This Morning's Prayer

I'm taking Lifa back to his dad's house today after 2 weeks of bliss and thanksgiving! 

Inviting you into my prayers this morning... thanks for doing this with me.  

I don’t want to be numb today.

I don’t want to be broken or shut down.

Will You really fight for me today? Even if that does mean my faith is tiny?

I want to worship You in the desert, in the storm, in the in-between and in the all-the-time. These are the parts where You get to flex. Where Your love gets to be big and strong. Where You get to hold all of us in Your one hand – no matter how far apart we are.

You’re fulfilling promises in us over and over again. Thank you, Abba.

I need you more than I need to breathe. More than I need Lifa. More than I need anything. I need You.

I choose to believe You completely.

I believe You sent Your Son to die so Family could be restored.

To end the orphan crisis.

To set free. To deliver. To redeem.

Attune my heart for Your Big Picture. Your Kingdom. Your glory.

Again, today, I release my plans. I surrender my deepest desires and dreams at the foot of the cross, at the foot of the throne, into the sovereign and loving hands of My Maker. You hold my heart. You choose my highest good.

Every breath. Every hair on my head. Every passing thought.

You know about every child with every kind of hair. Every kind of skin. Every circumstance.

You know the child bound by slavery. Lord, let her go. Set her free.

You know the child trapped in abuse. Lord, deliver her.

You know the child set up for hopelessness, in line to perpetuate the orphan crisis. Lord, redeem him.

Savior, save us.

Deliver us from evil.

Redeem us.

Restore us.

Make all things new.

You did. You are. You will.

Receive this contrite heart today. It’s been broken. It’s been given away to others. It’s sought after it’s own dreams. But today it’s Yours completely. Today it’s running after the Healer, Restorer, Lover.

My dreams, my hopes, my plans are to always be closer to You. To know You more and experience You more.

That’s my dream for Lifa – wherever he goes, whatever he sees, whomever he’s with. Wrap Yourself around him like a cloak of protection that shines with Your Radiant Greatness. Let darkness flee at the sight of Your Light on him and in him. Let all the broken, dried out, orphaned hearts around him be compelled by the Light engulfing him and shining through his eyes and that little voice.

Lifa met Family. Let Family prevail everywhere he goes.

Set them free. Deliver them. Redeem them.

Darkness will flee every time this 4-year old, anointed little boy says Your Name, Jesus. Go in power before him. Give him a supernatural awareness of Your Presence with him always.

His Family is always with him. Never abandons him.

Set them free. Deliver them. Redeem them.

Amen.

A Drop in a Bucket

I had a sleep-over with a 4-year old on Wednesday night.

Charity is from the local community, Dwaleni, and is part of a family that is becoming like my own.

Photo by Carly B

Photo by Carly B 

She speaks and understands no English at all. She wouldn’t break physical contact with me. She soaked up every moment of touch as though she hasn’t received any affection since her 20-year old mother had twins when she was less than 2 years old. (It’s not a far-fetched reality.)

She took multiple baths from the big bucket in my bathroom, and we treated her dried out and damaged skin. 

Her teensy, malnourished body weighs less than the 18-month olds toddling around base, but she managed to eat several very small meals. She ran around the cottage in a naked flurry of SiSwati-spoken excitement when she not only found Lifa’s toy box, but learned how to play.

The next morning, her eyes, that look like they’d seen 60-years of pain, started looking younger. The cottage filled with visitors, and Charity found herself in the lap of someone combing out her hair, with her limbs spread out for primping, pruning and nail polishing. I secretly rejoiced as she went from silent and solemn to sassy and wiggly.

 

By lunchtime, she was disobeying. And I was thrilled!

So what if my camera has 400 pictures of her fingers covering the lens?

And so what if my coffee table is covered in granola and there’s juice on the floor? (Not the time to mention the volume of creepies and crawlies I host in the  cottage on a daily basis…)

Home is the place where you are comfortable enough to make a mess.

Home is a place where you want to be safely and securely hemmed in.

Home is the place where you know the boundaries, so you can dance all the way to the edge of them.

Photo by Charity

I was hosting just one little girl for just one night.

She came with clumps of dirt in her matted hair, with too-small clothes that carried a festival of odors.

She left with a new hair-style, sparkly pink nails, and a sparkle in her eyes.

Just one little girl, and just one night.

But now there’s one more little girl in the world who knows what it means to be a daughter and a princess, to be plucked out from chaos and to be called worth it. Now there’s several groups of people who know this little girl’s name because she spent the day driving through communities with me, because she felt home in the tightly-knit TTH community, and because I post videos of her on facebook and write blogs about her. 

One little girl in South Africa is like one drop in a bucket…

A bucket that can hold the oceans.

But how can we ever fill up that bucket if we don’t start, one drop at a time?

I’ve been completely caught off guard in the past two weeks, swept away by the passion of one itty-bitty drop.

There’s power in noticing one person, even for one moment.

We were made for this.

At 20-years old, Nesisiwe is raising her four orphaned and sick siblings, sacrificing her education to raise her 2-year old baby sister. She was silent, broken and hopeless, somehow managing to hide behind the weak layer of skin that wraps around her frail bones.

Two days ago, she attacked me with affection and wrapped me up powerfully in her arms and her delight. Somebody responded to her. She felt known. She met joy.

One more drop.

Kevin was invisible. So tiny, withdrawn and malnourished, you could hardly see him.

God told me to bathe him, clothe him, and profess a King David anointing over him. Today he giggles, runs and leaps into my arms when I see him. His community knows his name, and he pushes others out of the way because he knows he’s always got a spot reserved on my lap. He feels worth it.

One more drop.

Given’s body is broken, inside and out. He doesn’t know who he is, and his family doesn’t know what to do with him. Shame is draped over him like the darkest night.

Photo by Carly B

I asked one question. I broke one cultural rule. A floodgate of family has opened. We’re beginning a tremendous and unfathomable process of restoration and being known, one looooong doctor’s appointment at a time.

Photo by Carly B

One more drop.

The God Who giggled with joyful inspiration at the very thought of knitting you together in your mother’s womb…

The God Who almost couldn’t stand the ecstasy of writing out your story, ordaining your every single day before He even breathed life into You…

THAT God… MY God… knows you and made you to be known.

He notices you all the time.

He's enthralled with you.

He's captivated by you.

He loves you.

And He gave us all of Him. IN us. And we can give it away.

We can give one moment of seeing, knowing, loving… just noticing… and be part of a Family being restored. Living Water rushes in like a tidal wave when we're willing to put our one drop in the bucket. 

Photo by Carly B

One drop of blood from one spotless Lamb knew me and knew you in that moment He decided it is worth it and it is finished.

I want to make drops. Everywhere I go. 

I want to make drops because it matters.

Photo by Carly B

I am a drop called Beloved, swimming in an ocean of grace.

Why We Call It Miracle Week

On Monday morning, we woke up to find that a vehicle had been stolen from our property in the middle of the night. It was there when we said goodnight, and it was gone when we said good morning. Nothing left behind except broken glass.

Instead of saying the words that might have popped into these oh-so-holy missionaries’ minds, we started the morning giving thanks. The visiting team was borrowing the vehicle and lost a credit card and an expensive baby stroller and carrier in the theft. They set the tone by praying for the thieves. And speaking blessings over the baby that would be carried in the carrier. The mother even said that although her first instinct might have been to rip the baby-carrier away from someone if she saw it walking down the road, she would, instead, give away the extra accessories that hadn’t been in the vehicle when it was stolen.

We sang to our God and declared him the victor and the giver of good things. We gave no credit and no attention to the one who comes to steal, kill and destroy.

As the dust settled on University Village (the property we call home) on Monday morning, we headed straight for the red dirt of Dwaleni. I took a team to visit a family of five – five children living within four windowless walls, which enclose just enough space for the queen-sized bed they all sleep on. HIV has wrecked their immune systems, and none of them has been able to escape TB (Tuberculosis) in their cramped quarters.

Their father is dead. Their grandmother abused them. The mother steals money and disappears. They are 20, 17, 15, 9 and 2 years old. They cook on a pile of sticks on the days they have food. When I asked what they wanted prayer for, they asked if we’d pray that they could get electricity. They’ve been waiting on the electric company since 2010.

With tiny, 2-year old hands wrapped around me, we prayed for more than electricity. For the Power and the Light that are everlasting… and for electricity too. And food. And comfort. And provision. Prayed for a way to build them a bigger house. For the oldest to be able to go back to school. And for the perpetual abandonment by their mother to be cut off in the name of the Father’s Family.

That was Monday.

And Monday was the day we started calling this week Miracle Week.

The same Monday we woke up to find that something had been stolen from us, God gave so much more than that. He provided in full, on that day, enough to secure our home, this fertile soil for discipleship, community and a hope to rise up. This week the money was wired over to purchase University Village - $77,000 in the last 2 months! 

And the same Monday we found a house full of orphans with nothing of value on this earth, we called them family and wrapped them in love and new blankets.

“Africa time” was overcome by the agenda of the Kingdom this Miracle Week.

Within one week of meeting this previously forgotten family, God provided food, education, school uniforms and supplies, the beginnings of a process for financial and physical security, and tear-streaked hope.

On Monday, there were empty eyes. On Wednesday, there were streaming eyes and a trembling voice saying, “I am happy.”

 

Weary and revived.

Longing and satisfied.

Desperate and thankful.

This is what Miracle Week looks like.

We live in the middle of miracles every week. This week we looked for them. We had to.

Jesus kept his disciples confused by saying things like, “The Kingdom has come and the Kingdom is coming.” The promises, the provision, the hope, the everything has been finished by His death on a cross. And it’s all coming.

Lifa and I love each other completely. His biological family calls me his mother. So does the Father. We are family. A Miracle family. That has been fulfilled. Finished.  

I haven’t seen him in 7 weeks. The news I received this week, during Miracle Week, says that the times we’re together are only be getting shorter as the times we are apart will get longer. There is not a document at all, much less one that calls us family. Nothing on this world seems to align or agree with the promises we know.

The promises have been made. He does not conflict Himself. He cannot be unfaithful.

In making the promises, they have been fulfilled.

The Truth has come and the Truth is coming.

That’s the miracle.

It’s full of tension because we were designed for the fullness of heaven, all promises completely fulfilled, His Kingdom Come… and we’re here on earth bringing it as best we can.

Miracle Week isn’t full of rainbows, butterflies and fairy Godmothers.

There’s no magic wand. Not even glitter.

Miracle Week started on a week called Passover 2000 years ago, and now it’s every week. Miracle Week has come and is coming.

Miracle Week has left me with swollen eyes, a sunburned face, a broken heart, a consuming peace, a lot less gas in my car, sticky kisses, and a new playlist on my iPod.

Miracle Week is pregnant with promise. Miracle Week gave birth to hope.

I couldn't resist...

Call out the miracles with praise.

Cry out from the in-betweens in thanksgiving.

He’s faithful. He’s good. And He’s the only Constant.

He hasn’t forgotten and He will not forsake.

“The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” 

2 Peter 3:9

Faithful local volunteer carrying donated food to the family of 5

How I Did Church This Morning...

There were sandwiches, bananas, hide-and-seek, the cutest giggles you've ever heard, the deepening of a beautiful friendship, so many baby kisses, a jumping game, and....

What's a Sunday morning without a dance party?

TODAY

TODAY is an important day in South Africa, America, the ends of the earth, and in the Kingdom of God.

TODAY we are wearing our Ten Thousand Homes t-shirts and believing.

Photo by Lindsay Loveless

TODAY this movement is bridging the supernatural with the natural, as the Kingdom of God touches earth, permeates all five senses, and speaks every language.

TODAY we are fasting and praying – and hoping you will too.

TODAY we need $15,000 to complete the purchase of University Village by the approaching deadline – It’s the property we live on, and where the nations gather, one team at a time, to impact the orphaned and vulnerable children in South Africa.

TODAY we believe God will respond to His children, fasting and on their knees, for provision for our home. He has called the land ours.  

TODAY the heavens will open – not manna, but a banquet. A wedding feast as His promises are consummated.

TODAY we’re not waiting for the rocks to cry out.

TODAY we won’t be too busy or anxious to enjoy His delight, His blessings and His gracious responses to those who respond to Him.

TODAY is a day where we have the honor of ravenously calling His Kingdom down to earth, starving for more of His glory, and being more hungry for His will to be done than we are for lunch.

TODAY you and I are called to look after the orphans and the widows, to love the least of these. Today.

Photo by Carly B 

TODAY is the day to respond. You're invited to be a part of His promises and plans.

TODAY is the day you find your unique place in the Body.

You have a place. You have a seat at the extravagant banqueting table. TODAY is the day to take it. We believe we’ll have a home TODAY if everyone takes their place in this Kingdom call.

If it’s through making a financial donation toward the $15,000 we need, click here.

If it’s through fasting and praying, take a knee and start now.

If it’s through spreading the news and needs, start typing and start talking.

If it’s through fundraising ideas or you need more information, contact Lindsey Kaufman today.

“This is the day the Lord has made; 

let us rejoice and be glad in it.” 

Psalm 118:24

Hope is Like Jell-O

(Written on January 17th, 2012)

Today was the day! Nandi was coming to spend the night, after faithfully staying at her own house for two weeks. She’d been singing, dancing, begging and counting down since the day we found her in the shelter.

Despite the 15-hour rainstorm and wet everything, I was beside myself. I was ready to welcome a perfect little girl into my home, treat her broken skin with the new lotion and medicines I bought for her, tuck her in, pray over her, make chocolate milk when she woke up, pack her lunch and take her to the front door for her first day of the school year – even if she is repeating the same grade she was in last year. I couldn’t wait to celebrate her and make her feel proud to be her.

When we pulled up to the muddy yard, she ran out with a consuming smile.

And then she remembered.

Faster than her smile disappeared, Nandi quickly ducked into the kitchen to cook her family’s dinner. Her mom was in the other room with the door closed.

I scooped up an armful of children, began kissing the raindrops off their perfectly kissable foreheads, and went to Nandi’s auntie’s shack. Ivonne is Mama Nandi’s sister (Charity, Kevin, Given and Karabo’s mama) and lives in the same yard.  Ivonne told me nervously Mama Nandi had changed her mind about Nandi coming to stay with me.

Last time Nandi came over, her mother was relieved. Mama Nandi has welcomed me into her family with hugs and kisses ever since. This time, I found a little girl hiding behind a door while she cooked dinner. She fought back her tears until she managed to turn her face and her emotions into stone, even willing her limbs to be immobile. Mama Nandi locked herself into her room when I came to greet her and shouted to her sister in SiSwati that she didn’t want to greet me.

I decided to give everybody one last kiss and leave quickly to avoid causing trouble for Nandi later.

And now I’m sitting here alone in a cottage I was sure would be filled with laughter tonight.

And I’m thinking about why.

I can’t translate, unravel or make any sense of Mama Nandi’s quick change of heart. But I’ll give you a few background stories…

A couple of weeks ago, the two families (Mama Nandi and Ivonne) had no food. It was heartbreaking to see the underweight children fight over the last morsel of food they found buried in the dirt. One of the staff members from TTH brought over some food. Only Mama Nandi was home at the time. Later we found out she had kept the food all for herself. A local pastor intervened, had what seemed like an incredible talk with the sisters, and they agreed to share the food.

I wonder if Mama Nandi’s change of attitude toward me had anything to do with what she might have felt was us taking food from her when she was asked to share what she thought she had been given?

In a whole new story with a whole new set of people…

We met a group of people nearby who were feeding 120 every single day, but didn’t have much meat or nutrition to offer. We were blessed with extra meat, so we took a few packages to them. Later we found out that the local volunteers had each taken a package, leaving one small packet of meat for the 120 children.

I wonder what my thoughts and motives would turn to if I spent 7-days a week feeding people’s kids and didn’t have enough to feed my own?

And just one more…

I went to a friend’s house today. She is the oldest of a child-headed household at 18-years old and the mother of a 6-month old. We built her and her siblings a home last year. She begged me to come inside and away from others to tell me she wanted to go back to school but needed someone to care for her baby. And she was out of food. Her eyes filled with hurt and frustration as I explained I had no money with me nor the ability to care for her baby full-time.

I wonder what hope and home are shaped like to her, beyond the four walls of the house we built. Can she even imagine not having to depend on people who she thinks have money and power? Can she grasp feeling value and worth in who she is and escape the oppressive lies of poverty?

I started the day floating in God’s provision, swimming in hope. I started the day in a posture of Thanksgiving for all the goodness flowing out of Him. And then I left the sanctuary of my fluffy couch, oversized coffee cup, iTunes and Bible.

I encountered the orphan crisis today.

I know their names. I know where they live.

Some of them are parents. Some of them have parents.

But they are each under the same crushing arm of that tagline we use – The Orphan Crisis - that makes us think of cute, little brown babies eating under that perfectly-shaped silhouette of “the Africa tree”.

The orphan crisis is the voice that seethes and slithers through Africa and says:

You’re on your own.

There’s not enough for you.

Nobody’s really here for you.

You’re alone.

You will live your life scraping from the bottom of the bowl and from the bottom of the rich man’s shoes.

You will never be anything but poor. Orphaned. Alone.

If that was in my ear…

If I was born into a culture that breathes and breeds these statements as reality…

If that’s all I ever knew…

I would shut a foreigner out of my family for stealing from me...

I would take the only meat I could get my hands on and feed my kids...

And I would shamelessly beg for handouts, selling my self-respect for a full stomach…

But we’re here to shut that voice up, and stomp out the orphan spirit.

We’re here to build a Home, create Hope, and raise up the Family of God.

You probably grew up in a family that had enough meat. You probably have, at one time in your life, sat around a dinner table, family-style and shared a meal… for the very experience of sharing the meal. It’s probably rooted somewhere in your culture’s values, even if it’s been buried in the past few generations, that there is something to family – something about sharing meals, experiences, life and provision. Something that’s worth it and something that’s good.

The people I encountered today didn’t.

How can we end the orphan crisis if we don’t model family? If we don’t spread the news about the Greatest Adoption? If we don’t give more than the meat we have – but give love that doesn’t stop and comes in whatever form it takes.

Love that keeps coming back to knock on that door you’re locked out of…

Love that offers to cook the meat and dish it out to everyone...

Love that sits down and helps a young single mom find resources to empower her to make her family thrive…

So, at the end of a hard day, and from the quiet of this empty cottage, I’m going to choose to find the hope. The possibilities.

We’re here to create hope.

We’re here to speak Family to the orphaned. To welcome them into the Family where they’ll never be orphaned again. To be His voice. The ambassador of His Family.

My right hand upholds you.

There’s more than enough for you, and I will never run out.

I am here for you. I desperately want you.

I will never forsake you.

The Kingdom is coming. The poor will inherit the earth.

You belong to me. I want you to be mine. I will never stop loving you.

Despite what I feel like after a day like today, Africa is not hopeless.

There is endless potential for hope to be released through this nation and the entire continent.

Today I got insight into how to love, how not to love and the atrocious lies the orphan spirit burns into hearts.

Hope is like Jell-O…

There’s always room for more.

Manicure of the Heart

She’s 22-years old with two-beating hearts and four extra hands and feet following her, reminding her that she’s not like the other girls in class. She doesn’t go home to do homework and hang out with friends. She goes home to do the wash and to expectant, hungry cries from the most beautiful and most needy little faces.

She made some choices and had to grow up fast, at least enough to turn off her own life to sustain another’s for 9 months. And once you’re the one who’s not in school and the one who has a baby, why not keep doing what grown-ups do? Even if it leads to 9 more months of growing, stretching and another sacrifice.

But she’s back for a re-do. She signed up to return to grade 9 at age 21, not totally sure if she would stick with it. But at least she would have something to do and a break from the kids and the chores.

What does redemption look like for a woman who is both a mother and a child? For a woman with a “used” mark on her body, holding her hand and strapped to her back? For a woman who’s been almost completely given up on by her family? To a woman who feels like she has to find family elsewhere – even creating her own?

Photo by Carly B

She still dreams like the young ladies she’ll start grade 10 with tomorrow. Prince Charming will come… Won’t he?

Zodwa is my African sister. I love her dearly. We’ve hit our share of cross-cultural, sisterly bumps along the unending road of relationship-building, but yesterday we took a turn.

Since I’ve known her, her kids have seen me as a parent. They are faster to call me "Mama" than her. She’s leaned on me, begged me for things, and hidden things from me like I was her parent too. She signed up to return to school upon my refusal to meet her material needs, insisting she was capable of earning nice things for herself if she got an education and a job. We even set goals with rewards to help her make it through each quarter of school. And each quarter, she created an amazing story of how she lost her report card on the way home from school.

In December, Zodwa proudly thrust piece of paper in my face and began dancing wildly at how she was going to get a special treat from me. She passed grade 9!

So yesterday, 2 days before grade 10 started, we waved goodbye to her two crying children, and I taught Zodwa what a manicure was. We went to a side of town she’s never seen, and she tried to play it cool. It was awesome. Almost an hour later, Princess Zodwa came out beaming… coolly… and trying not to stare at her purple fingernails.

Over a latte and a hot chocolate, I started pouring out my heart to her. I didn’t want her to leave with only her fingernails manicured. We were starting a year together, and we were going to make it count.

Dreaming into the future and Kingdom-sized hope is hard to come by in her culture…. So you are who your family says you are and live how your family lives. But we all have the invitation to live in the Kingdom culture.

And in the Kingdom culture, you are who your Family says you are and you live how your Family lives. In perfect love and full inheritance.

In Zodwa’s culture, if she were to find a husband, he would negotiate her labola, or dowry, with her family. She would be worth less cows because she has children.

In the culture of the Kingdom of God, we talk lamb instead of cow. And the worthy lamb, the Son of God, paid the full price for the full worth of His Bride. She can’t do a thing to change the value of the lamb that was slain, or the fact that He was slain for her bride price.

When I started talking to Zodwa about the new year, she rattled off an answer that would compare to marking “C” in a multiple choice pop quiz. “I want to make better marks in school and become a social worker one day.” I asked for more than that – for heart talk.

I read God’s word over her and the words of my TTH family and my church family to remind her who her Family says she is. And I told her that I wanted this year to be different for us.

I told her that this was a year for God to be who He says we are. I confessed that I get insecure and nervous living out this calling to impart the intimacy, teaching and gifts of a mother when I’ve never conceived a child. And I’m completely embarrassed and insecure that I don’t speak the local language. I typically feel inferior, unworthy and like I don’t do things right.

Then she started listening.

I told her I saw that she was different because, no matter what the other girls in school, or even at church, do in secret, her “secrets” recently turned 2- and 4-years old.

Something in our relationship changed when I told her that we were equals. That I’ve made as many mistakes as her. That I’ve got 5 years of sin and brokenness on her, and I’m sure she couldn’t catch up if she tried. And I told her that we were both made clean, the same kind of righteous in the same kind of family. 

Photo by Carly B

I listen to what people say about me and try to make it true, just like Zodwa.

More often than Zodwa

I try to fill in the holes in my heart by my own strength, just like Zodwa.

More often than Zodwa.

I try to earn my worth and author my identity, just like Zodwa.

More often than Zodwa.

So I spoke to both of us:

“Even now,’ declares the Lord, ‘return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.’

Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love…

‘I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten…’

from Joel 2

I asked her again what she wanted for this year. This time she said, “This year I’m going to be clean. I’m going to be an adult.”

And she is. And she will.

Believe with me with her and for her.

It got me to thinking.

This year, I want to be clean. Because “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus…” (Rom 8:1) I want every part of me to live in freedom, so there’s more room for love to pour in and out.

And this year, I want to be an adult. Is there a higher pinnacle of spiritual maturity than being absolutely and completely childlike? With His kids. With Zodwa, with Nandi, with Lifa, with Baba Lifa, with the congregation of them I’ll speak to this Sunday, and one-on-one with the Living God in me.

 

Zodwa got manicured fingernails. I got a manicure of the heart. The buffing, trimming, polishing and shining in my spirit gave glimpse to a little more Truth, a little more authenticity, and a little more perspective on this perfect Family I live in.