Oh me, oh my! I can't believe I have already been in Australia for three months! This has been the best experience of my life. I have learned so much and have grown so much in my maturity in general as well as a maturity with God. He has revealed things to me that are unexplainable. He has ruined me for the ordinary. I had to die to myself. I had to learn all about how to have compassion when it comes to people. I made some of the best friends of my life. Lecture phase is done. It was so hard to tell others goodbye in order for us to go on outreach, but it is going to be so amazing for our team as well as all the other teams going out into all the nations!
Base life:
Since lecture phase is over, we had a night called commissioning night. We all got dressed up and had a nice meal together. The leaders on the base wanted to commend all the students and honor them for their dedication to learning more about God but also their dedication to share the love of Christ with people groups all over the world. That night was definitely something that I will never forget. It was so great!
We had so many different lectures since I last wrote a blog. We had lectures on Fear of the Lord, Spiritual Warfare, Missions, and last but not least, Submission and Authority/Unity.
In Fear of the Lord, we learned that we shouldn't have a fear of man or a fear of the unknown, but we should have a fear of the Lord. Having a fear of the Lord simply means to be fully committed to Him and know that He is in control of our life.
In spiritual warfare week, we learned that we have a gate to our hearts and minds. These gates need to be closed at all times in order to resist the Devil. We keep these gates closed by studying in God's Word, praying, and having accountability. We need to flee the Devil at all times and not compromise in our lives because that is how the Devil gets in. Our thoughts have a huge part in this. We need to resist the Devil every time we have bad thoughts.
In Missions week, our speaker showed us how missions isn't just evangelizing by going up to people and telling them about Jesus. Missions is thinking out the box. He showed us a couple of ministries that evangelize through out the box things. Some were photographers, skate boarding, surfing, and a flying car! It was just an eye opener about how missions is not boring at all! We focused that week on injustice issues around the world. It broke my heart how girls are imprisoned into the sex trafficking industry. God also revealed to me that we can talk about it all we want, but nothing will happen unless we get up and do something about this issue of injustice. God showed me that I will one day be freeing women and men from this issue. I am excited and ready for what He has for me with this issue.
The last week, we talked about Submission and Authority/Unity. I seriously thought that this week would be fine and I wouldn't get anything out of it. Well, I was completely wrong. It definitely impacted me. Our speaker showed us how in Unity, if one man goes down then everyone will. We are like a body and each person has their own part of their character that makes us the team. He also showed us that Submission and Obedience are two different things. Submission comes from the heart and mind whereas obedience comes from actions. He gave the example of a child who was told to do something for their parents and did it, but had the worst attitude about it. He said that the child was not submitting. He said submitting goes back to independence. Independence and pride go hand and hand. You think you can do it all by yourself and nobody can tell you what to do, which goes with authority issues. Wow, I was convicted so bad about people that I have obeyed, but I was not submitted and truly obeying authority because of the attitude I would have towards it. It was a huge slap in the face. I am so thankful God showed me that issue that I never saw in my life.
Each week, once again, I learned so much. They were so good. I understand God more and more each week about who He is in my life and how gracious and good He is to me.
Outreach (Africa):
We prepared for outreach by learning more about the places we are going and also learning dramas and skits that we can perform at different churches, orphanages, or even just out in the streets. Every time we met for our outreach meetings, we all were so excited. We left for Lesotho, Africa on Sunday, April 3rd. We had an eleven and a half hour flight to Johannesburg, Africa. We then had a man named Sechaba with the YWAM base in Lesotho pick us up. He told us we would have a 5 hour drive in a taxi bus to Lesotho. I was dreading it because I was just finished throwing my guts up on the plane, now I have to sit in a car and get car sick?! It was so crazy to think that my dream was coming true (For those of you who do not know, God gave me a heart for Africa when I was really young. I have been dreaming of the day I would set foot on African soil. I am still so shocked that that time is now in my life. The week before leaving for Africa, I would cry everyday because it would hit me that my dream was coming true! It is so crazy!), but I was becoming a little hesitant in the beginning due to the fact I was sick. Sechaba brought us to the van taxi thing we would be riding in. Ok guys, I literally started laughing as soon as I saw the van. It was pimped out, it is called "the masterpiece", it had a picture of a woman in a very revealing bikini top on the back window (aka. naked lady), and the trailer looked like a pigs pen with a hitch connected to the front of it. As we were trying to load our stuff, the people would come up and want to take your stuff from you. Sechaba told us not to let them take our stuff or they would want money from you for carrying your stuff. We then got into our "masterpiece" of a van and started to get comfortable. We were so tired and just wanted to sleep the next 5 hours away. It wasn't even 5 minutes of being in the van when all of a sudden the man driving blared this R&B slow sexual music in the car. He then turned on lights in the car that would flash green and pink dots all over the car. I felt like I was at the club. It was so funny. We all broke out into laughter and could not stop laughing. We got a kick out of how the driver only knew how to speak Sesotho (Lesotho's language), but he knew every word to those American songs. It was funny until we realized he was going to blare that music and have those fancy lights on for the next 5 hours! We would start to fall asleep and he would purposefully blare the music louder or turn it down and yell at us in Sesotho to wake up. I don't think i have ever laughed so hard in my entire life! The driver was the craziest driver I have ever rode with in my life! He was going over 105mph the majority of the time. I was so scared we were going to hit a lion or some kind of wild animal! I seriously thought I was going to die! About 3 hours into the trip, we made it to the Lesotho border. By this time it was around 11 o'clock at night. We all had to get out and get our passports scanned. I thought someone was gonna come out with a gun and shoot us. It was super scary! The people would just holler in your face a foreign language. Sechaba would holler back and then look at us with this face of disgust over the border system. We finally were free to go through to Lesotho! Thank you Jesus! We made it to where we were staying sometime after that. Our room we stayed in was so tiny! We put eight people in a 10ft.x10ft. room! It was so crazy! Our toilet was right outside our room. There was no clean water. We stayed two days in that place in Maseru. After the two days, we went to a district called Mohales-hoek. We would be staying there for 10 days in a half-way house they were just developing. When we got there, the people threw their arms around us and told us we were God sent. We felt so welcomed! They had a huge room prepared for us to stay in. The only thing was the toilet. We had to use an outhouse. At night, you could hear the rats squirming around outside as you used the bathrooms. We loved it there though! We got to do different ministries while there. We would go and pray for people in hospitals, visit support groups, and visit the village people.
Hospital visits:
We went twice to the hospital. Their hospital is nothing like an American hospital. They stick 10 people to a room. There are roaches all over the floor. The doctors do not know how to properly diagnose people. When someone is near death, they stick them in the corner and cover that area with a sheet. They don't treat the people; they let them die. They separate the men, women, children, tuberculosis patients, and HIV/AIDS patients in different buildings. In every building, you see malnourished people. It is disgusting to look at sometimes. It is so sad. The HIV/AIDS building isn't even a building. It looks like jail cells. It was just crazy to see the difference between America and a third world country. It was a total eye opener.
Support Groups:
Support groups are made up of children that do not have food to eat during the week. In the villages, there is normally one nice lady that is willing to fix rice and beans and feed the hungry children. We went almost every night during the 10 days we were in Mohales-hoek to a group. We would do a children's program that included playing games, doing dramas/skits, and just loving on the children. It was very hard to leave each support group because we would get so attached to the kids.
Village People:
When we would visit village people, it was more of a door to door ministry except the houses were made of clay and sticks. We would go in the house to talk and pray with them. It was very hard with the language barrier. Sometimes they would ask us to sing for them. There were so many healings that took place during this time! It was so crazy! I would normally cry every time I would enter one of the huts. It's such an eye opener to see how these people truly live. One hut we went into was kept up by a 19 year old girl. Both of her parents died from HIV/AIDS. Her parents left her and her three siblings behind. She didn't have money to provide food for them. She would sell her body in order to get food. It was so sad. While visiting that one village where she lived, I found out that the average age for a girl to get pregnant here in Lesotho is 14-18 years old. Wow, wow, wow! Everywhere you look you see young pregnant girls. It's just so crazy!
One day we had about 60 kids come to where we were staying so we could do a program for them. Those kids touched my heart so much! The 13-16 year old boys loved me so much! I invited them to come over again before we left. When I had to say bye to them for the last time, it was one of the hardest things I have ever done! I have never attached to kids so much. They were the best! The would give you a hug and not want to let go. They would ask you when you would be coming back to see them again.
One of the days we were off in Mohales-hoek, we decided we were going to climb to the top of one of the mountains. On the top of this specific one there was a white cross that you could see from the village in the valley. I seriously thought I was going to die climbing up there. I slipped so many times and wanted to give up. In the end, I pressed on and finally made it to the top. It literally took my breath away that the view would be so pretty....and that I was so tired! Two of the people that we ministered to on the day they came to where we were staying came with us to the top. I remember sitting on the edge of the drop off with the boy that was my age that could barely speak English. I remember saying, "How could someone say there is no God". It looked right over the village. It was just gorgeous! You could see for miles out into the wild.
I have now traveled from Mohales-hoek back to Maseru. I will be here for another two weeks and then I am off to Budapest, Hungary! It's crazy how I have already been here for more than a week and a half. I know that this will not be the last time I will be here! My heart is here and I don't know if it will come back with me. The people in Lesotho have given me a name while I am here. It is Limpho (pronounced like Dimpo). It means many gifts or a gift. They said it is an honor to have a name mean something so special. It doesn't matter where I go, the kids are attached to me. I don't even look at them and they run up in groups and surround me. Yesterday, we went to evangelize at the mall (it's not really a mall, but for Maseru it is) while the people at the YWAM base in Lesotho played music there. At one point I was standing by myself and some kids came and started talking to me. Within 5 minutes I had over 15 kids between the ages of 13-18 all around me. I turned around to find my team and they were all looking at me laughing because everywhere I go, I just attract them! I love it though! I never would have thought that that age group would be the ones that I would feel called to, but I really feel like God is laying that age group on my heart! It's so awesome! Who would have thought that kids would get to me nowadays!
Today, we went to church at a true African church. It lasted over 3 hours. They had an English translator for us. It was so much fun. In Africa, their dancing is so much different than us. They booty pop, but it doesn't mean booty popping here. It's their cultural dancing. They started doing it in church. It was crazy! I loved it though. You could tell the Holy Spirit was definitely there!
God is just so good! It hit me the day before I left for Africa that I am a missionary. It is so ridiculous and crazy that God would chose me at such a young age to go out and spread His Word around to all the world. Yet, He reminded that this is our only duty here on earth. We are here to spread His Word to all the world no matter what age you are. I was talking to one of my friends back at the base in Perth, Australia and we realized that the vision Loren Cunningham (founder of YWAM) had of waves of young people sharing the love of Christ was actually coming true amongst all of our friends at base. It seemed like every two hours there was another ten people leaving to go all over this world to minister from Perth. It was such a bittersweet moment having to tell them bye, but we knew we were going to see each other again before the six months was over.
Sesotho language:
"Hello" means "Dumela"
You say hello to a group by saying "Dumelan"
You say hello to a kid by saying "Ho joang"
"How are you" means "opala joang"
"Good" means "kepela hankle"
I can't think of any other words right now, but when I do, I will make sure to tell all you guys! I miss all you guys and love you guys! I will update you guys as soon I get more time! God is doing great things! I can't wait to see what else God has for Africa, my team, and I.
Well, that is all I have for you guys as of now. I want to thank you for your prayers
