An African Thanksgiving!

"I'm Thankful for..." is normally a sentence you hear in America as you sit around the dinner table, waiting to devour the best meal of the year and be stuffed till you can't eat anymore.

This year I spent Thanksgiving in Africa, surrounded by Mozambiquans, Harvest School Students from around the World and of course my amazing sisters of House 8! Many international students had never celebrated Thanksgiving before and kept asking me what it was about - because of course, I kept wishing EVERYONE Happy Thanksgiving! It really made me stop and wonder- what is Thanksgiving really about??

Of course, I tried to explain about the Pilgrims coming to America and the Indians helping them, about sitting around a table with your family and the kinds of foods we eat, about being Thankful to God for all the good things He's given you...and yet somehow, this year those reasons didn't seem to suffice. (of course the last one always does! But I felt like the Lord wanted me to realize how much more it was then that.)

So here's my top 7 "I'm Thankful for.." list for the year 2011 -  (Because I could do a lot more then 7, and you'd be sitting here forever. lol!)

1:I'm thankful for this amazing opportunity to be serving, living and learning in Africa and soon Nepal in this season of my life.

2: I'm thankful for all of my family, friends and church back home - as well as all of my new Iris family here!

3: I'm thankful for the amazing meal we were blessed with last night - It was the biggest meal I'm sure some of these Mozambiquans have ever eaten- and I've never had so much meat on one plate in my life! - An oil company from South Africa blessed us and cooked enough food for our ENTIRE base (1000 people!) And it was a proper Thanksgiving meal - Turkey, Mashed potatoes with bacon in it, Ham, a hamburger, corn, a huge bread roll, a mango and of course.. PUMPKIN PIE! It was phenominal!

4: I'm thankful for the water turning back on after being off for 2 weeks! :) (You really learn to appreciate the important things here.)

5: For the Lords faithfulness in ALL transitions and seasons of my life this past year.

6:For all my new Mozambiquan friends and really learning through theirs and all of Iris' example what love TRULY looks like.

7: For the transformation work of Jesus Christ, being made more like Him and knowing that no matter where I am in the World, as long as I have Him I'm always home.

I could go on and on, but I'll stop there for now. These are just some of the simple things that I'm Thankful for this year - I'm not perfect and I have by no way arrived. But I'm pressing on towards the goal, and I'm so excited to see what Papa has ahead! My challenge for myself these next 2 weeks.. to DREAM BIG and never stop! I've always talked about it, but now I really want to do it.

As we enter the Christmas season I challenge you to do the same, don't just live a normal life - live BIG in the Kingdom of God. It doesn't matter if your in Africa, or Asia, or America or Europe.. Whether you have runnining water or not, electricity or not, money or not.. It's all about Kingdom culture. Live in it! You don't have to be called to the dirt or to the unreached to be used by God.. Just be you!

More to come soon!!

Into the Heart of a People..

3 weeks ago I got the opportunity to go into the heart of a Nation.. This weekend I got to go into the heart of a people. I went on what Iris call's "Drop Off"! Where they literally introduce us to a Mama or a widow, take you to her home and "drop" you and another student off to stay with her and her family for the weekend.


It was such an experience! Our whole approach was to go as little children, completely humbled and submerged into a whole new culture.

Our Mama was the sweetest little 61 year old woman who lived with her daughter and her daughters husband, as well as some other young guys living there. (Not quite sure how they were related, but it's like that a lot here.) She took SUCH good care of us. They completely openeed up their home to us on Thursday afternoon. Our Mama even gave us her bed to sleep in for the 2 nights we were there.

It was one of the most humbling experiences I have ever had. Here was this beautiful family that opened up their hearts and home to us, without even knowing us, and then treated us like Queens the whole weekend, totaly blessing us even though they didn't have much. I came to serve and love, and ended up getting so blessed in return!

Thursday consisted of learning where everything was, going to meet the Chief ofthe village, who welcomed us in such a great way! and getting to know our Mama and her family better. The language barrier was really difficult! But thankfully the girl I was with knew a little bit more Portugues then I did and we were able to guess and figure things out sometimes. Charades becomes more than just a game when you don't know the language. haha!

Friday we sat with our Mama and her family, painted nails and spoke beauty over the women, got to pray for the Chief when he showed us this rash he had on his neck and arms. (WOW!) Went shopping in the village market, ate new kinds of fish and rice for lunch and dinner and just enjoyed some chill time just sitting and learning what it's like to live in this culture.

One of my favorite parts of the weekend was on Friday when we went with our Mama to pray for a friend of hers who was crippled and blind in one eye. She was very poor and older and she had no family. You could totaly see the hopelessness all over her.. I really wanted to see her eye open and her feet straighten out, and still believe completely that the Lord will do it, but it was so sweet to watch the Spirit rise up within our Mama as she cried out in Makua for her friend, tears gently sliding down her cheeks. It was so beautiful to see the power and faith of our Mama's Spirit - though we could hardly communicate and ask our Mama questions, in that moment I felt like I truly saw her heart.

We returned the next morning to pray again - and I continued to pray for hope for her! As best as I could in Portugues I told her " Noush familia" - We are Your family.

She seemed to smile at that. It's one of those moments that I know that only Heaven will show the truth of what happend in her heart.

On Saturday morning we walked with our Mama back to the base, about 50 minutes. It was crazy to realize that she walks that all the time to come to Iris!

I left this weekend so humbled and thankful for this precious, sometimes stretching, always growing gift from the Father. I feel like I lived Matthew 5:3 this weekend "Blessed are the poor in Spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven."

P.S - Sorry its taken me so long to send another update - Internet has been really hard to access lately! I'll try to send another soon. :) If I can't before Thanksgiving, HAVE AN AMAZING ONE! :)