The time has come…

Well, my DTS has come to an end, I returned home on the 14th of Feb. But as I’ve heard so many times during the past six months, is that ‘DTS starts after you’ve completed DTS’. What the people who say this mean by this, is that we’ve received amazing input during our DTS, God did a restoring, building up, revamp work in our lives but now the pressure cooker isn’t there anymore.

The ‘safe environment’ is gone, you can get back into the familiar and so easily revert back to what you know. I pray and know that God will lead each one of my team members and I into an even deeper understanding of what we’ve learnt and experienced together. It was  sad affair, saying goodbye to people I’ve lived and learnt with for almost half a year. I’ve literally seen them every day, we’ve cried together, laughed together, been silent together, worried together and have encouraged each other every day. Looking back on our last stretch of the outreach, as I mentioned in my previous post, we were tested and tried together.

So, we got to Mozambique and in the first week, God provided everything we needed for the rest of the trip. It was amazing to see the hand of God move. One of the most prominent memories of Mozambique is; I was sitting in a church service and just praying and connecting with God. I felt immediate unease and I couldn’t continue, I asked God ‘what is this?”. The answer came immediately, ‘I miss you’. At once I understood, God was telling me; since I’ve come on this outreach, all I’ve been communicating with Him, was about the outreach: the team, ministry, finances, my discomforts etc… But I failed to just connect with Him, to just sit with Him, and just ‘be’ and He misses me. Not that everything else wasn’t of importance to Him, but He misses me. This humbled me, and just brought me back to heart of why I came to do DTS, and that is to know HIM, and from there everything flows. I neglected the quality time that I use to have with Him, and He misses me. Now, I don’t know about you, but when the Creator of the universe, says He misses you, that humbles you. I bawled my eyes out, and was just emptied of everything, and God just filled me up again, with all of Him and the sorrow and disappointment in myself was replaced by an inexplicable joy! My focus for Mozambique was completely transformed… Every ministry was done from a point of ‘knowing Him’. In John 17:2 Jesus prays to the Father and says: “Now this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” I love that! That inheriting eternal life, is about knowing the Father.

So, we spent our time at Iris ministries, a children’s home in Mozambique. It’s a huge property with a lot a lot of children (I forget the figure now 🙂 but they basically live in dorms according to their age groups. My primary role (by choice) was to teach crafts to 4-5 year old boys. This is funny, because I am not creative at all, and try teaching a craft to energetic boys that only speak Portuguese! Absolute chaos…but was such a rewarding experience, because God put me at rest when I got there, that everything I’m doing flows from knowing Him. I fell in love with these boys, they pushed my buttons, they tested their boundaries, but they made me smile every single day. I got a physical work out of note!

But we also got to do ministry outside of the children’s home.

We went to a huge rubbish dump in the city:

This is called the Bocaria, and people literally live next to it, and get there livelihood from other people’s waste. This was one of the toughest experiences for me. I couldn’t complete the task, because I couldn’t handle the smell and the heat. It was extremely difficult. My team went back twice and they got to encourage a few people there… The residents are so open for the gospel, and recognise Jesus’ saving power. Iris ministries has a long standing relationship with the community there, and does amazing work in sharing the Word but also taking care of physical needs.

We also got to go to hospitals and pray and encourage people that are sick. I probably enjoyed this the most. God just moved on ordinary days and people met Christ, every time. Every week men and women go out to the hospitals and to the homeless and they preach the Good News and we got to participate and learn from them.

I am so grateful for every step of this journey that started in September 2013. It has been amazing, it has been tough but God ordained every moment.

Thank you for sharing in my journey. DTS is finished, but my ‘Exploration of God, Missions and Life’ will never be finished.

I leave you with this: God has made it possible for us to know Him intimately, not just about Him, but to KNOW Him, that is His love for us, that through His Son Jesus Christ we have access to the Father of all.

May you all be blessed. I will keep you updated and post occasionally.

This picture was taken at our graduation, the community is praying over us and commissioning us. Winterton has become a second home to me, the people loved and cared for us, and was part of our journey from day one.

Love

Liz

Finishing strong

Hellooooooo!

What an adventure I am on with God! Since my last post,sooo much as happened.

I will give a quick update.

We spent a month in Nigeria and this was absolutely amazing. Nigerians are such a warm people, they can show South Africans a thing or two about hospitality 🙂 I absolutely loved interacting with everyone. We mostly got to minster to kids and youth. Most of the kids we worked with are orphans. They lost their parents during the religious crisis in the specific town we were in. Although we cannot change their situations, our vision and mission for our outreach, is to speak into the identity of the people we come across.
As much as we were ‘reaching out’, we were transformed by the faith and tenacity of boys and girls that literally lost everything and still manages to smile and have faith in God. The Lord used them to teach us about faith. I am forever humbled by this experience.

The food in Nigeria was interesting. We ate a lot of rice, yams, spaghetti. They enjoy spice,so everything was very flavourful and yummy. We were well-fed, even though we didin’t really eat meat, we could fill up on a lot of starches.lol (those who know me, know that starches are not my usual meals,eeck, but I survived!) But we had good meat on special occassions like Christmas. We were truly blessed to spend this time in beautiful Nigeria.

We returned to Johannesburg on the 6th of January 2014. We came to a town called White River in Mpumulanga and have spent time at a YWAM base, called Ten Thousand Homes. The aim of this base is to build 10 000 homes in this community. We have had the privilege of helping to build a house for a single mom with five kids. I’ve been mixing cement, digging up dirt and just being a manual labourer. All of this has been a new experience, but what a rewarding one! To not just pray for someone’s physical need to be fulfilled,but actually help fulfill that need.

Tomorrow we leave for Mozambique to Iris Ministries and will spend two weeks there. We are very excited as this almost did not happen. God has faithfully provided financially for this trip. When we started the outreach we did not have all our funds,but God has provided for every ‘leg of the race’. At the beginning of this week, we had almost no money. By this morning, we had enough for our bus tickets to Maputo, and enough to pay for our stay here at Ten Thousand Homes. We still trusting God for our accomodation fees at Iris and just to finsih the trip. It’s been amazing how God has just provided for us every step. All we knew is God said, we are to go to Nigeria and Mozambique and we trusted He will provide for everything. AND He has. He has stirred people’s hearts to help us and we are forever grateful.

Thank you for every prayer, every donation, every encouraging word! It is much appreciated!

I’m learning total dependence on God, my prayer for each one reading this, is, Taste and see that the Lord is good! Find out for yourself how amazing,wonderful and faithful Daddy God is. It’s not easy following Him, but it’s worth it, over and over and over!

Stay strong!

Love
Liz
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Saying goodbye

These past couple of weeks, saying goodbye, has been a theme here on the farm. We’ve made good friends from other visiting teams, and it has been sad to see them go. We are told, that this is the way of YWAM, just as you’ve said hello it’s time to say farewell.

Tomorrow, we’ll be saying goodbye to what has been our home for two months. The outreach phase is starting, first stop Joburg, where we’ll spend tomorrow night at the YWAM base there, then we’ll be leaving for Nigeria on Sunday morning. This is a bittersweet feeling, we are excited to finally reach the outreach phase but will miss the base so much. Lecture phase was brilliant and we are looking fw to the continued work of God during the next season we’re going In.

I have loved living on the farm, I have experienced so many firsts here. Where else, other than on a farm do the horses, just roam around.lol

I’ve seen breathtaking views…

Thank you for all your prayers, love and support. Please continue to pray…

May God continue to bless you in abundance.

I will blog whenever I’m in a wifi zone…

Lots of love

YWAM Drakensberg DTS 

Every tongue and tribe…

Good afternoon/Goeie middag/Sanibonani/Guten Tag/Goedemiddag/Annyeonghaseyo

These past couple of weeks, we’ve had two teams visiting us. We were such a mix of different cultures ; Holland, America, Korea, Britain, Trinidad, Sierre Leone, Australia and South Africa. It’s been amazing worshipping God together through song, fellowship, teaching and just growing together. The Holy Spirit have just been moving and growing us. 

So, this week we went to one of the primary schools in town, as we do every week. It’s an amazing ministry opportunity. This week we went to the older kids and gave a farewell message, as they will be leaving for high school next year. We were trusting God for specific words for the children and just blessing them by speaking God’s love over them. There was one girl, that God had highlighted to us, and as we started praying for her, the Spirit of God overflowed in her and she just started sobbing, when she had calmed down a bit, I took her out of the class, she just opened up and we could just minister to her. God’s love for us as His children just astounds me. This girl had such deep hurts and God touched her incredibly, she was filled with so much gratitude and joy afterward. We continue to pray for her.

We go to two schools in the area once a week, but since exams are starting soon, last week was the last time we were able to go. We’ve grown so attached to the scholars, will miss them dearly. 

Preparation for outreach is well underway. And God has been absolutely amazing, I’ve witnessed God’s provision on a different scale this week. One girl in our team received all her outreach fees in one go, from a guy from one of the visiting teams. He’s only known her two weeks, but God laid it on his heart to pay for her outreach. That is so amazing. People have just been giving, not just money, but sentimental possessions, as God leads. 

I just love God’s love. It’s crazy and so beautiful. May His Spirit richly dwell in you as you start the new week. May you experience the fullness of God, may His grace and peace guide you.

Love

Liz

More Lord…

DISCIPLESHIP TRAINING SCHOOL! What a true description of this journey. We are in our ninth week and I have been learning such a lot, but more than that God, has been growing me in my identity as His daughter. I am so grateful to be here and learning about God’s heart.

The base has been busy, with two visiting teams from Australia and Durban. This has been an adjustment and sometimes very tough as I am so use to our small group, now, suddenly having to connect with other people as well. But it has been a blessing, forming new friendships and learning from others as well. Our team is definitely being stretched in the area of hospitality.lol.

So, we went hiking about two weeks ago to Tugela falls, this is the second highest waterfalls in the world! Such a tough hike for me…as I am very unfit.My jogging stint was cut short with a cow incident early in the DTS, so haven’t been doing any real exercise.

This is me on the top of the falls.

But getting to this point was excruciating, I had to climb a very steep mountain ladder…

I was sweating fear, I prayed and prayed and prayed to whole way up and down…made it though, and it was so worth it.

Our outreach date is looming closer, we are still in the process of getting flight tickets, visas etc.

It’s interesting, that when we prayed about what we feel God’s vision and mission is for our trip is… We all had a similar feel,that we will be working mostly with children. Of course we are flexible and will be open to what God does. Our outreach here in the Drakensberg have been with children and none of us are particularly very comfortable with children ministry. I feel this has been a preparation time for our outreach perhaps. 

Thank you for all your prayers, please continue to pray.

Lots of love

Liz

Halfpad

Sanibonani!

We are half way through our lecture phase, and it still feels like I’ve arrived here yesterday. We are entering our seventh week of lectures and I’m sure it will just get better and better. This past week has been a highlight, we covered the topic “Destiny by Design”. Our speaker, Jonlynn Landshut, is an amazing woman, with such passion for what she does, and she loves teaching on how others can discover that passion and God’s calling in their lives.  

Life in Winterton, is so quiet, but it’s a perfect location for me. I went back to Cape Town two weeks ago, for a wedding. It felt so strange being back in the city. I actually missed the farm life. This is me and some friends at the wedding.  

The team is unifying more and more every day. God is taking us so much deeper and we are growing closer and closer. The leaders are quite surprised that it’s been six weeks and we haven’t had one blow-up argument in the group. We actually had some good conflict resolutions this past week. Living and learning together, is sure to cause some friction but it’s been amazing how quickly and effectively we can deal with it within the group, and it brings us closer together. Of course, it’s not always easy sharing space with so many people, but we are learning so much from each other.  

We leave for outreach on the 10th of December, and God has been speaking about Nigeria and Mozambique. So we are starting to make our plans accordingly. We are trusting God for breakthrough in finances for our group. We will be starting with fundraisers soon.

 Thank you for all your prayers and support.  

Until next time.

Love Liz 

Farm life/culture/life lessons

So I’ve been here for almost three weeks, and I must say, the farm feels like home already. There is such a peace here…

When we got to Winterton, I thought I am going to get very bored here. It is still early days, so the boredom might still come,but we are such a diverse group in our team, it’s difficult to imagine boredom settling in. According to the YWAM staff, we are a quiet bunch 🙂 but they haven’t seen how these boys get up to their pranks. In the last week we’ve had three frogs put into our girls bathroom, and they find it so hilarious when the girls freak out. We have learnt now, not to react, so they’ve stopped trying to scare us. But even a simple prank can be such a learning experience, that is what I love about this environment. In the Zulu culture, the people are very scared of frogs, because they are taught, frogs carry the curses people put on you, so for the Zulu girls on our team, it wasn’t just a prank for laughs. One of them was really scared, even though, technically she knows it’s not true. So it was a teaching moment for her, to face any cultural ‘fears’ in her walk with God.

It’s also been a very sobering week, dealt with deep heart issues, leaving some of us very vulnerable. But the amazing part is, in that vulnerability, God just comes and strengthens us. We are learning to depend on Him so much more than ever before, especially in the area of finding our source of comfort and healing in Him.

We had amazing ministry opportunities this week. The people of the township here, Khetani, are very open to welcome us into their homes. This is a new experience for me, doing door-to-door ministry. I must say, I was very nervous and reluctant, but eish, our God is a good God. He went before us, the teams came back with amazing testimonies, and the homes my team went to, the people are so welcoming and hungry for encounters with God. It was such an encouragement for us. Another challenge was school ministry this week, once again not my favourite way of evangelism, but God is breaking those boxes I have put Him in,lol. I say, yes Lord!

I am glad to report I haven’t had any run in with cows again 🙂 The cows and their calves have been moved to the upper camp and only the heifers have been down here. I’ve learnt that heifers are female cattle that haven’t had any calves and a cow is a female that has had a calf. I could make all sorts of jokes about this…lol, but I’ll refrain. So I’ve been safe, lol, because the heifers aren’t ‘hostile’ like the cows when their calves are around.

I also had a history lesson this week, we went to a town called Howick, about two hours from here. We spend the day there, and went to Nelson Mandela’s capture site. So, it’s where he was arrested, while traveling from Durban to Johannesburg in 1962. This arrest led to his 27 years of incarceration. The picture below, is a monument on the road. Look closely and you’ll see, his face in the sculpture. This was really cool, and it was so nice getting out of the normal routine.

 

 

This is a picture of our team at the Howick falls, which isn’t very full, due to a lack of rain in the area. The farmers have been struggling, because there is not enough grass for the cattle to feed on. We are trusting God to send rain soonest.

Have a brilliant week. May God’s face shine upon you, I pray a blessing of peace and love over all of you. 

hugs

Lizelle

Crazy beautiful love

 

Sanibonani 🙂 (Hello in Zulu)

My post this week is going to be a bit different. About a month before I came here, I wrote down some thoughts and experiences I was going through at that time. I hardly write things down, but that specific time, I thought that it’s something worth noting. So the reason I want to post that what I believe I received from God then, is that this past week every detail was highlighted again. I think it’s interesting that God just deepens our knowledge of Him every day.

So, here it goes, this is exactly what I wrote down then (I didn’t date it, but it was roughly mid August)

Crazy beautiful love
God is love. Three words, that is simple, yet so layered. My whole Christian walk, I have struggled with God’s love, and how I am supposed to love God. I didn’t feel I live up to God’s standard of loving Him. I couldn’t wrap my brain around loving God, who I cannot see.

But I continued walking the way I was trained to. Reading Bible, praying, doing good etc. Not that I never received revelation of His love, I did, many times, But revelation and putting into practise are two different things, because I didn’t know what the practise looks like. Surely it can’t be what I have experienced thus far?

A scripture I’ve always been afraid of is Matthew 7:21-23 

21 “Not everyone who calls out to me ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the Kingdom of heaven. Only those who actually do the will of my Father will enter heaven. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ 23″And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTISE LAWLESSNESS” 
This struck fear into me, what if what I am doing now on this earth, is not enough. Just saying those words – reeks of a religious spirit. As trying to win God’s favour. Now, I know I’ve been saved by grace. I know my acts on earth is not to save me; it’s done. Whatever I do here is out of worship and awe and love for God. Now the fact that I know this in my head, did not seep down to my heart. My heart still deceived me in saying that ‘God can’t actually be pleased with you? Really? What have you done for him, what have you really done… You don’t know His will for your life, you don’t hear his voice.’

I was literally fearful. That I will come judgement day, and he will send me away. But i never dealt with why I felt this way. I calmed myself down, saying to myself “you are saved. you are truly saved, ” saying it over and over. Doubt and fear. Jeez, it’s exhausting… it keeps me from living in the rest of God, in joy and peace and just in rest.

I came across a website dealing with spiritual roots of diseases. Now I’m not sick, but I have an interest in this. Started reading the teachings, and the one was on God’s love. Now, those who know me, know, I love God’s word; it brings me joy when the Word makes sense, that’s my pleasure. And this lady speaks on receiving God’s love, and religious spirits. I recognised a lot of me right there. All the striving. that’s a religious spirit. I commanded it to go. It has no place in me. God loves me. God is love, as simple as that. But what now?

Then for the first time my eyes opened to the book of 1 John. Now I’ve had this idea that I got from reading scriptures, that loving God is equal to loving people. Right, everyone knows that. But the way John writes blew my mind. How can you say you love God, you can’t see Him. God knows our human barriers. We are visual people. But he says by loving one another, God’s love is perfected in us.

We all know the scripture – perfect love casts out all fear, but have we read the context of it. I haven’t. And it addressed my original fear sited in Matthew.

“And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So we will not be afraid on the day of judgement, but we can face him with confidence because we live like Jesus in this world. Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that have not fully experienced his love” (1John 4:17 – 18)

Now, this scripture addressed a fear I’ve had for years!!!!! That I am not good enough. As we live in Christ, his love is being perfected in us. Sealing our identity in Christ’s love, we are living like him. He knew who he was, and he loved others completely, no limits, everything he did, he did for others. If God’s love is being perfected in me, I have no reason to fear punishment. For if I do fear punishment, I don’t know God’s love yet. So as I write this. I say Lord” I receive your love, the love you gave on Calvary, the love you continually bestow on me, you lavish me with you love. For I am your daughter. My spirit cries out with your spirit, Abba father’ that is my identity in you Lord. “Help me never to fear punishment again, perfect your love in me, I want to live like Jesus did, poured out for others. Loving God means loving people. It’s not separate, it doesn’t stand separate from each other. There is no way I can say I love God, but I do not make the choice to love my brother and sister. May Christ show me how to love practically every day. My heart is for you Lord. Fill it till it overflows. I can say with confidence: I love You.

So I wrote that before I came here, and this week God just brought all of that up again. We were dealing with intimacy with God and the speaker so truthfully said. “We cannot experience intimacy with God if we don’t catch His grace.” Living from the the truth of grace just takes our relationship with God to that of fellowship and communing with Him.

I trust as you read a bit about what’s on my heart, God will speak to you, even if you don’t agree with what I wrote, but that the Lord will open up your heart to receive His grace and love.

God bless… Have an amazing week.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lectures, Heritage and Cows

 

Our DTS has officially started and oh what a week it has been. Adapting to the new environment and schedules has been tricky, especially getting up early in the morning 🙂 back home, i started work at 9 am but here breakfast is served at 6:45 already… Eish… But even this teaches me to be disciplined.

 

i’ll just a give brief outline of how our DTS is set out. This week has been introductory to YWAM. It’s been about learning the values of the organisation. I must commend the staff, that they truly embrace all our learning styles, making what could be a boring subject exciting and fun. I’ve even discovered my artistic side. Every week we’ll have a new speaker on a different topic. This coming week a local pastor will be teaching on intimacy with God. I am looking forward to this…

 

i must say the farm already feels like home. I’ve been assigned kitchen duty, so I cook the evening meals every night. I enjoy cooking, so this is a blessing, I love to see people enjoy their food. Every person on the team gets a different work duty. I must say I am happy with mine 🙂 

 

God has already been challenging me a lot this week. Speaking into my identity and just really asking me where do I place my identity in? Is it really in Him? The statement of the week would have to be, “There’s no rest in the world’s identity, but identity in God brings rest,”  I have a feeling this will be a ongoing question for this DTS.

 

We also celebrated Heritage Day on the 24th with a braai of course, this was a surprise for the students because we didn’t think we would get to do anything to celebrate the day. So, the picture featured, this is all of us around the table enjoying a juicy steak and boerewors. Was very yummy, the meat we get here is absolutely delicious.

 

And then on a funny note, I had a very abrupt introduction to farm life and learnt to  stay far away from cows that have their calves with them…

I went jogging with one of the other girls on Wednesday morning. We passed some cows on our way down towards the farm gate. We quite enjoyed the jog and was walking most of the way back and passed the same cows, but this time the momma cow thought we were threatening her calf, so she charged at us. B of us tried jumping over a barbed wire fence…very bad idea. The cow eventually left us alone but both of us were hanging from the fence, stuck to it. After about ten min we eventually managed  to get loose, we were laughing most of the time as this was just too funny. Both of us have bad scars and bruises all over our bodies. Suffice to say, we are never going jogging again. The scars will serve as a reminder.

 

Thank you for all the prayers and please continue to do so. Please pray especially for our team, for just open hearts, that we may be sensitive to the Holy Spirit and what He wants to do. Also for financial provision for our team. We will soon start praying into our outreach destination. We will probably know in the next two weeks. Please let me know of any prayer requests from your side, I would love to stand in agreement with you. My email address is lizellew@live.co.za.

 

God bless, have a beautiful week.

 

Love

Lizelle

Home Sweet Home

Finally! Our team arrived in Winterton today, this is the town where we will be based. It’s situated two hours from Durban. I had arrived in Durban on Tuesday. I spent some time with family friends there. What a beautiful experience,they spoilt me rotten. I had the most amazing curries (made like only the Durbanites can 🙂 They have such a beautiful home, I felt like I was in a holiday house.

So, back to our team. We are three South African girls and four gents from abroad. I am currently the only girl from the team that has arrived,all the guys are here already. So I have the ladies’ room all to myself tonight 🙂

I really like the base, it’s a big farm, with about 30 cows. One of the leaders is a farmer. And there are SIX Jack Russels running around. I’m getting over my fear of dogs,so this is going to really help me achieve that. They are quite friendly,so I haven’t had any issues thus far.

God is so amazing, other than just providing in the big things, He knows my desires. I’ve always wanted to experience proper farm life,and I get to do that now. We eat fresh produce from the garden, we drink fresh milk etc. I will have the opportunity to be involved in some of the farm activities. I’ll keep you posted on how that goes.

I stand in awe of God’s provision and love. The way He knows every intimate detail of His children.

The next post I will put mostly pics up. I’m still figuring out this blogging business. So don’t know how to do pics and text yet.

Untill next time… God bless you and thank you for all the prayers and blessings you’ve bestowed upon me.

Love
Liz
Sent via my BlackBerry from Vodacom – let your email find you!