Number 10: Cape Town

Today is my last day in Cape Town. We fly out this evening back to Pretoria and Alabanza.

This past week and a half has been incredible! I'm convinced that God planned this time not only as a vacation of sorts, but a time to sort through some things with me. In this short period, He's brought long-lost pains back to the surface so He could remove them. He's opened my eyes to the truth of who I am in Him, and more importantly, how to live as that person. He's shown me how desperately He desires me to live in the freedom and power that He's already given me. It's done and finished. Taken care of. I just have to accept it.

Although they were gone most of the time to Mozambique, Claud and Mary might be two of the wisest twenty-somethings I've met so far in life. I wish I had a tape recorder so I could save every thing they've said! haha So many lessons about ministry, missions, the heart of God, and faith. This couple lives every day with the kind of faith I need to walk with. Truly inspiring people. I pray that God brings them across my path again. I would love to serve alongside their family and learn even more from them!

Speaking of their family: Busi and Nando, their adoptive daughters from Swaziland. Amazing little girls!! So sweet! They're pretty much female Alfies! haha I've enjoyed every moment with them. Especially the amusing ones! They're 10 and 3 and Alfie is 4. There were quite a few hilarious moments!

I think when I was preparing for this trip, I was ready to love on the poor black orphans that are so different than me. I wasn't quite prepared to love on people that look so similar to me and have been raised in a similar enviroment, but are just as lost as the orphans. God's really stretching me. I don't quite know how to describe it. I guess the best way to say it is that He's redefining "orphan" in my eyes. There is still the normal definition of a child that has lost or been abandoned by his or her parents. No doubt there.

But I think in God's eyes there's another definition, perhaps even a better definition. An orphan is a beloved, special, chosen child of the Most High King of Kings that has chosen to ignore His love and His family. They've left and are missing from the family picture. That's an orphan, even if they live in a giant house with amazing parents and everything they want in a blessed country.

An orphan is Fatherless.

May the Father break our hearts for those missing from our family picture. May the Father burden our hearts to bring them home. Bring them back.

PRAYER REQUESTS
Relations with the other interns: unity and love
That God would open the eyes of those that have chosen not to look to Him
Smooth preparation for our teams and camps
Choir tour: that the changes God made in lives would stick for longer than 2 weeks
Peru team: Unity, preparation for the team and those they'll be ministering to. Pray that they would see miracles, and be expecatant for them.
Preparation and equipping for what God has in store for me at OBU