Start with me Lord...

Sitting at my desk, a normal day begins with team prayer. We ask the lord to bless the day and for our eyes to be opened to all He is doing. It's 8am soon enough and our doors open to our sweet neighbours who are in need of food and clothes. We hand out food to each person once a month, and clothes and hygiene items are given once a week. This day is particularly busy and I know that I am not going to have many quiet moments to start answering emails. 

I go out of the office and into the lobby to pick up the slip of paper dedicated to the next person. I see their name and what they are able to receive on this day. Let's call this person Cassandra. I see that Cassandra needs food and clothes today, so I say hello as I call her name to come to the clothes shop with me. She seems shy, but happy to be with me. We make polite conversation and look around the 

food first. She needs every item from each food category. She is allowed three cans of vegetables, so she picks two cans of sweetcorn and some mixed veggies. She likes sweet corn and has a plan for how she will use it. We find some clothes that not only fit her, but that she likes. The blue, flowery, long-sleeved top is her favourite. She also gets two pairs of jogging bottoms, which she is excited about, as they are not only comfy, but also warm for the cold weather coming. Once we make sure she has everything she needs, we sit down to pray together. 

As we start to pray, I say to her what I say to every person who comes for our 'Hands and Feet' ministry. 'It's not just the stuff that God provides; you are a part of our family and we want to know how you are and how we can pray for you.' Cassandra starts to talk about how she needs a stable place to live. I hear this often, and it's not that I don't want to pray without ceasing about this for every neighbour, but I also care so much about her heart and how I can pray for that. So I start digging deeper. She then says quietly, 'Please pray as the doctor says I don't have HIV anymore.'

I take a moment to make sure I understood. I sit back and repeat her words, said in a southern accent through my head. I must have got that wrong, I think.  

'What do you mean, Casandra?' 

'The doctor took some blood and I went for the results and she said I don't have HIV no more, cause I got raped and I had HIV, but now I don't have it no more; that is why I am putting on weight.'

At this moment, Miss Amy walks up to her to embrace her and ask her how she is doing. Again Cassandra talks about her everyday life. I interrupt, I ask her to repeat to Miss Amy what she just told me. 

She does so. 

Amy and I smile at each other as Amy goes on to ask, 'How can that be Cassandra?! That's impossible!' 

'Well, it's because I asked God every day and then He came and I don't have HIV no more.' She says it so simply like it is an every day event. 

I pray that it becomes one. 

Come 9:30am, I start emailing our sweet future visitors until a volunteer comes in to help out for the morning. I plug her in and talk a little about the ministry. I tell her about what just happened and doubt enters into my head. I repent to my Lord Jesus in my head, before I get her settled with organising clothes. 

The week moves on and becomes busy, I once again notice that I have to fight off being overwhelmed. I lose that simplicity that Cassandra has, as a child who knows who her God is. I pull away and lose track of who I am in Him through the everyday things. 

Thursday night, we go and pray over a fellow missionaries' house in a nearby street. And she has this hanging in her house. 

It was like a slap around the face from God. How I love those slaps and I pray He does it each day. Seriously. When I am serious about finding Him in it all, wanting Him more than anything, He will be there for me. Always. And I won't be disappointed. 

I believe that Cassandra prayed daily and was serious about finding God in her healing. I also notice that I am not always serious about seeking Him in the stressful moments of fighting off being overwhelmed. Being overwhelmed by the need is something that I actually can't do without my God, so I don't know why I sometimes try! 

Jesus, may I seek you daily with a pure intention. May I be like Cassandra who '...is clothed with strength and dignity; she can laugh at the days to come' Proverbs 31v25, in each moment of each day. Because I know there is a place in your presence I have never been before, I am want to go as I go deeper with you Lord! 

Thank you Jesus for allowing me to minister to this neighbourhood. But also, thank you, God, for always teaching me. For showing me how to go low and slow, putting my heart in a mouldable place for you to do your thing! 

Lord, I surrender all to You once again. Teach me daily Your ways. Make me get serious about You! 

                                                           


                                                             Staff retreat November 2016

Such a privilege to love on our sweet

children

Thanksgiving

2016

Adventures in His love...

Jesus overwhelms me daily. As I sit with our neighbours listening to them sing praises of how good God is, or when I am writing an email to a lady who is coming to visit just because God told her to, so she instantly obeys. When I sit and write thank you cards to each person who supports and cheers on ‘We Will Go’, praying over each card and getting revelation on what God thinks about each one.

When I sit in a country that isn’t my own and I wonder in the mysteries of how He got me here. When there is beauty in the ashes of this place I now call home. I sit and try to fathom how good God is, but it is just not possible.

I kept my bags packed and sat waiting for God to do his thing 20 minutes from Heathrow. I had no idea how He was going to do it and I didn’t have any control. My faith was being exercised and stretched. Learning to submit and give to Him my whole life, being complete in Him.

Somehow I was on a plane and God gets all the glory. I am thankful for each person who gave to me out of obedience and I have no words for the generosity of you all, my friends. I pray for each penny in my account to be pure and only to be given out of obedience to God, and then I likewise spend each penny in obedience to God. So it is because of this, that He gets every bit of glory! He is a good, good father.

I am learning about His love and how to revel in His glory during my everyday life. There are times I get tempted to get down or stressed, but He always brings me back to Him. I am learning about His beauty in staying face to face with Him as I hand out clothes and do our children’s program. How to worship him in the hard times when I am hungry and tired, yet there is so much need in front of me. And how to worship Him in the good times, such as when one of our sweet neighbours gets healed from HIV!

He is with me and loves me so deeply. He has been talking to me about how I can let Him love me as much as He wants to love me. It can be so easy to place all our hurts and selfish ambitions in a place inside ourselves that God can’t touch. To get busy in the every day and not stop for our heavenly Daddy, but He wants all of me! He wants me to surrender all to Him and He wants to love each part of me! Even the parts that I think are ugly and worthless. He desires all of me to be close to Him, allowing Him to give me beauty for ashes. How often do I hold on to what I shouldn’t? 

I am praying for this city, for this nation and for all nations. But I ask Him to start with me. As much as it can hurt, He is worthy of it all! So may I give it all to Him!