Time's fun when you're having flies

Ok the title is random. No fly problems or anything (although I'm experiencing plenty of different bugs and bites!), but it's something one of the staff members said the other day in announcements. He's an older guy we call Papa Tony. He's quite the joker and his announcements each morning are always a highlight of the day. Full of jokes and corny puns. 

Life has been going well! There was a day last week that I was sick with stomach problems and one day this week I was sick with stomach problems and those were definitely my lowest points. Those were the moments I was ready to give up and buy a plane ticket home, be in my own bed, my own bathroom (with running water!) and just quit. I definitely had those feelings when I was awake half the night with stomach pain needing to go to the bathroom, but couldn't in our house because we had no running water, and didn't want to walk alone to the latrines (on the complete opposite side of the compound) at 3am. God showed me later that in those moments of my complete weakness, even the moments I was in the latrine or spending more time than I would like on the toilet (sorry if this is tmi) but even then he was holding me, looking at me with love and kindness. He saw me with compassion and never let go. He saw the bigger picture and saw how he was refining me through my utter weakness and dependency on him. He loves when we are weak because then he can be strong for us. I've experienced neediness in a whole new way. When he is all I have and the only strength I can depend on when I'm ready to quit. He was gracious enough that the two times I was sick, it didn't last more than 24 hours. This past week I was miserable in class Monday morning, then a couple girls prayed for me, I layed down on my mat in worship and by the time I got up, my stomach felt almost 100% better. Then I was able to connect with God and worship him more deeply, thanking him for healing and rejoicing in his presence. 

I feel like in this time so far God has been romancing my heart and drawing me closer to himself. He just keeps bringing me back to the heart. It's all about the heart. It's not about the ministry, it's not about the manifestations of the Holy Spirit, it's about our heart for Jesus. It's about his heart for us. It all comes down to his love for us and our love for him. His love has been so tender and gentle to me in this time. His peace has been almost overwhelming at times. 

God has broken my heart a couple of times during worship for family and friends back home. He has burdened my heart to pray for my friends and family and put more compassion in my heart and sensitivity to them being so far away than I think I ever could have had being there with them. He is depending my love for those closest to me at home. One day he met me with gentle convitiction for areas of my heart that had been impatient, irritable, and not loving at all to people back home. He's gently showing me areas of my heart where I can grow and love better starting with those he's put in front of me, closest to me at home. I love God's convitiction. It may seem weird to say, but that's how you know it's God. It's not guilt but just a gentle breaking of your heart for things you've done that have broken his. And his grace and mercy covers all of it.

Someone gave me a word today that I was like gold. That I was precious to God and that he was refining me and burning off everything that wasn't of him, that he was purfifing me with his fire and that I wasn't afraid of that fire, I wasn't afraid to go into his refining fire. It was such a blessing for me because I have prayed that prayer multiple times since I've been here. That God would take out everything in me that's not like him and make me more like Jesus through each circumstance. 

Can I just say I love my house family?! One of my favorite nights is quickly becoming Tuesday night when we have family night with our house. There are so many amazing and diverse women of God in my house. So far on family nights we all eat dinner together on our front porch rather than in the cafeteria or elsewhere. Then we have 3 people share their testimonies. It's been a beautiful thing to hear their stories and I look forward to being able to hear everyone's. It's just a beautiful thing to know and be known and so encouraging to see what God has done in their lives. And of course there are always parts of testimonies I connect to and relate with which is also very encouraging. After testimonies we put the 3 ladies who shared in the middle and pray and bless them and speak words or pictures over them that God gives us.

Something we started this week is giving a special gift to someone in our house on Tuesday night. We were asked to pray and ask God to put someone on our heart and ask him what to give them. It could be a prophetic word, a letter, picture, chocolate, jewelry or WHATEVER God put on our heart to bless another girl. It was so beautiful seeing how God orchestrated it and how each gift was meaningful to each one. I definitely feel blessed and privileged to be in the house I am in and with the people I live with. Although sometimes it's a challenge being packed in like sardines, God has given so much grace and so far there haven't been any issues between anyone from what I've seen, which is quite a miracle in itself!

Another incredibly moving experience this week was doing a foot washing Cermeony. We did this with our ministry team that went on bush outreach together. (We call these color groups, which is what I'll refer to them as from now on.) our group's color is "glory" which I didn't know was a color but it's a pretty good one I think. ;) so our glory group is our 10 or so harvest students and maybe 6 Mozambican bible students. We set out a chair and a bucket and took turns getting our feet washed and washing others' feet. While each person had their feet washed, everyone else gathered around and laid hands on the person getting their feet washed and prayed for them. I've done foot washing before but it has never been so emotional and moving for me. I think with all I've been learning about honor and humility I was just overwhelmed with the honor it was for us to wash our Mozambican brother's feet and to have them wash ours. It was a beautiful picture. I of course, was crying. As were a few others. Another reason it was so meaningful is because my feet were SO dirty! It truly took on a new meaning. I haven't really bathed since Saturday when I washed in the ocean and haven't even really tried to get the layers of dirt off my feet because it's kind of pointless to use a thousand baby wipes just to have them filthy again in a few hours. (Not to mention my legs are extremely hairy! Gross. Lol) It was so humbling to have my feet washed and I closed my eyes and could just picture Jesus washing my feet. Wow. That's who he is! That's what he does. That's his heart. He is humble and lowly in heart. I just want to be like him. 

Thursday night we had a "creative worship/soaking" time. It was a time of free worship expression. We had different people taking turns leading worship. They had paints and art supplies set out for people to do art, lots of space to dance and wave flags, and the freedom to just lay down or take a nap if that's what you needed. I did a little dancing, a little drawing and a little napping. ;) That time was true blessing. 

Praise/prayer would be that Monday the water came back on... For maybe an hour... And hasn't been on since. Lol. So continued prayer for running water would be great! Though not my will but his be done.

Also praise Jesus I haven't had any stomach problems since Monday or Tuesday.

Pray continued protection over my insides. 

Wednesday I started having a sore throat and it's been turning into congestion/cold. It's kind of frustrating because I VERY RARELY get sick at home and it's been one thing after another here. Being in a completely different environment, one that's often challenging and very exhausting isn't the easiest environment to be sick in. But God is good and he's teaching me and I believe he will heal me and give me strength again like he has before.

Now it's Friday and my sore throat is pretty much all gone! Still got a little congestion but feeling a lot better! Yay!

This morning (Friday) I went up to the building/hut we have school in and spent some time with God. It's one of the closest places I've found to being alone except there are usually a few other people there. For a week or so I've wanted to do some dancing and working out in there and this morning finally got around to it. It was so much fun. I did a little dance workout and stretching, and then I did some worship. A song that has been on my heart for awhile and I spent some time dancing my heart out to this morning is Jon Thurlow's Fully in Love. Maybe I'll actually get around to choreographing something to it eventually instead of just improving. It's sooo good. :) 

My African dance studio:

Random praise report: many people probably know my struggles I've had with hamstrings and injuries/pulled muscles the last few years. Since I've been here I've stretched twice and I've felt practically no pain while stretching. I don't know if it's the heat and humidity and being nice and warm, but my muscles have been much looser and I've been able to stretch deeper and further than I have in a very long time, with no pain! If you're a dancer it's like that warm, strechy, bendy feeling that is just the absolute best! At home I've gotten warm enough to that point maybe like a couple times in the last year. Just praying I don't wake up hurting tomorrow. ;) but Jesus is so good to bless me even in something small like that!

Oh btw, Fridays we don't have class. We are supposed to have a practical mission on Fridays. We just found out last night what we got for our mission. There was a list of about 60 missions. We put down our preference and any skill sets we had last week and waited to see what they assigned us to. I got really blessed! This wasn't even one of the missions to choose from, but I mentioned on my paper that I taught dance and worked with kids, so now I am supposed to be teaching dance with a few other women to the young girls that live on base! Time and details are still tbd. I actually have 2 practical missions, and my other one is helping with kids Sunday school. I feel lucky because some people got things like roofing or teaching English when they had no interest or desire to do it. I would have trusted God if I got something like that, but I'm glad I got something that uses my gifts and my heart! 

Pray for my eyes and ears and heart to be opened wider and wider each day to hear God's voice and know his heart. I am seeking God for a lot of things for my future plans and selfishly would love for God to just drop it all in my lap, but that's not usually how he works, so pray for patience and trust in the process and faith to put one foot in front of the other.

Another big praise: WIFI HOTSPOT ON BASE! students can now pay a small fee to use an hour of wifi. Not sure how often that will be open, but it's something! Pray that it works well, because I have yet to find wifi that works like it does in the US and does all I want it to in the time I want it to. There are also an abundance of people who want to use it and it doesn't work if too many people use it at the same time. I guess wifi here runs on Africa time too. ;) 

I haven't taken many pictures recently so I don't really have any new ones to post, but here's what a Mary that hasn't showered in a week and a room that has 6 women living in it with all their 3 months worth of luggage and stuff look like. Lol.

And now that your eyes hurt, here's some beautiful Africa:

On our back porch. One of my favorite places to hang out (no pun intended): 

Ok, I think that's all for now. This was a really long post. I kept adding to it throughout the week. Probably could have broken up into separate posts, but oh well. Hope you enjoyed it. :)

Thank you again and again for your prayers and support! God bless you!