God is so good

This week has been such a FULL week! It feels like we are all finally starting to get into some what of a routine! So on Mondays we go to town to do our outreach day in the community for a few hours and then we go shopping for groceries for the week for our Squad! We break up into our 3 teams for outreach days so my team the Dandelions as we were praying before heading out I kept seeing the word “Love” and felt that was the word the Lord was giving me… So we go out and are walking around had a few conversations with some people and then we have such a sweet encounter with a guy named canny deep.. he sang us a song in a store and he was sharing about his music he makes and we all started talking and he’s like “I make these shirts” pointing to his shirt he’s wearing and Suzy on my team wanted to buy one from him to support him and remember the sweet encounter so he goes across the street to his apartment and we all listen to the Holy Spirit and agree we all felt good and go and stand on the inside steps of his apartment building and he comes down with a bunch of shirts for her to choose from! So she picks the one she wants and buys it from him he was soo happy and joyful and we then get to ask him do you know Jesus? He says “Jesus, oh YES! He is right here!” (He points to his heart) So we just starting talking about how good God is and sharing some things with him and we ask him if we can pray for him and if there’s anything specific we can pray for and he was so excited and happy for us to pray for him! After we prayed he says “WOW..Thank you guys so much, I LOVE you guys” So I said we all love you and God loves you! It wasn’t until we were walking away when I realized that the word that I felt the Lord was giving me was right there in that sweet encounter… God loves us so much… his love for us is endless.. it doesn’t matter what we do.. if we mess up and make mistakes it doesn’t matter, he STILL loves us and always will! We just have to ask him for forgiveness for our mistakes and he takes it and throws it as far as the East is to the west… His love is beyond anything we can even imagine.. and he wants us to love each other like he loves us!! He wants us to have compassion, understanding, love, mercy, grace and to forgive and don’t be so quick to judge others or hold grudges or whatever it is for you…This story in the Bible came to my mind where the teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery to Jesus in the Temple courts wanting her to be stoned

-John 8:7-11 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” “No one sir,” she said. “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

We ended Monday night with a very special surprise from our leaders Ben and Mak! They surprised us with washing each others feet! They set up a chair and a large bucket with soapy water and then a large bucket with just water to rinse and had a rag and sponge and we drew names to see who would wash who’s feet… it was so humbling and so special to serve each other and be served and feel so extremely loved and just do what Jesus did for his disciples when he washed their feet! Every week I am reminded of how special and sweet small things can be! Something so simple as praying for each other and washing each others feet with love and compassion and just lowering yourself to be humble and wash someone’s feet!! I have so many “Core memory” moments that are happening here… I am filled with so much joy and peace!

So this week at our care points I struggled two days to have energy to play with all the kids and I know a lot of us struggled with having energy those two days.. it finally stopped raining which was amazing but it was extremely HOT so we all tossed and turned l night because of the heat for those two days… on the second day of feeling extremely drained and tired after we ate our pb&js sandwich’s Suzy and I decided we were going to go and work in the field with one of the boys on our squad Caleb and help clearing a field for kids to play soccer! So we could keep busy and do something even though we didn’t have the energy for the kids we still wanted to serve and help in anyway we could! Sometimes I think we have to remind ourselves it’s okay to not have the energy for certain things sometimes and that we can serve and help in other ways! We pulled weeds all afternoon and hacked away at little bushes and things.. it was so sweet to just talk with my squad mates about anything and everything and not feel like I have to be constantly pouring myself and my energy out into the kids at the care point!

So Valentine’s Day was on Tuesday and I felt so LOVED! Mak and Matt made us all pink pancakes for breakfast and then our squad leaders Mak and Ben gave us all a valentines card with verses for us and a little thing of Swazi chocolates… then they took us to a cute little  market and let us get some bags and things that are hand made by ladies in the community and each bag has the name of the lady who made it.. so we got to shop a little and get some things for our families and friends and ourselves before heading to our care point for the day! At lunch the guys on our squad all gave us valentine’s cards they all wrote for all of us and had some verses and really sweet things to say and encourage us and make us feel loved… then for dinner we have a schedule where 3 people cook for the whole squad and it’s a different 3 people every night.. Matt and the guys decided that they didn’t want any of us girls to cook so they all cooked us dinner and served us.. it was so nice.. ALL of us girls felt so loved by our squad mates and just the overwhelming love of God!! So even if you don’t have anyone that did anything special for you this week I pray that you would just feel and see Gods love this week!

We had Lucy (who is a team intern she helps our host take care of the teams and keep things organized) and the media team (who is helping make some videos for our care points and things that they need help raising money for etc.) over for a worship night on Thursday and a sleepover! Worship is one of my favorite things that we do here together! There’s something so beautiful about everyone coming together and singing songs of praise and just getting to that intimate place with God.. because I feel the Holy Spirit in the room every time we come together to worship…it was so funny we were prayed out in worship and the whole room you could just still feel the Holy Spirit working and someone says “wait, can we do one more song?” And then we did and the next day we all were talking and all said we wished it would have went on even longer like we all wanted to just keep asking “wait, can we do one more song?”

Overall this week has had some amazing moments! I want to just continue to encourage you to keep looking for God in everything and everyone around you! This week was a big “serving others” week for us so I also want to encourage you all to try to take some time this week and do something for someone.. even if it’s just telling someone they look beautiful!! Sometimes it’s the SMALL things that mean the most!!!