Welcome to Worcester

Well, we made it to Worcester safe and sound. Worcester is probably the most beautiful place that I've been to in South Africa. We're literally right in the middle of the mountains. God is such an incredible artist. I've taken TONS of pictures that I'll upload when I get back to Durban.

This is week has been ridiculously awesome. There's about 300 YWAMers with us on the Worcester base. Many different nations. Many different languages. Many different skin colors. It's great. God has seriously touched my heart through worship in the past 2 days. You know the really intense times of worship where you can FEEL God's presence? It's so real and so heavy that it feels like you can reach out and physically touch God. But it's something that cannot be put into words. I cannot even begin to explain. There's nothing like the presence of God. So far, I think that this is the best week I've had since the DTS started. It's weeks like this when God completely shakes me. I love it.

My team is continuing to blow me away. Their desperation and hunger for God excites me. Each day God teaches me something new through one of them. Literally every single day.

Okay I gotta get going. I uploaded a bunch of pictures onto facebook. Many more to come. (UPDATE: I went through here and added pictures. There are pictures from the Durban bus station, in town (Worcester) and the place I stayed in Worcester.)

Discipleship

This week's lecture was on Lordship/Discipleship. This was a great week for me. No matter how many times I hear a lecture on Lordship, I can always get something out of it... in some way, God always challenges me and reminds me that there are areas of my life that are not completely surrendered. There are days that I wake up and give everything I have to God... then somewhere in that day I will lose patience, or I'll make some stupid decision and the Holy Spirit convicts me and reminds me that my life isn't my own... it belongs to God and every single thing I do needs to glorify Him.

Staffing this DTS has been one of the most challenging things I've ever done. I know that this is a "God thing" though, because it is so hard. Spiritual growth and maturity is challenging. Through our failures is where we learn the most. It's in my mistakes that I realize God's mercy and grace. So many times I've felt like I ALMOST couldn't do this, but I know without a doubt that because God called me to YWAM Durban to staff this DTS that he's equipped me for every challenge I'm facing. I am capable. If He's called me to it, he'll give me the grace I need. He'll provide for me and encourage me. It's part of His character. He doesn't call you to something then abandon you. He walks the road with you.

Discipleship is something I'm passionate about. It's a huge part of the reason why I'm here staffing this Discipleship Training School. I'm passionate about seeing people discipled. I want to spiritually challenge my students. To me, in order to speak into their lives and disciple them, I must be actively involved in their lives. I must be spending time with them daily. I must have one on ones with them and small groups. I must take them out for coffee and talk about life with them. I gotta LIVE LIFE with them. I guess it all comes down to relationship. If I have relationships with them, they build respect and trust with me and I with them. I love them, but that love came over time. It required me spending time with them and getting to know them. It required getting to know what makes them laugh, knowing about their families back home, knowing about their pets, knowing about when they got saved, knowing about their favorite foods, knowing about their pasts... knowing them. Relationships are vital.

We're all leaving for Worcester, South Africa tomorrow. It's a 20 hour bus ride. Mia's on my lap the whole time. We're going there for a huge conference. I know God's going to do something amazing next week in Worcester. Just keep praying for me and my team. I love you and miss you tremendously.

Culture.

This weekend is a blur. The days have been going by unusually fast lately. We went to the mall on Saturday and walked around. When we get into the city, it makes me feel normal again. Being in the mall with hundreds of other people makes me feel somewhat normal. It reminds me that YWAM Durban isn't "life"... and that there's more to life than YWAM Durban. It makes me also kinda feel like I'm at home in the US again. The hustle and bustle of life refreshes me. To some extent, the chaos of life revitalizes me I think. Odd, I know. 

Last week's lecture was on cultural redemption. Our teacher was a white South African woman. We did several exercises to show the differences and similarities in our cultures. In the DTS that I'm staffing there are 2 Canadian students, 2 South African students, 1 American student, and 1 English student. It's really interesting to hear where the South Africans are coming from and it was great to share a bit of my culture with everyone. I mean, yes, I am in South Africa. I am here to experience South African life HOWEVER, I am still a North American woman. I cannot leave every piece of who I am behind because I'm in a different country. I don't expect anyone to lay down who they are because I'm from another country. Wouldn't it be amazing if I could bring my culture to the table and the South Africans could bring theirs and we could learn to adapt to each other. We could learn things from one another instead of argue who's right and wrong? Hmm... seems ideal to me.

So the most exciting thing that happened today was that Mia got some dry erase markers and colored on the wall in our lecture room. I almost died. There are 2 little kids that live on base (their parents are on staff) and they came and told me that Mia was coloring... on the wall. Mia was so surprised to see me when I walked into the lecture room. Thank God all the art came off the walls. 

Hope everyone had a great weekend. I love and miss you guys. 

Wednesdays in Burlington.

Every Wednesday we do what's called feeding scheme. We put a program together and minister to the kids in the township here (the name of the township is Burlington). But after we do the program we feed them. They eat rice and stew. We have usually around 60 kids from the ages of about 2-12. So here's kinda what happens: We walk about 20 minutes into the township. The kids are usually ready and waiting on us. We show them how to wash their hands and then when everyone's done getting washed up, we present a little message to them, we sing songs, play games, do dramas and that sort of thing. Here's one of our biggest challenges: they speak Zulu... we do not. Usually we have a translator, but there are occassions when we don't. These children are at times completely defiant. They are starving physically and emotionally. They are so hungry for love and affection. So even in the moments of meltdown and frustration because we cannot communicate or the kids just DO NOT listen... we know that we are making a huge impact in their lives. When we smile at them or wink at them, when we hug them and hold their hands, when we give them a high five or thumbs up, when we tell them we love them... we're showing them Jesus.

They absolutely love cameras. They love taking pictures and then looking at themselves. They're normal children. They're silly and curious. The sad thing is though, that it's typical to see a 6 year old child carrying around her baby brother. So many of the children in Burlington are orphans. There's a huge problem with HIV/AIDS in Burlington, also TB is very common. No matter what age these kids are, if a parent dies, they rise up and take on the role as the parent. They're robbed of their childhood and their identity.

I read an extremely sad statistic that stated this: It's a sad but true fact that it is more likely for a South African woman to be raped than to learn how to read. That makes my heart ache. What a horrible reality.

I love you guys. Goodnight.

What the heck is LOVE??

This week seems to be a little more challenging for me for a variety of reasons. I think that so many of my weaknesses have been highlighted in the past few days but that's actually not a bad thing. When I realize my weaknesses, I can work on them, but at times when you're realizing your weaknesses, it's incredibly lonely and painful. Also I think also a contributing factor is that I really feel a bit homesick this week. I'm missing home. I miss my family and friends tremendously. However, I personally love change. I'm not scared or intimidated by change... but it IS hard to pack up and move on... to leave best friends behind and just start over. I'm growing so so much during this time though. I know I am. I can feel it.

Our topic this week is relationships. We have an awesome speaker. She's on staff with YWAM Muizenberg and she's originally from Washington state. It's cool to have an American speaker too. Anyway, her and her husband work with the School of Biblical Studies at the YWAM base in Muizenberg. So far this week, we've been talking a lot about grace and love. I've loved her lectures so far and I'm looking forward to what she has to share with us for the rest of this week. She gave us a little class time assignment today. She wanted us to define love... to be creative and write something. Here's what I wrote:

Love is patient with a tired, whiny two year old... even at 3 am. Love is kind to every person it comes in contact with... including the people who are the most undeserving. It's not envious of others' successes nor does it boast in its own. It is not arrogant about its cultures or convictions. It does not insist on its own way, even when its own way is right. It's not irrational towards other or resentful of the people who've taken advantage of it in the past. it does not rejoice in conflict, strife, gossip, or failures, but rejoices in peace, unity, humility and prosperity. It bears through homesickness, discouragement and loneliness. It believes in truth and always stands for the truth... no matter what consequences may come of it. It has hope in all people... even the ones who've let it down the most. Love endures through pain and hardships. Love is selfless and sacrificial at ALL times, to ALL people.

Well that's it for now. I love you guys. Please keep me in your prayers.

Drakensberg

Okay. First of all, apologies for my lack of blogging. The internet on the base wasn't been working, and then we went away for a week of teaching to a YWAM base that had no internet. Anyway, I'm back now with internet access.

Last week we went to Drakensberg, South Africa to the YWAM base there for a teaching on the Holy Spirit. The YWAM base there is on a farm and it was absolutely beautiful. I'm having an amazing time in Durban. God's teaching me so many lessons through my students and friends here. Leadership has been way more of a challenge than I imagined it would be. In the midst of my shortcomings God's proving to me that his grace is sufficient. Every day my prayer is that God will give me a humble heart and a teachable spirit. Sometimes being rebuked is painful and hard, but that's where we experience the most growth... when we make mistakes, it forces us to learn a lesson. This is all learning process. I never claimed to have it all together or be this super hero leader, but I'm honestly trying my best. God's teaching me to manage my time, control my anger, rely on him to meet my emotional needs, to exhibit self control with my words, to learn to communicate better and so so so much more. I find myself praying for patience all the time, then it seems like that same day I get put into a situation where I have to opportunity to put into practice what it means to be patient, but I then get angry and frustrated. Then I go to God and complain about the situation. Finally one day God spoke to me so clearly. This is what he said, "Kristen, you're asking me for patience. Learn it! I'm giving you opportunities. I'm doing my part. Do yours." Duh... okay God now I get it. But wouldn't it be so much easier if I could just snap my fingers and get a huge dose of patience?? That's not real life though.

Yeah, life is good. Challenging, but good. I hope everyone's doing fantastic. I love and miss you.

Happy Birthday to ME!

Yesterday was a really special birthday. The beach didn't work out, but we went to "Pavillion" which is a mall. I got to walk around a really nice mall and look around. We went to lunch at Mugg and Bean and watched a game of rugby. We saw a movie, which turned out to be slightly retarded, but it was a relaxing day. Away from the base, away from cooking...just away...

I love weekends. I love being able to sleep in, and by sleep in I mean sleep until 7:30. Mia doesn't understand the concept of sleeping in. During the week my days start at around 6, but on the weekends, that extra hour and a half feels fantastic. I still have obligations and cooking and one on ones...but on the weekends, life slows down just a bit and it's nice.

Today I had a great chat with my students (well with my girls). I feel so blessed to be a part of their lives. They're a really good group of girls. It was good to relax and have some girl talk. A couple hours with no boys, just the 5 of us girls was awesome.

Anyway, I hope everyone's having a fantastic weekend. I love you and miss you all.

home sweet home

We made it back from the staff conference on Saturday night. We were supposed to come back Thursday night but a couple of us from Durban got extremely sick and couldn't make the 17 hour trip until Saturday. There were approximately 300 people at the YWAM Kruger base last week for the conference. (70 were children.) More than half of us got a stomach bug. It was horrible. Mia and I both had the stomach bug.

Other than being sick, the conference was amazing. It was a lot of fun to be around so many other people who are passionate about Southern Africa and working hard to see God's Kingdom come here. It was an awesome time of fellowship and hearing God. It was good to get away from Durban for a week and have bonding time with the staff from the other bases.

The bus ride was about 17 hours, including a 5 hour layover in Johannesburg. Even though the bus ride was incredibly long, it was beautiful. The mountains in north east South Africa are so different from the mountains in Cape Town and even Durban. Every place I've been to in South Africa looks so different, however it's all different kinds of beautiful. I love the scenery.

This week is busy. YWAM Durban is hosting a conference: God's Heart for the Nations. Last night was our largest crowd so far. We're celebrating our nations and cultures and worshiping God. At the conference, there were about 15 nations represented. Also, as we all come together to worship God we're crying out for the nations who haven't heard the gospel and for the nations where Christians are most persecuted. This week has been an amazing time of celebrating and worshiping together.

My birthday is on Saturday! I'm really excited to be turning 22 in South Africa. My students and my friend (who's the school leader) are taking me out to dinner and to the beach for my birthday. I've only been to the beach twice since I've been in Durban, so I'm really looking forward to spending the day there.

Anyway, I have to get back to work. I love and miss you guys!