With a confused heart

Hello my friends and supporters of all kinds.  The last couple of weeks have been difficult at the school I "volunteer" at.  The deal was I volunteer and the kids get scholarships. Well, last week I was called in and told there had been changes to SARS (South African Revenue Service) ie...tax man. And it's no longer legal for me to volunteer and my kids still remain getting scholarships. So we waited and waited and waited.

Today, I met with on the head HR guys at our school corporation and our head bursar. And, tomorrow is my last day at Waterstone College. It is with a heavy heart because I will miss all the relationships I have built over the last 4.5 years and miss the kids. One the other side, I am quite excited to see what the Lord has planned for the next stage of my missionary life.  The kids will continue to get scholarships this year and Matthew was offered one for his final year next year. Grace will need to apply or we are considering homeschooling.  Please be in prayer as we transition.

Romans 6:33-34 What you should want most is God's kingdom and doing what He wants you to do. Then he will give you all these other things you need. So don't worry about tomorrow. Each day has enough trouble of its own. 

Love 

Extension 23 ACTS Family Church and J-Life 6 Week interns

Last week was a fabulous week for Grace and me. We got to help out at a local church that partners with J-Life quite often. We also got to work with the six week interns that are here with J-Life for 6 weeks of the summer/winter depending on your hemisphere. We started off the week with about 95 kids and ended the week with almost 200! As word spread we were there giving a Holiday Bible club the more kid came. It was such a great time to see our J-Life young adults take charge in an unfamiliar environment as well as to watch Grace work with them.  We had about 8 young adults from the church helping with us. They were a tremendous help because many of the kids, especially the little ones, don’t speak English. 

The daily schedule was to gather the kids. The first few days we walked the streets to get the kids letting them know we were at the church. Next we would circle up and have warm-up get ready games as everyone was arriving. Then we moved the kids into age groups. Then we would take turns at each station, being games, crafts, music, and such. Then we would gather them all into the church for singing. It was loud and beautiful! Young people and kids praising the Lord were beautiful. Then a lesson for the day would be given and interpreted, of course. Then we broke up into groups again to do a main craft for the day. Then snack time which consisted of chips or oranges.  One of the days the kids got oranges one of our interns noticed the kids were kicking the oranges down the street. She asked if they were being ungrateful or not liking the fruit. But our leader said no, the kick them to make the juice more so they can open a hole at the top to drink it. Just a difference in cultures. This is a small example of ways that people are different. The Lord loves us all.  After snack, the kids would go home. We would debrief the day and have lunch.  It was such a terrific week. Tiring but terrific. We saw the Lord work in kids through just loving them. On the last day, we presented the gospel with the gospel bracelets for craft.

Pray that fruit will bear out of that time. Most all of it was done by our young adults from the church in Zulu so the gospel would be clear and understandable. We were so blessed to be there last week. 

Missionary Monday 5

Today we have 2 exciting things happening....First a guest writer....David Even. YES folks, you got it right. My husband wrote this blog about the second exciting thing....GOD THINGS happening in Burundi. 

Burundi? you ask...where the heck is Burundi and what is God doing there....Well first a geography lesson. Burundi is in East Africa just south of Rwanda and west of Tanzania and east of Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).  Who is in Burundi? you ask....Bosco. His picture and story are below.

Bosco in Burundi Mar 2015 through Mar 2016

His name is Jean Bosco Mutebutsi, he likes to be called Bosco. Until about two months ago he lived in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Bujumbura, the capital city of Burundi. Burundi held its national elections early in 2015. Following the results of that election – total chaos…! Rioting and killings were the order of the day – every day.

While Bosco was with us for our annual Summit he was hearing from his friends back in Burundi. A great number of his friends were leaving the country. They were all telling him “do not come back here, it’s not safe”. One of his friends even managed to secure a flight for Bosco so he could leave directly from the airport to Rwanda.

But after much prayer Bosco was sure the Lord was telling him to stay. So he stayed. The rioting and killing continued all around him. But he was able to make more progress than he had before! He has added good, committed people to his team and they have gone into new regions to train the church leaders in disciplemaking. In short, he has seen a great increase in fruit because he was obedient and stayed where the Lord put him.

We have since been able to help him move to a somewhat safer location and the rioting and shootings have diminished.

Please pray for Bosco and his team to continue seeing fruitfulness in the work of the Kingdom to which they’ve been called.

Missionary Monday 4

This week's Missionary Monday is about a new country to J-Life, Sierra Leone. We are so excited to have Nelson Coulson from Sierra Leone come and train with us for the first 6 weeks of this year. We are so thankful for the Lord who puts connections and people together for the furthering of His kingdom. 

Nelson's story of how he came to know about J-life is only one that God can orchestrate. He was walking along the road one day feeling very down and despondent. His walk with the Lord was not where he wanted it to be.  A big wind came up and this flyer flew into his body. So he grabbed it and put it in his pocket. Later that evening, he reached in his pocket to find this flyer that spoke of youth ministry and discipleship. The flyer was about GYI (Global Youth Initiative) which J-Life is a part of this organization. So he contacted the name on the flyer and they said there is a man in Ghana that you can speak to about discipleship and youth ministry in Africa. This was Palgrave, our country leader. Because of the ebola break out, they were delayed in meeting, But the Lord used this flyer about GYI to connect Nelson to J-Life. I think of all the testimony flyers we have handed out over the years on mission trips with Grant and think that God uses those pieces of paper. 

• Pray for Nelson and his wife Juliana
• Pray for the ministry to spread throughout Sierra Leone 
• Pray for Nelson to implement what he learned in the 6 weeks in South Africa
• Pray for Palgrave as he continues to journey with Nelson

Missionary Monday 3

This week Missionary Monday is about Florence and Leo Fokoua. Florence is the country leader of Cameroon. They have been with J-Life since 2008.  Cameroon was one of our first northern French speaking African countries to come to J-Life. Florence and I became fast friends at summit in 2009. She is joy to be around. She exudes the love of the Lord. I affectionately refer to her as the queen and Leo the king. I don't know where it came from, but as you can maybe see from their picture, they are royal members of Christ's family.  Florence and Leo have 3 daughters, Gladys (20), Ariel (14) and Jodie (10). Gladys is an adopted member of their family. If you are in youth work long, you know that eventually you have adopted sons and daughters. We have many from over the years. Florence has a vibrant ministry that reaches beyond the borders of Cameroon. She is a champion for J-Life and our French speaking countries.

• Pray for Florence and Leo and the girls 
• Pray for the new ministry center being built
• Pray that Florence would continue to reach the youth of Cameroon and beyond

Whatcha doing end of September?

The trip is for ladies only (sorry gents) and it's a regular sort of mission trip. Here are some of the things we are thinking of doing. Visiting an orphanage, helping with a feeding scheme, doing holiday club (since it's the holidays here), visit a women's health clinic, maybe light painting or other such things. We will be in and around Heidelberg/ South Johannesburg area. We are hoping to nail down dates this week and start working on the cost. I would imagine somewhere around $2000. Don't let the money stop you. We can have fundraisers and ask some of those who can't go but want to be a  part to give. If God is leading you....there is no question about money. We will stay at the beautiful Camp Eden (international home of J-Life) or 'the farm' as we lovingly refer to it pictured above. These are some of the details I know of at this point. OH, the dates are end of Sept/beginning of Oct. Please email me at evenfamily5@gmail.com if you're interested or want more info.

Serving together, Liz

Missionary Monday

ok, so the new series is here and i am going to feature one of our J-Life Country leaders or a Regional director. I am going to start with a Regional Director and then the countries surrounding him and then move on to another region.

 

This is Mgliwe (mmm-glee-way) Simdinatome from Togo. Which is located in West Africa. You can see it's a very small country located between Ghana and Benin. It is a French speaking country.

Mgliwe's wife's name is Rhoder. His kids name's are Fidele (6), Hilaire (4) and Percee (2). Mgliwe came to know about J-Life at a Lausanne Conference held in Cape Town. Miah and Michelle Collins were working with J-Life at the time and they were in attendance. Michelle was assigned to the interpretation for the French speaking people. They needed another interpreter or something to that effect and Michelle met Mgliwe. They began to talk about what they did and Mgliwe shared his passion to to make youth disciples in French speaking Africa. This, of course, is what J-Life does. This is our mission. So the next January, Mgliwe came to be apart of our training. He then began to build a team in Togo and teach them what he had learned. Mgliwe works very hard and is passionate about the gospel being made known and making Christ-following disciples who will make disciples and so forth. Many of our team members from the French speaking countries in that region have come to work with us through Mgliwe and his influence. Mgliwe has now trained Ben, who will one day transition into being Togo Country Leader. Mgliwe is the Regional director for French speaking West Africa. 

• Please pray for Mgliwe to have wisdom and strength to manage his time with his work and family. As you can see, he has 3 wonderful little ones who need his attention. 
• Pray for his ministry and his leadership in the ministry.   
• Pray for his wife as she helps with the ministry.
• Pray for continued favor in the expansion of the ministry.