October

Well hello folks! It has been yet another crazy month, but so wonderful! We again have felt and seen the love and presence of the Lord and His people so strongly over these last weeks. Our spring has begun and things are beginning to turn green. It is amazing how fast once the rains come the grass begin to turn green. It reminds me how the Lord makes things new everyday and refreshes us with His love and mercy.

We had an amazing time during with some of our key leaders in South Africa as well as the country leaders from Zambia, David Malanga and Zimbabwe, Tarisayi Zibanayi. David spent a week re-writing the four training modules to be more consistent and updated. The training modules are Foundations, Strategy, Multiplication and Vision. These are the core of our curriculum at J-Life. Each one has its own focus of Jesus’ life and ministry and how he used his life as a teaching tool for us. The week was amazing to see each group take a module and work, pray and come together. Just watching the groups relying on the Holy Spirit to speak and lead them was a reminder of the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives. We are blessed at J-Life to be a very diverse group with the understanding that we all have a voice and different is not bad, it is just different. Different than maybe what we grew up with, race, language, religious background or social status, but that doesn’t matter. We believe that Jesus died and rose again and forgives you of your sin because we are all sinners. We walk in faith by grace. The work has begun as continues not only on the modules, but in our lives as well.

Acts Family Church Youth (Stokies) have been quite busy this month. They took a mission trip at the beginning of this month to Fort White. The youth also went to a children’s home for our service project. We were so blessed to get to spend the morning with about 10 children who ranged in age from 2 to 13. The children there had been removed from their home for some reason and stayed at this particular home for about 6 months average. One girl, Cornell, was leaving the next day after 10 months to go to an orphanage. They had had trouble placing her because of her HIV status and age. She is positive and 11 years old. She is only in grade 2 because of her situation. I believe in a stable home environment she would thrive and do very well, but like many many like her in South Africa it seems impossible for that to happen.

It is overwhelming sometimes for me to go homes or orphanages like that. I am overwhelmed by gratefulness for my own children and their health, for my parents and family, but at the same time I am asking myself and the Lord what to do about all these children? It simply just breaks my heart. I want to just sweep them all up and take them all home. Why is this the way it is? We have been thinking about and talking about grace, love, mercy, and justice this last month and I wonder to myself what these kids would say about it…To share the love of Christ with them, the love of a Father that maybe they have never known, to show mercy to those who have hurt you…To love the unlovely…to give grace, to show grace, to be grace. Grace in a world that doesn’t understand a gift that can be free.

We want to thank you for all your support and prayers! We are so grateful for all of you who send emails or Facebook messages. It is so encouraging for us to know that you are praying for us and each time we get an email or message it is the Lord’s timing and it is perfect! Thank you for your continued financial support in these continued financial hard days for many of you. We are so blessed!