Day 5: Oh, how He loves us.

A few quick notes before we get started.

1. Again, please feel free to post comments on our blog. They will be shared with the team during our debrief time, and I'm sure everyone here would love to get a note from somebody back home.

2. I realized tonight that every blog has been super long. (Tonight's included.) I'm sorry for the long-ness of all of them, but at least that means God is working and doing so much we don't know what to cut down, right?

So lets get straight into it. Two guest bloggers again tonight; Emily and Jessica:


"For many of us, in the last few days Sweet Home has become our home away from home. Crazy fun kids, who will push one another over to get love and hugs from you, CHE ladies who are invaluable vessels of light to the community, barely-controlled games, energetic bible memory times, and very silly, loud worship songs. It has been a ton of fun! But in addition to VBS, we've also been spending time walking around the community, praying and doing home visits. Yesterday, on our second home visit, a group of us visited a sweet older lady named Faith who was suffering from many types of pain, along with HIV and a fever. Erika wrote about that yesterday.....

Today, however, it got even better. In the midst of the craziness of the day, I was speaking to one of the CHE ladies named Nosizwe who had been at Faith's house praying with us. She said to me, "You know, that lady is walking around the community after being stuck in her home for a month. I stay on that side of Sweet Home and everyone is asking what happened to her. I told her that the Americans prayed for her. They were all amazed because no one would ever go in her house, it is small and smelly and has lots of flies. But what we love about you is that you don't underestimate people. You will go anywhere and pray for anyone. And I have learned something from you: you pray so boldly, you ask God to heal people, and God works. I can't pray that way, but I have learned from you that I want to try to pray that way. But I still have doubt, but I still think that God can not do what I ask him to." Through my tears (having been so blessed by what she was saying to me), I said to her, "Nosizwe, I had so many doubts about God. And I have never seen miracles the way I want to, or heard God speak, but God can handle our doubt. He does not think less of us because we have doubts, he welcomes our doubts and questions, and will still show himself to be loving and powerful." She got an enormous smile on her face, clapped her hands together, grabbed my hands and said, "Thank you, now I can pray that bodly, and can really help the people in my community." We cried together for a few minutes, laughing and rejoicing in the amazing gift that God had just given us in those few moments. I never in my wildest dreams would have imagined that I could have such a tender and transforming moment, in limited English, admist the energy and excitement of Sweet Home VBS, with a woman I met two days ago, in a country I've long dreamed to come to. As an Academy kid said to me the other day, "I am praising God for these moments."

One quick other precious experience from today. There was a 18month old little girl who wandered over to me within the first 10 minutes of arriving in Sweet Home on the first day. She had a severe cold, a snot covered face, and a full ripe diaper - at only 10:00 in the morning. I picked her up, wiped her nose, and she ended up being attached to myself or another team member for most of the day, leaving all of us snotty and smelly! It was heartbreaking know that she just needed a baby wipe across her face, a little bit of baby Tylenol, and a good warm nap to start feeling better. At the end of the day, we had no clue where she went, luckily a child pointed to her house. Yesterday, she was a little better, but today, I was determined to get a smile out of her. During one of our song times, as I was dancing around with her, a teammate finally got a sweet little smirk out of her (which was an amazing interaction in itself), and she pushed her face into my shoulder, laughing as she wrapped her arms around my neck. As I felt her sweet, quick little heartbeat, I felt HOPE....which is something that has been hiding from me while I've been here. It's hard to see light in a place as backward as Sweet Home......but we have all seen it this week....in the bright, smiley faces and strong, wild heart beats of the precious little ones of Sweet Home." -Emily

"Today the after school program held the first of a three day 'Choose to wait' (CTW) program. I admit to having anxiety about being a part of the academy team because I realize the seriousness of the topic of purity and abstinence. This morning before the Sweet Home crew left the academy, I confessed my fears and a few of my fellow teammates prayed for me. The prayed ardently and purposefully and I felt the effects immediately. I felt filled with the Spirit and can't even begin to express in words how supportive this team is of one another.

After some careful planning (I am very 'type A') and brainstorming with the academy team, we had a solid game plan for the hour and a half we had to kick off CTW! We began with a basic introduction; we have a question box available for the students to write down any questions over the next week, the shared that the academy team will be sharing their testimonies over the 3 day program and that we were always available to talk and to pray.

We began with a skit to capture the students' attention- a guy and a girl enter the room with beautifullly wrapped white gift boxes, one tied with a blue string, one tied with a pink string. They walk around the room and eventually bump into things, they progress in their carelessness and trip over their boxes, now filled with anger they bang their boxes on tables and even rip the others box out of their hands. Eventually, this stops and their eyes meet, they enact falling in love and end up walking down the isle. They turn to face one another and pull out their dishelved, ruined gift boxes and stare at the state of one anothers box. The skit ended there.

The skit is obvioulsy representing what happens when one makes poor choices regarding the gift of purity that God entrusts us with. It was powerful to watch even though I knew what would happen and helped our talented actors with the scene. The students seemed to be intregued by the performance. We had a discussion and then made a very strong point in saying that our God is a forgiving God and that when we ask for forgiveness, we are instantly forgiven. Our God is a God of hope and we can be made new in Him. We then pulled out two new boxes, both white, perfect, the way it was meant to be.

Our brave and talented actors were Miranda and Kenny; they have been dating for almost four years, are newly engaged and I am honored to state they have chosen to wait. The Lord somehow orchstrated Kenny's availability today (he was supposed to be off site) and he and Miranda shared their story. They spoke for at least 20 mintues- you could hear a pin drop in the room. The students were enthralled with what they had to say. They were honest about their personal struggles with pushing the limits of their physical relationship but gave everyone in the room hope. I was moved to tears during their testimony about how pushing the physical limits of their relationship hinders their closeness to each other and their closeness to the Lord. They shared how they were friends first and dated secondly. They shared how incredible their relationship is now and how they know their marriage will be blessed by God and that he is pleased with them. I feel honored and blessed to have heard their story and know these students will not ever forget it.

After the testimony, we discussed God's picture for marriage- that a man shall leave his family and be joined with his wife and the two would become one flesh. We broke into small groups and discussed bible verses and why we thought God's design was important. After this we discussed God's priniciples for sex inside marriage. We nicknamed the principles "The 7 P's," which are Physical, Pure, Precious, Powerful and Passionate, a Present, Procreative & Private. We discussed the meaning of each and how sex is viewed inside a marriage. Lastly, we did an activity with them using the keyword and it's defintion. Breaking into five groups, each group was given all 7 P's and their definitions but scrambled. The group that put all seven back in order was the winner. Each definition began with the phrase, "insdie the walls of marriage, sex is..." So the students were hearing that over and over again. It was meant to be a constant reminder that sex is good when in marriage as God designed it to be.

Overall, it was a great and powerful day because God was in it. He was with each and every one of us in that room and I know the Holy Spirit has begun to work in the hearts of the students already. Thank you for your prayers!" - Jess