and you could see it in their faces, they could not wait to intercede on behalf of those two women. It was incredible and I truly felt the Spirit in that place. South Africans LOVE to pray.
After church, Kendra (my roommate here, former Belmont grad, fantastic singer/musician, and a Glee fanatic...yea we aren't much alike at all are we?), a sweet local named Lauren, and myself went to eat at a restaurant called Dixie's. Delicious food, wonderful conversation, and friendships formed. It was a FANTASTIC lunch to say the least. As soon as I got back to the house, I hopped right into another car to head downtown for two reasons. Reason numero uno? Starbucks. There is only ONE starbucks in the whole Cape Town area so some of the volunteers who have been here for quite a while and are also avid coffee drinkers were ecstatic when this starbucks opened up. So we went.
Reason numero dos for going downtown?...Hillsong Church. :) Yep. You read that right. There is a Hillsong plant here in Cape Town that one of the volunteers, Ronnie, goes to every week. So some of us decided to tag along. Joel Houston (songwriter and worship leader for Hillsong Sydney) is here for the week leading worship at a conference and we thought he would be leading, but he isn't until next Sunday. Oh well. I am going to keep my opinions and thoughts on Hillsong Church to myself and simply say that it was an experience. I am glad that I went, but probably will not again.
MONDAY! The first day of Holiday Club and my first day on sight with the children of Capricorn! What a wonderful week it has been. The children are precious and I just want to take them all home with me! Some were really shy at first, but it has been so great to watch them open up and begin to trust us. Others don't speak for other reasons, like language barrier. Some of the children can only speak Afrikaans and very little English, so that has been interesting. I work with the younger children ages 1-7 :) I absolutely LOVE my job. They love learning the songs and Bible stories. In fact, the children are much better than the teenagers about remembering what we learned that day from The Word. The volunteers rotate jobs every day. We all take turns doing games, teaching the memory verse, telling (sometimes acting out...haha) the Bible Stories, and teaching songs. At the end of the day, the children are fed a meal for free. For some of them, this might be the only time they eat all day. Living Hope finds a woman in each community to make the meals everyday and Living Hope provides them the funds to do so. Whatever is leftover (which is usually a lot) she gets to take back to her family. Like I said in an earlier entry, Living Hope is wonderful and pretty much thinks of EVERYTHING. Go to my facebook page to see the pictures I took this week of these precious kids. Hopefully some videos will be up soon as well!
Coloured's and Blacks during apartheid and even since then. This is the first time I have heard someone talk about it. I just learned so much. We talked about missions and what it looks like to go into communities that have so much need, not just for tangible things, but the Gospel; the rough communities, the dangerous communities. We talked about Memphis. Yea. They knew all about Memphis. That hit me hard. We talked about the similarities between Memphis and Cape Town and there are a lot. "The harvest is plenty but the workers are few." Yes? But these are thoughts for another day.
Thank you all so much for your prayers and encouraging words on here and Facebook! Sorry this entry was so long.
Tonight is another big game for South Africa! Bafana Bafana!!!
Praying for YOU,
AC
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