Last, but not least!

A week of adventure and understanding!

Community stays. During this DTS we had a week of staying with a partner in one of the communities that we’ve been working in throughout the schooling. This week was a total out of your comfort zone week and just learning how South Africans go about their daily lives and what struggles they face. The typical day of a South African women is:

1: waking up around 4 or 5 to start their day.

2: Bathe in a small bucket of water, of which they have to fetch almost all the time and sometimes it’s a fairly far walk to get it. While walking home they balance the water on their head.

3: cooking for the children before they have to head off to school by 6 or 6:15. Most kids walk to school and have to leave fairly early to make it on time. There are school uniforms for almost every school as well.

4: spend most of the day cleaning/ shining floors/ cooking/ work around the yard/house. The floor is swept 3-4 times a day or more and work.

5: At 8pm all of South Africa that has a tv stops to watch a show called “Generations”, which is a soap opera or they call it a “soapy”. And then more tv and it’s off to take another bath and go to bed.

During this stay I stayed with Rebekah in Kabokweni along with five other of our students. We all had very unique stays with fun, struggles, and adventure. Rebekah and I actually got to stay in three different house because of some complications with our first home. Our first home was completely gorgeous. We lived up in the bushes away from everyone in a small family almost village like area. In our family there were 7 kids and three adults, a grandpa, a gogo (grandma) and an older daughter. Of the 10 people living in this home one of the adults and three of the children knew English, but were too shy to speak. Most of the night that we stayed with them was talking about how there are blacks that live in the states, they were speechless to know that, what America is like and then sitting on the couch listening to everyone else speak their own language. Later that night Rebekah and I had our first experience of bathing in the community, which consists of about three inches of hot water in a small bucket. Very interesting. We went and visited a neighbor and on the way back realized that some of our next door neighbors consisted of 6-7 males living there by their selves. They were yelling something to the gogo and the daughter in their language. You can only assume so much of what is being said when you’re a white young girl and don’t know the other language. We kind of shrugged it off, but not when it came to sleeping. The family went to bed around 8pm. They stayed in a house down the hill and in Rebekah and my house stayed the children sleeping on the ground in one part and Rebekah and I sleeping in the other room on a bad with a machete knife under the couch to keep safe with. It honestly was a very difficult night for both Rebekah and I. Neither or us fell asleep till 5am and then we were apparently suppose to be up at 5:30am to make breakfast, but since few spoke English that was never communicated to us. We woke up at 6 with all the kids sitting there staring at us with only enough time to make them sandwiches for lunch. After that we left to Elizabeth’s house(a lady that runs a care center/feeding program most days of the week.) to do our feedings for the day. Rebekah and I didn’t stay at the first families home after that due to safety.

Our next home was a family of 8. There were four boys, one dad, one mom, and two daughters. During this stay the father talked to us a lot about America and once again was surprised to know that blacks live in America as well. During this stay I helped one of the daughters dig in the yard and got laughed at because you never see whites working like that, it also happened later when Rebekah and I were grilling chicken; men normally cook the meat. Every night we sat down to watch their famous soap opera that all of South Africa stops to watch. It was pretty interesting, but I guess it’s a lot like America’s soap operas. Towards the end of the week the father was talking to Rebekah and I telling us how proud of his family he was and how they had money. It was nice to hear how proud of his family he was, but a little weird how far he went with it. Soon he told Rebekah and I that we must stay and marry one of his sons and they would take care of us because he had money. We laughed about it for a while but then tried switching the conversation because he kept telling us we must.

Our community stays came to an end and it was honestly sad leaving the families and Elizabeth’s, but the amazing this is how excited we were to get back to the base and see everyone that we hadn’t seen all week. I’ve never seen any of our students and staff so excited to see each other.

Last few days in South Africa:

We leave in the morning for ZAMBIA!!! It’s insane, but I’m super excited. Our team has had some great bonding experiences in the last week or so. Saturday we climbed up Mt. Legogote and had a wonderful time. We started at 5:40 in the morning and didn’t get back to the house until 10:30 in the morning. We’re all pretty tired and sore, but are loving packing and getting ready for the great adventure that we’re about to embark on. We won’t have much internet, which isn’t a big shock for us anyways because internet has been out on base for the past month, but the things God has in store for us there I’m sure we’ll keep us busier than we think. There isn’t much update in what we’re doing in Zambia or Johannesburg since I last wrote about it except for our house is on the water front and we can go swimming 15 minutes away. Girls are not allowed to leave the house without a skirt on that covers your knees, because in Zambia knees are considered a women’s second breasts. Interesting….!

Thank you all for keeping up with my blog and I can’t wait to share all the stories I didn’t put up when I come home! Thank you for those who have supported me and who are still supporting me. This trip has been a life changing trip so far and I can’t wait to see what else is in store for me.

Love,

Breanna

p.s. I would just like to mention a little prayer request. A woman that is very dear to me previously had breast cancer and they thought they had gotten rid of it, but it seems that the cancer has come back. Please lift her up in your prayers.

More Information about Zambia!

So after a two day straight travel to Zambia on a bus, we will stop into Lusaka and change vehicles. From there we will go way up north to lake Tanganyika in Mpulungu (by the borders of the Congo and Tanzania.

Some information about the area:

1. lake Tanganyika is the second largest lake in Africa.

2. longest fresh water in the world and second deepest.

3. 1% christian

4. we'll help with schools

5. visit by boat to village because we'll be living on a lake.

6. youth camp in april that we'll be helping with.

7. the group is called "good news"

Here is our weekly schedule:

Monday: day of fasting. good news school, work, discipleship and prayer.

Tuesday: good news school, work, adult literacy, work

Wednesday: children's ministry, good news school, work, children's ministry, prison ministry, outreach to Mwanangwa village (across the lake, we'll take a boat).

Thursday: good news school, work, adult literacy, work

Friday: Good news school, work, prison ministry, scripture union, work

Saturday: wash clothes(by hand) then free day

Sunday: church, youth meeting.

Here is our daily schedule:

5:30 - personal quiet time

6:15 - breakfast preparation

6:45 - breakfast

7:15 - work/ministry

noon - orphan lunch

12:30 - lunch

2:00 - work

6:00 - super (dinner)

Good news school: paint sign for new location, help in class with activities daily, make materials/resources for classrooms and pupils.

Work on building site of new school

house duties:kitchen, preparing breakfast, cleaning up after every meal, cleaning rooms, lounge, corridor and bathrooms, watering of vegetable and flower garden.

work on medical boat.

visit by boat to village

youth camp april 21-26

Vision:

to see the people living around lake Tanganyika brought into the kingdom of God, worshiping him in spirit and in truth.

Mission:

the approach to impact the people living around lake Tanganyika with the love of Christ will be implemented in the following ways:

prayer: with an active prayer strategy we plan to target the area and the people with the gospel. The soil needs to be prepared and the walls rebuild.

evangelism/church planting: planting self-duplication, self-sustaining, indigenous churches among the least-reached ethno-linguistic groups around the lake. working with existing churches and believers in towns and established areas and support them with resources like the Jesus film, short-term outreach teams, literature and seminars. the conveying of the good news forms the basic foundation from which the total need of communities and peoples will be addressed.

training: equipping spiritual leaders and believers, through leadership training and discipleship, to live out their faith effectively forms a crucial building block in our approach to reach people with the love of Christ.

social: social felt needs must be addressed. the social approach will focus on community development projects in healthcare, nutrition, education, literacy, business, agriculture, care for orphans, post war support and human development training programs.

goal: the goal is to have a holistic ministry so that the spiritual and physical needs of the people are met. the existing lifestyle must be challenged with new values and morals ( a whole new way of life). it should spill over into every area of life and society.

Things we'll possibly be eating ....

1. rats....

2. pap (a mealie meal, kinda like a maze, but half cooked and kinda dry with nothing added)

3. beans or some sort of topping for the pap. (said as pop)

4. bugs .... probably worms...

5. fish, since we live on a lake.

we're not allowed to look people in the eyes because it's a sign of disrespect, also when greeting elders we have to bow to one need and clap three times, then shake their hand. While shaking their half one hand is holding the other elbow, so it's supporting the hand you're using to shake.

this is going to be a very interesting experience. can't wait to share it will you all. i'll up date more when i have more information.

Gods Heart of the Nations

Reconciliation:

What is reconciliation?

- bring together something that was once destroyed. (come back together again)

- sort out things

- changing out "enemy" into friends.

- make something right; peace.

- The act of settling or restoring differences.

- most often, reconciliation means the restoring of a relationship.

- it is a settling or resolving of differences between friends; family; etc.

Different types:

-financial

-relational

-personal

-spiritual

- we are Christ's ambassador's, we need to represent God to the nations.

- we're not taking God to Zambia, he's already there we just need to reveal him.

Ambassador:

1: represent Jesus' nation

2: Image of Christ

3: speaks on behalf of Jesus

4: walk like Jesus walks

Trinity:

-perfect unity

-perfect love

-mutual trust

-harmony

-honor

-diversity/unity

-communication

-they were celebrating one another

-respect

(Rev. 21:22)

Gods original intentions for cultures

-the expressions of the nation help us to understand who God is. (Acts 17:26)

-no single culture can contain his glory (Rev. 21:24-26, ps. 86:9, ps. 22:27-28, Rev. 5:9-10)

-each nation needs each others nation because each nation has a special gift from God.

WE ARE ALL EQUAL

The Process of Reconciliation:

1: Revelation- we need to understand and have a revelation.

2: conviction- true conviction doesn't come w/o revelation.

3: confession- stating the truth

4: repentance- turning from unloving to loving actions, but always being specific.

5: forgiveness- the ability to release to pardon freely.

6: reconciliation- expressing and receiving forgiveness, and pursuing intimate fellowship with previous enemies.

7: restitution- show with more than just words that you are sorry.

What went wrong?

as our journey towards reconciliation continues we need to understand what has led to the prejudices and beliefs that lie in our individual lives and take responsibility for theses things.

however, our need for reconciliation and forgiveness doesn't all stem from wrong choices we have made due to our prejudices and wrong beliefs.

-often things happen to us that are out of our control and cause wounds and pain in our lives. This may be an act, performance by someone to intentionally hurt us, or perhaps the hurt has been caused intentionally.

but where do we learn our prejudice from?

Prejudice: a pre-conceived idea. w/o experiencing it first hand.

8 things/or/ people we got it from.

1: adam. (rom. 5:12-21) all come short off the glory of God

2: continent

3: nation (bad thoughts the nation sends out and you conform to it)

4: culture/ ethnic group (things you were taught)

5: forefathers (passed on good and bad things to you. eg: racism, habits, raising techniques, religion. etc)

6: Family (tight unit)

7: life experiences

8: faith and religion

It's not just sin that influences you. it's all the xperiences through these 8 things that shape what you think and how you act.

These things happen, but it's God's word that stays true. These are the roots of the tree. It one is poisoned you'll have poisoned fruit. Once you change the root belief the fruit will change as well.

What kind of fruits are people picking up from you?

8 things you need to know:

1: the call. we all have been called to be involved in reconciliation. it's mandatory.

2: commitment and relationships. reconciliation is built upon the foundation of committed relationships. It involves conflict resolution.

3: Intentional. is the purposeful, positive and planned activity that facilitates reconciliation. It requires perseverance.

4: sincerity. is the willingness to be vulnerable, including self-disclosure of feelings, attitudes, differences, and perceptions, with the goal of resolution and building trust. It involves trust and transparent. (People will only open up as far as you do.)

5: sensitivity. is the intentional acquisition of knowledge in order to relate empathetically to any diverse situation, person, place or organization. It involves knowledge and understanding.

6: sacrifice. the willingness to relinquish and establish status or position to genuinely adopt a lesser position in order to facilitate diverse relationships. Reconciliation will cost.

7: empowerment. the use of repentance and forgiveness to create complete freedom in diverse relationships. It involves repentance and forgiveness.

8: interdependence. recognizes differences, but realizes that each offers something that the other need, resulting in equality in the relationship. Reconciliation involves equality.

Forgiveness

1: forgiveness is a command. to the degree that we are willing to forgive is tot he degree you'll receive the Lord and His forgiveness.

2: unforgiveness locks you up.

-matt. 18:23-35

- we seek to be forgiven but want to hold onto the offense.

- unforgiveness gives satan a chance to slip into your life.

3: unforgiveness blocks the promises that God has for us.

- mark 11:25

- God instructs us to forgive before we pray.

- in order to move in faith our hearts must be tight towards others.

4: unforgiveness manifests in 3 areas of our lives.

1. physical and mental illnesses

2. it opens to a root of demonic strongholds in your life

3. it always effects both parties. you're tired with a "rope" with the other person that there is no forgiveness with. Forgiveness is first for you, so you can be free. The moment you let go of that "rope" unforgiveness, it opens a door for God to convict that other party.

My Story

A couple weeks back we had a speaker, peter, that was suppose to speak on Father Heart of God, but failed to do so. Many people on our team felt there was nothing good about that week and so did i until this we had Wilson Gueda come and speak to us about reconciliation. During peter's week he had us right a letter to God about our parents, whether is was good or bad, but he never did anything about that letter after we wrote it. I Got really angry because while writing that letter God brought up so many feelings about my past with my parents that i thought i had taken care of and forgiven them for, but in reality i really don't believe i had. So, when Wilson got here and explained what reconciliation was i instantly knew that that week was going to be very tough, and really... i didn't want to deal with it. In the middle of the week some girls were talking in class about some things they were facing and i started crying when the first girl was talking. I thought weird, i'm crying, but i usually cry sometimes when others cry. not sure why. Then Wilson said is there anyone else that would like to share and another girl started talking and i started to cry uncontrollably and i realized that i wasn't crying because they were crying, i was crying because i was so tired of holding in all my feelings and emotions about what my parents had done and i had never dealt with it. I knew i had two options, 1: get up and go out of class and deal with it on my own because i knew i wouldn't stop crying. 2: tell Wilson about it and the whole class hear what i had to say. As i was feeling like i needed to get up and leave the room wilson came over and placed his hands on my knees and said, "my dear i believe there is something you need to share." right when he said that i completely lost it and cried for a while. I was finally able to calm down a little to share and when i did Wilson made me sit in a chair in the middle of the room and look one of the leaders in the eye and pretend they were my parents and name specifically all the things they had done that i needed to forgive them for. After i did this i couldn't do anything but cry and hard and loud cry. I couldn't believe that all of that had come up. Things i didn't even think would effect me much effected me soo much and it just came spilling out. In the end i forgave them and so much peace overcame me and my body. Yes there is still hurt and yes i won't really forget what happened, but i can have peace about it. It doesn't mean that feelings aren't going to come up ever again, cause they probably will. But i dealt with such a big part of my life that day that so badly needed to be dealt with. This is my story, and it's a great one:)

A caption of the week:

Last week our team went to an Orphanage to help build a prayer tent, work on the jungle gym, and to play with the few kids. The hope of this orphanage is to place the kids in there that can't be placed into the community for any number of reasons. While we were there i of course played with the kids:) Although we have a language barrier because none of the kids spoke english, except one. His name is Pedro and he actually knows some Portuguese. All the other kids run around saying, "Como estas" it's cute. While we were there we played with several different kids, but two of them caught my attention. You could see so much pain behind their eyes and you just knew their life had been horrible beyond anything. Another girl and i talked to one of the head people and she kinda brought up what had happened to the two kids, which happened to be brother and sister. She said that the little boy had been abused, but the little girl, whom is 10 but looks 6 or 7, was sexually abused, raped, and just plain abused. The mother was a drunk and the dad was a drunk, an abuser, and a rapist. He had sexually abused and raped Tandeka, the little girl, and made the brother hold her legs for him. Tandeka was so abused that her bones have literally altered. I don't think i have ever had so many emotions run through my head. I wanted to cry. I was so angry to know that someone could ever do that! I would love for you all to pray for these two young children and all the others out there that are experiencing this same thing. It's horrible and really needs to be stopped, but how? Tandeka and her brother are kept at the orphanage and will not be released back into the community because it's too much of a risk. She has had court against her father, but with South Africa it's hard to know if anything will happen even though they have a ridiculous amount of evidence. The father keeps showing up at the school, which messes with the kids and their behavior. Just please pray the siblings and especially Tandeka. It's heart breaking to know there isn't much we can do.

Busi Malatji

Onto a little bit brighter things, every Thursday we go to a little community called Dwaleni to do a feeding and play with the children. This week there were sooooo many! It was the best ever! The little girls attack all of us with long hair and braid our hair. i seem to get cornrows everytime:) But as we were getting ready to go a young girl by the name of Busi Malatji came up to me and gave me a note. She said, "Please read and write back." I have never seen her any time that we went to Dwaleni, but she found me and gave me this note, which reads:

"Hi my friend,

I like to say with you welcome to

the new years day 2010!

I love you my friend

you are the one friend

with me.

you are the good friend.

i hope you love me and you hope i love you.

Remember Jesus loves you.

your friend,

Busi Malatji"

That was the sweetest note i've ever read. She's a very sweet girl, but with a lot of spunk. She kinda reminds me of Kim a little.

Purpose/Frans Cronje

Ok, so this last week our speaker was amazing! My team and i had the privilege of having Frans Cronje come as a speaker. Frans Cronje is the producer of "Faith Like Potatoes" and a couple other movies that still haven't been released to the US from South Africa. He use to be a professional cricket player, but later felt like God was calling him to produce movies and is working for Global Creations now. If any have been involved with watching cricket, his younger brother, Hansi Cronje, was the top captain of the South Africa cricket team, but died of a fatal plane crash on June 1, 2002. Frans' second movie is called "Hansi" and it's a story of his brothers life and the challenges and "desserts" he's gone through. This week he talked on Purpose. What is our purpose? How do we go about it?

"What you tell people you are is not important, it's how you live out who you are that's important."

Success-

1. Know your purpose

2. Fufil your purpose

3. it needs to make a difference to others; serve others.

Discover purpose-

1. what are you good at

2. how have you already changed peoples lives; helping

3. what would you do even if you didn't get paid? (passion)

When you start your journey of your purpose you are ALWAYS going to end up in some sort of dessert, trial, problem but always look forward. don't look behind and see "the ship sinking" because you are surly going to sing a long with it.

When you're in the dessert:

1. remember your purpose/calling

2. continue to do the right thing/or/repent of the wrong things.

3. plow-don't sit around and do nothing.

Frank Rautenbach

Frank is the main guy in Faith Like Potatoes. During this last week Frans video called him in the middle of class and we got to personally talk to him about his adventures and what he's done in his career. He said a quote that made so much sense to me, "you dont' have time to negotiate. don't give yourself even a second to talk yourself out of it." generally when we give ourself any time to think about things, we don't do it. just do it.

We touched on dreams. no dream is impossible. if it's for the glory of God, it's not impossible. You need the 3 P's.

Planning:

the conception stage. you need to dream, but it must not replace God's spirit. plan how you want it and have a couple different plans. things change, be open to plan b, c, d; etc.

Preperation:

prepare for the "birth". what do you need to make your dream come true?

Performance:

give birth to that idea! make it happen!

The past couple weeks have flown by sooo fast, but they have also been and difficult all at the same time.

I've found that i'm still pretty homesick because there's a lot of time at night to think. I'm loving every second of the things we do and encounter. We're working in three different communities working with kids, doing feedings, prayer walks through the community and prayer in general. I'll probably butcher the names spelling wise, but they're mboneswani, dwalani, and kobaquani. We hope to go to some aids hospices and work with hospitals. on out reach we may even be able to work in prisons and get a taste of all different ministries. Our week days are mainly just class, but three or four times a week, if the weather is good to us, we get to work in the communities. Recently we kinda have just been playing with the kids and helping with feedings so that we can get a sense of what's going on and create bonds with the children.

As far as settling in, i think i've said before that there are ten girls living in one room, pretty small and we're sharing one bathroom. we've been doing pretty good with it, but it's only been three weeks so we'll see :) i love all the girls here and the boys are awesome as well. i'm very blessed with a great and wonderful team. We have found that the girls stomachs have not quite adjusted to the food and everything. we have had pop (it's a dried cornmeal kinda) sooo much that it's kinda sickning, but we have to get over it. :) We have gone to the mall quite a few times and have found that we're quite sick of it ... we want markets. Lot's of taxi rides have been taken. it's great to experience the culture and the different ways of getting around and everything. Today i had my first bee sting ... glad i'm not allergic. so far we have only had one time that we had to take someone to the hospital and it was only because of tick fever. It happened to be the girl that is most scared of bugs and is a nurse. she was freaking out about how clean the hospital was (not really clean). we give her a hard time about bugs a lot:) she's great and takes the humor well.

We got to go on a safari a week or so ago and it was one of the best experiences of my life. Kruger park is the biggest national safari. it goes clear into Mozambique! But we were on the safari from 5:45 am to 4:45 in the afternoon and still didn't get through the whole park. We saw all the the big 5 (elephant, water buffalo, rhino, leopard, and lion) except for a leopard and a close up rhino. There were lots of lions laying on the side of the road. It's mating season for them, so it's easier to see them, but not too often. It was a great experience and i would do it over and over again!

there really isn't much more to say at this time, but i'll update again soon. And aslo i will have links to the other kids blogs so you can see what they say, also they have pictures up and soon we'll have a video up of our team and you'll get to see everyone :)

love you all and thank you for your support.

OUTREACH!!!!

so for outreach we're going to deep deep deep rural Zambia for the first four weeks. it's a two day trip on a bus... we're all excited .... ok maybe not. haha. The next couple weeks we'll be in Johannesburg. We're not sure on either one what all we'll be doing, but it's a focus with the kids and more, but it's hard to say at this time. We'll be visiting vic falls, which we're all super excited about! it's going to be a great experience and i'll update you more as we get more information. Please pray for finances! The cost is about R20,000. In US that's about $2,675.00. Currently is have R6,502.00 and in US that's $836.10. So i'm still in need of $1,734.10. So please please please keep that in your prayers that i would be able to make the money by April 12th. Thank you all for your support. i love and miss you all very much.

Last two weeks

"If it matters to me or is important to me, than it matters to God and is important to God."

In the past couple weeks we have talked about world view and father heart of God.
The first week, World view, we talked about the four different views: Animism, secularism, biblical,fatalism, and evangelical gnostasism (spelling).

World View:
Interprets, explains and defines the world. reveals and even determines knowledge, reality and existence, values, and morals.

Biblical:
-an unlimited and personal God.
-created us in His image with great and creative abilities and we have immense VALUE!
-He made one world (no secular and spiritual division).
-He put us on earth with plenty of food and ways to take care of ourselves. We are to have dominion(power) over creation (not creation over us).
-The universe is both physical and spiritual.

Fatalism:
is the sense that "what ever will be will be"
they believe "we are poor because our for fathers were poor" "just surviving mentality"
God has a purpose for our lives beyond survival. We have HOPE for today.
CORAM DEO: We are to LIVE before the face of God 24/7.
We are allowed to believe what ever we want to believe, but what consequences will it have?

Secularism/Humanism:
-The universe is all there is (only physical, no spiritual)
-Materialism, atheism, Darwinism.
-What is real: no God, but nature: if you can touch, see, taste, and smell it, then it's real.
They believe is there is no God i can live how ever i want and not give account to anyone in the end.

Animism:
-The world is ultimately spiritual. no reliance of physical.
- What is real: spirit, the physical is an illusion-not real; eyes playing a trick on you.
-don't ownership of what they have. it has no importance.


One of my favorite teachings during this week was the "ideas have consequences" tree.

-Roots = our beliefs
-Trunk = our values
-Branches = our behavior
-Fruit = Consequences

Everything above is going to represent your beliefs. You can keep picking the fruit off that is "bad", but it will keep coming back if you don't take care of the roots; your beliefs. The fruit ultimately displays what is at the roots.

Some good quotes that were mentioned during the week:

"God doesn't need you to prove he exists, he doesn't need your help. Your job is to extend an invitation."

"Arguments don't win people, relationships do."

-Truth is knowable because God is personal.
-Truth is objective because God is the only perfectly objective(infinite) being in the Universe.
-Truth is constant because Gods character doesn't change.
-Truth is absolute (w/o a doubt, nothing can prove it wrong)
-Truth brings Freedom-it's REAL, practical, DOABLE, livable, safe. (does not weigh you down)

Don't let your purpose become your passion-How?
-Love God supremely
-Pursue excellence
-Take risks(don't fear failure) this last week we went into Mbonsweni and did a prayer walk and had to walk up to random strangers and ask if we could pray for them. we were split up into groups of four or five and our group took the risk of walking up to a soccer team and asking to pray for them. We didn't know if we could get rejected or not, so we took a risk.
-Connect with a community of FAITH.

This last week was Father Heart of God. I'll explain as much as i can, but this week was kinda disappointing because the speaker really didn't touch on the Father Heart of God, but this is what i have:)

-You can only have a concept of God that you are willing to live up to. So for example: If God is love and i don't live up to loving my neighbor, it will limit me in understand God and living Him out. What we live out is what our concept of God is.

Heart: most inward place, absolute secret place (thoughts, feelings, emotions, intentions, and motives) but some of this is hidden to us and only God knows.

Love: love IS a CHOICE!! not a feeling. Love is an emotion, a willingness to do what is best no matter what.

The opposite of love is selfishness; doing it for yourself. Sin is also a choice; moral decision of disobedience.
We have he capacity like God to GIVE and RECEIVE LOVE.

Bad things happen, but therefor He lets consequences happen so that we learn from errors.

who influences our lives?
-God
-angels
-satan
-others
-own choices/desires
-circumstances


In order to have CHOICE God had to create the POSSIBILITY to SIN.
For God to be consistent in who HE is and says HE is, he can't intervene in free-will that he has given us. So he can't stop bad things from happening, HE can, but WON'T because it would lie about his character.

-If God is a God of love, then why does he allow suffering?
* if we never suffer, we can't comfort others.
*suffering can strengthen character
*Roman 17:8- Eternal Glory out weighs suffering.
*The one that has the deepest and most suffering is God.

"People do not care how much you know until they know how much you care."

Finally, the Cross:

-an atonement for sins
-allowed God to be merciful and just at the same time
-it was the sin offering which replaced all other sin offerings
-it was the greatest demonstration of LOVE that eternity has EVER seen.
-it was a ONE TIME visual demonstration of Gods grieve over sin.

Grieve: emotional suffering proportional to intimacy that is lost.

couple last notes:
-true love is ALWAYS unconditional
-the more you love, the more it hurts when it's lost. the more you understand the deeper your desire for intimacy and the greater is your emotional suffering when you lose it.
-the more you love the more you value the relationship. the more you value the more you love.
-when you have greater understanding, you can have compassion.
-the standard of biblical beauty is in your body.
-Jesus died of a broken heart. not anything physical, but all emotion. our sin.

Sorry i don't know if this is the same address that i already have written down, but here is the address to write letters (which are very much appreciated) and care packages:
P.O. Box 4450
White River, Mpumulanga
South Africa 1240

and if this post disappears i'll have it in the interests side on my page.

So i'm finally in Africa. it actually was two days of traveling to get here instead of the one that i thought it was going to take. so i missed my shuttle and had to pay for a new ticket. But i'm finally here and kinda really homesick, but i'm sure things will get better as we start up with things. Tomorrow is the first day of school and i'm kinda excited. tonight we went to a bri (pronounced bry) which is a form of a bbq. i'm already getting sick, but hey, what's new? i know i can stick it out for this DTS, but i wasn't sure at first. i wanted to come home in the worst way, but things are a little better now. We have a total of 15 people on our team. As far as girls, because i haven't really been around the guys, there are two Canadians, three from texas, one from Switzerland, one from Pennsylvania, two south africans and then as far as the boys i know there are five of them and one is from switzerland and three are from south africa, but i don't remember the last one. we may be going on a Safari Friday, so that's exciting:) so there is my first little update. please pray for getting better and not being homesick.