God is Still in Control

This will be the last blog post I will be able to upload before we are finishing up our 2 1/2 amazing months of ministry in South Africa. These last couple of weeks that our team lived in Masi have been absolutely incredible. Our Bible studies, for example, have outgrown all of our expectations: 15 to 20 young people from Masi came to our house EVERY DAY right after school for some coffee, cookies and Jesus time :) All of them gave their lives to the Lord, several committed to completely stay away from drugs and alcohol and one of them was released from an evil spirit. Honestly, in these past months I have been part of stories that I would have otherwise only listened to in disbelief. Some of those crazy missionary stories that could only be made up... unless God REALLY was at work. And at this point I would doubt several of my own stories had I not been part of them ;) God is truly more amazing than we can fathom when we really encounter His presence.

Our last big ministry event was last weekend. We put on a Masi Talent Show in Masiphumelele. Our intention was to give the people of Masi a better alternative for hanging out on a Saturday night than to go out drinking. And our hopes came true. We had about 30 artists who performed either a rap, song, dance or drama and over 100 people in the audience! At the end, we gave out prizes for the first three winning groups: gift certificates to local restaurants within Masi. These gift certificates were all funded by our fishing pole fund (remember the money Josiah and I raised with the dance lessons we led back in Hawaii?). The great thing about these certificates was that instead of giving the winners the money, we had someone of the long-term ComTrans team take the group out for lunch. This way, they could work on building a closer relationship with them. It's great to see that the ComTrans team is taking over the work that we had started: they just got back from taking some of the Masi youth to a worship event - because THEY had asked for it!

Unfortunately, I now need to share about one very sad event that happened to us just 4 days ago. We had finished our ministry in Masi and started our time of debriefing. For that we moved into a lodge in a VERY SAFE area outside of Masi... and we had a break-in the very first night. They broke the window and stole two laptops and one iPhone. One of the laptops and the iPhone were mine. I have lost a significant amount of my pictures that I hoped to use to raise funds with after I got back to the Western culture. At this point I am also not sure how to come up with the money for a new laptop and iPhone in case my insurance won't cover everything. This has definitely put a dent into our basically perfect time here in South Africa but I have also learned an important lesson that God has convicted me of: when I sing songs like "Lord, take all of me" or "there is nothing I hold on to besides you, Lord," etc. - do I ACTUALLY mean it? Is it not more like: "I give it all to you, except for..."

I am learning a new lesson on how to let go of things that seemed SO NECESSARY to me but that in the grand scheme of things are of such little value. It has been very hard for me to loose my equipment but at the same time I am so thankful for God's faithfulness of keeping us safe all of this time. After hearing about this story, one of my friends commented on facebook that "God is STILL in control." What a wonderful reassurance and lesson to understand.

And I know it will be very hard for me to leave South Africa because God has touched my heart through the people I have met here in a way I had never expected. I want to thank God for all the lessons I have learned and all the joy I was able to bring to other people and they were able to bring to me. And I also want to thank my supporters once again for helping me make all of this possible. I cannot wait to see many of you during my stop-over in Michigan on my way home to Germany. I simply ask for your continued prayers for financial provision (so that the stolen equipment can be replaced) and for safety during our travels as we will be flying out of Johannesburg back to Hawaii tomorrow.