I am off to Mozambique.

It was a really fun time hearing about all the outreaches and what has gone before. God had moved in amazing ways and transformed lives and communities. They all sounded amazing. Even how it unfolded in New York in the fashion industry was unprecedented and YES God cares about these people too! However I still did not think I was being called to this particular sphere.

I wanted to be open to wherever God wanted to send me but as soon as I saw that Mozambique was added as an option I was so excited. I recounted a conversation I had before I left which I now consider prophetic. I was really wanting to work with people with HIV/AIDS in Africa but that Cape town would still feel quite developed in parts and I felt God wanted to stretch me, culturally and to experience something that would open my eyes to see the world and its suffering. So Mozambique really fitted with that.

In the first week in class we were worshiping God and praying and I got this image in my head about children. I felt God was saying I am going to give you babies and children to love, even if they are not your own you will love them like they are. My heart really melted and it was emotionally overwhelming. I was not sure though what it meant .....yet! For those that know me know children have not always burned on my heart but I feel this is changing.

I was trying to seek God to make a decision about where to go I kept getting caught up in what if it just me that is selfishly wanting to go to Mozambique and really I should go somewhere else!! That somehow GOD would want to send me to somewhere I had no passion to go!! LIE, this is not who he is!!

I was praying about this and asked God to somehow show me where he wanted me to go. I felt that he said draw a flag..... I was like God I don't know flags? He said draw it....so I closed my eyes and instantly got this image and drew a flag with the lay out as below and wrote the colours on it, minus the detail in the triangle.

I ran back to the room and googled all the countries on offer and each time it was not like the one I'd drawn then finally coming to Mozambique I typed it in and could feel the anticipation rising. I was utterly gobsmacked but the flag was like the one I had drawn. I know God speaks to us but this was really something new for me!! I was sooo happy though and really sensed that God gives us a passion and a heart for countries and that was the reason I was drawn to it.

This outreach is still taking shape. I think   it will have challenges, it is one of the poorest nations in the world. 12% of the population have AIDS, they have been torn apart by civil war. There are thousands of orphans and abandoned children, poor health care/education.

There are 10 of us going and most likely we will be working with IRIS ministries http://www.irismin.org/ lead by Heidi Baker or we will be hitting the Mozambique bush with Heidi herself to go to unreached villages. It will be a honour and privilege to work alongside this lady who more than models Jesus but walks like he did!! She has many orphanages and so there will be plenty of children to love!

We may be ministering to those who work on the rubbish dumps and sleeping on dirt floors. I may well get malaria as the chance of getting it is higher than not so I am under no illusion now that I have been called here. It will be stretching and take me to one of the hardest places I could go in terms of facing the harsh reality of poverty, disease, the impact of war as well a poor living standards but I am so excited and expectant of what God is going to do through my team.

Please pray for this time of preparation:

That the people of Mozambique will know Gods love for them that he would have mind to give us a heart for them that we would give it all to go there and show them. That we would see radical transformation

Development of a vision for outreach: 28th Dec - approx 15th March

That my outreach team will be walking in unity and love
That all the team get their funding

Protection health/fear

Wisdom and discernment of how the holy spirit is leading us.


Blessings to you all

Community Transformations South Africa Outreach

This is a DTS team in Cape town and shows some of the ministries I could be involved with during my DTS.

Kona Iron Man

With 2 of my room mates 4am!!

This was a really fun day. Many from our Ywam base were security for the day. This was basically stopping people running in front of the athletes which soooo many people did!!!! We did get to have a brilliant view of the athletes and I was stationed at the swim cycle transition which was great. These athletes did 2.4 mile swim, 120 mile bike ride and a marathon. There were obviously the elite athletes but also people with disabilities that totally overcome them. There were even entrants in their 60's, 70's and 80's. I was really in awe of everybody's determination. It was a scorching day and I could not handle standing in it let alone running in it. The top athletes complete it in just over 8 hours!

I am feeling inspired to try a triathlon when I get home!!! Not ironman though so don't get any ideas!!



Also our school leader Jeff felt God say he should try and get hold of one of the major contenders and one of best in the world to come to our class the day before the race so we could pray for him and God could bless him . We found out also if he won Ironman he would be using the money for his projects for children in Africa which is noble. He usually has press conferences, interviews etc because he has major sponsors but anyway after ringing a friend of a friend he got hold of him. Which in itself was really something. Surprisingly he was really keen and came to our class. It was great to meet such an amazing athlete and God really blessed him and his wife and running was only a by product of him running after God. Very cool that all things matter to God even ironman. Sadly he didn't win after leading all the bike race for 120 miles and up to mile 15 in the marathon he developed a bug and was really sick!!!

Fun day.



Radical Transformations

God wants to transform, create, restore. He is a God of love and compassion and mercy and only ever acts out of Love. We were made in his image and made to reflect his Glory in all that we do. His glory is in every beautiful sunset, coast line, gooey chick flick that yanks on your heart strings. We all immediately recognise these things as beautiful, they all come from God because it reflects him.

I am realising it is a journey to know Gods love and this comes out of a heart that is passionately pursuing after Jesus, to know him more. The most exciting thing is there is always more!! He's intricate, infinite and personal and when we think we've got it there is more! In heaven we might worship for 1000 years and God will turn his face slightly and we will see new and amazing things and this will lead to a 1000 more years of worship.

What I have learnt is that Jesus did not only die to just suffer for the things we have done that separate us from the father but that he did it joyfully, that he looked beyond the cross to you and me and that this Love held him there. He saw the love he has for us but also for the restoration of humanity and the world.

The Christian walk goes beyond just accepting that Jesus died so I can go to heaven, it so much more its all about living for Christ now. We are called to so much more than we imagine and hope for our lives. God wants to see the world back as it was in the garden of Eden where we all walked with him and had no shame before him, there was no death, destruction or poverty. He promised us then that we should eat from the tree of life and that is his intention now on this earth. I have been stuck on just salvation for far too long thinking that this Eden would only truly happen in heaven. I have always believed that when Jesus talks about the Kingdom of God being here now that God wants to break in to heal, restore, make new, create, and bring an end to injustice and poverty but what I had not seen was that God wants Edenic lifestyle again throughout the the Earth, that his Glory will fall on every nation and nothing can prevent this but that we are all called by Christ to be a part of this amazing rescue plan. This has been a huge revelation to me, it has radically transformed the way I view the . I can now see Gods plan for the world and evidenced in many old testament scriptures and I don't have to feel any hopelessness for those in poverty or sex trafficking or slavery or under any other thing that binds us. Praise God.

I am excited to see what happens next each week has been full of such amazing revelation.

We have not just been talking the talk but also walking the walk. We do community outreach about 80 (people from other classes join us) of us go and ask God who we should talk too, sometimes he gives specific details about people sometimes we just hang out with the homeless or the holiday makers as that is how Kona is a real mix.

Already we are seeing people coming to the Lord just because we go, hang out and share with people how much God loves them and wants to know them, I find this a new thing and challenging at times, but this is because I have had a narrow view of who Jesus was and is. I feel as I understand more about how Jesus loves me that I am able to love on others in a new way, not out of my own heart or strength but out of the love that Jesus pours on me.

We had three guys join us one night who were in the army, and who were just chatting with a couple of classmates. They were open to prayer at the end, one of them felt something strange when he was being prayed for, he knew it was God. They were really blessed. The next night they travelled an hour to come to the base and one of the other guys said "what have u done to my friend" as something was going on with him, later that night he opened his heart to invite Jesus to be in his life. Such a special time.

I have felt a shift in my heart and at times the joy is really contagious. One of my classmates decided to get baptised and it was wonderful hearing how he wanted to turn away from being selfish and seek after God. That he felt that that God had greater purpose for him. About 50 of us went down to the local beach which was really fun. He got baptised in the sea. I love baptisms maybe even more than weddings as they just speak of how much God does for us and how we desire to declare it and then symbolically going under the water to leave our old self behind and come up as a new creation in Christ!!! I noticed a guy and he was just standing there wondering what was going on. I went over to him for the 1st time not frightened of the mismatch between us, as he was a 19 year old guy with a skateboard. I just felt an urgency to explain who we were and what we were doing. We got talking and some other guys from my class joined and we ended up praying for him as he was off to start a course in Justice. He said and he knew God but had not talked to him for a while. God really blessed him and I believe wanted to affirm him for pursuing this he is JUSTICE . I was so excited and happy that God used me in this way, as there is no way I would have done this before. I would worry I could connect with him but Gods love speaks through you not from you. Its broken off definite preconceived idea that I can only connect to certain people.

It is just so cool to watch as everybody is growing in faith, in passion. We are a diverse bunch and all with powerful testimonies. Some of my classmates have had many issues: a recent heroin addict, someone who has drug addict brother and mother who went to jail a few weeks before they came, girls with eating disorders, all of us have brokenness but God is showing up and they are being restored. It has greatly challenged me that we don't have to be sorted before God will use us he will use what we have in our hands!

God bless you all, missing everybody and think about you often.