I often say that I don't want to live an ordinary life. I want to be extraordinary. This has nothing to do with me, but everything to do with Jesus.

Someone who I feel exemplifies out-of-the-box Christian living is Shane Claiborne. A few years back he wrote an incredible book called The Irresistible Revolution and I am currently finishing up his latest book called Jesus for President.

The essence of this book is that the politics of Jesus are so much higher than ours. Imagine if Jesus were sitting in the White House, or on the "throne" over the Kingdom of Swaziland. Perhaps things would look a little different.

The last section of this book displays radical Christians who are revolutionizing the world. This is my dream, my hope, my desire! Another longing of mine is that we wouldn't have to label "radical" Christians vs. "normal" Christians. We should all be living outrageously every single day. Listen to a few of these stories:

Shane speaks about a robotics engineer who used to make robots for himself and to impress people, but began thinking about how he could use his skills to make a difference in God's Kingdom. He now designs robots to dismantle land mines in countries like Afghanistan so children can play freely.

How about massage therapy? One lady kindly and gently washes and massages the feet of women involved in sex trafficking who walk the red-light district all night long.  

And how about practicing being green? One community has a washing machine that is powered by a stationary bicycle. They are not only saving precious energy that we often take for granted, but are also being good to themselves.

This last story may be my favourite. A prison chaplain was suddenly overwhelmed by the hopelessness of the lives of the prisoners he saw regularly. So, he decided to turn the prison into a monastery where men would become like a family of monks. They would attend retreats, confess sins, and when they were back in their "monastic cell" they would spend time with God at their own personal altar.

There are a myriad of other stories of people refusing to pay war taxes, making their own clothes, growing their own food, taking in elderly widows, and even an Amish community who actively making peace with those who have wronged them.

I hope this small bit is inspiring, because it has definitely fanned the flame of my heart to do something great for God and His Kingdom. Let's put hands and feet to our faith and do something, anything – as long as it's not ordinary.

I can hardly believe that today is the 1^st of February. South Africans tell me I speak more like them everyday. My heart really has become a part of this place; I can't even imagine a life back in the US. I have been in South Africa for a grand total of a year and a half! I've been living in PE for a year now! One of my first blogs about living in PE was Fear Factor night at FIREhouse. And we just had Fear Factor again this past Saturday. It's strange to think that was a year ago already!

I have yet to mention my future plans here in South Africa. I've been tossing around a few ideas for a while, but mainly I've been waiting on the Lord to confirm that my will is aligned with his. I think most people that know me always knew I'd stay here forever.

There is a new opportunity for me in Johannesburg, which is about a 12 hour drive from Port Elizabeth. The organization is called Refilwe (see Refilwe.org for more details) and it is located just outside the Lanseria airport. This community project provides many opportunities to young children to realize dreams and "break the cycle of poverty" as their motto states. Some of their projects include God Parent foster families, an on-sight school, day care, youth program, and reaching out to the surrounding communities in varies ways. The more I learn about the NGO, the more I see myself a part of it. At the moment, the program is very 1-dimensional to me because I am only reading or hearing from others. But this will soon change as I am going to visit the centre in a week's time. You can be praying for me that the Lord speaks loud and clear while I'm there.

As much as I love being in Port Elizabeth, I still feel like something is missing. I've been feeling like this for a few months now. My heart is so content in the ministries I am involved in, but there is a definite lack of interaction with the poor. This is where my heart comes alive. I have had many prophesies spoken over me that I was created to work with people in the community and with the poor. I believe this is the perfect opportunity that God is providing for me. At the moment, I am planning on making the big move to Joburg in the beginning of July.

Another big change in my life that I haven't yet mentioned is my new relationship. It was through him that I learned about Refilwe. I met Piet in Jeffreys Bay back in September, and we hit it off right away. He is a South African with a beautiful heart after God, which beats for Africa and the poor. He is very strong and challenges me to be more like Jesus.

I am so excited about what God has in store for me. He is taking me on the adventure of a lifetime.

The story of Abraham has many comparative aspects to my life at the moment. I keep referring back to it.

Genesis 12:1-3 The LORD had said to Abram, "Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father's family, and go to the land that I will show you. I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others. I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt. All the families on earth will be blessed through you."

Abram, whose name later became Abraham, left everything behind to follow the Lord. He had no idea where he was going. All he had was the promise of the Lord; so he clung to it. Instead of giving Abram the big picture, God directed his steps along the way. This has been so characteristic to my life. God rarely, if ever, gives me the big picture. He places a dream upon my heart, but doesn't let me know how I will get there. He reveals each step when the time is perfect. I, like Abraham, will live as a foreigner for most of my life.

A big struggle in my life is trying to play God in my life. I admit that I can be manipulative of my future, my relationships, and my life. I want things to work out in my favor that I end up trying to take control and doing everything myself, my way.

We see two significant times in scripture when Abraham tries to do things his way, rather than waiting on the promises that God has granted him. Firstly, Abraham lies to Pharaoh saying that his wife Sarai (Sarah) is actually his sister. He fears death and steps out from under God's protection in order to protect his own life. Secondly, we see Abraham doubting God's promise. God promised that Abraham would be the father of all nations, and that the nations would be blessed through him. But Abraham and his wife were very old, and he doubted that they would have children. So, he did what he thought he had to. Sarai presented her maidservant to Abraham to sleep with in order that she would bear children for them. They tried to force God's hand once again and did things their way rather than waiting on the promise that God gave them. God never breaks a promise, nor can He lie. His Word cannot come back void.

There is one more very well-known story about Abraham that I want to compare my journey with. When Abraham finally received the son he had been promised, his faith was harshly tested. God asked Abraham to bring his promised son, whom through which the nations would be blessed, to the top of the mountain to be sacrificed as an offering. God is teaching me that He is always faithful unto his promises, but he will test my faith. He gives us good things, but we have to be willing to let them go. We have to trust God so strongly that we are willing to give up to the point of death, that which we cling to.

Abraham was a righteous man, very full of faith. Though he made a few blunders here and there it is said of him, the Lord counted him as righteous because of his faith, Genesis 15:6. I want this to be said of me! May I never doubt God's promises that He has clearly spoken over my life. May he find me upright and walking in truth and faith!

I would guess that many of my readers know nothing or very little about the affects of the Apartheid. Sure, we hear about it and maybe we can compare it to the civil rights movement in the US, but the history of this country is still very young, and everyone has something to say about how the Apartheid personally affected them.

Even living here I don't know a whole lot about it, but I have learned a lot along the way. I've heard stories straight from many people whether white, black, or coloured.

District Six is an area in Cape Town where a big majority of coloured people used to live. They had their comfortable little community right in the heart of Cape Town. They were well located because they could easily walk or take taxis to work and to the shops. They lived in nice houses, and many of them had significantly large homes. During the Apartheid, the whites came in and took over their land and forced them out of their homes because of something called the Group Areas Act. Each race had to have their own communities in designated areas of town. The whites wouldn't give them any eviction notice, but simply threw them out and seized everything. They even arrested people in their own homes. The coloured people were displaced and forced to live in small government houses way out of town. They lost most of their things because their new accommodation could not hold all of their belongings. The whites then built up the land in places like District Six. While in Cape Town, I visited Mitchell's Plain where a large number of coloureds live today. The houses are nice, but very small and very close together. If they want to add on to their homes, they are forced to build upwards. While driving through, it was interesting to see what they had done to these homes. I could see that many of the homes had been remodeled.

Mitchell's Plain is quite a far distance out of town, 40 minutes maybe. So, during the Apartheid, and even now, they have to travel quite a far distance to get to work. The reason that they haven't moved back into town now that the Apartheid is over is because of two things. They are comfortable now in their communities, though they are far away, and because of money. They now have to spend money on traveling in and out of town.

These people were degraded and dehumanized. Something I find interesting is that coloured people always find themselves stuck in the middle. The white people often see themselves as the superiors of the country, and the blacks are often seen as inferior. Coloureds are somewhere in between. And even now, the government is trying to make up for the way the blacks have been ill treated. They are almost getting special treatment now. This means that, again, the coloureds are still "second best."

I spent the whole time in Cape Town as the only white person among coloured people and I loved it. They are so hospitable and very friendly. I feel as though I've made new family. It's such a blessing to me that people don't even know me, yet they accept me as I am and treat me as someone very important.

I love South Africa with all my heart. You won't ever be able to take it out of me.

Flew to Cape Town.

Cute rental car.

Met lots of Jody's extended family.

Not much sleep.

Green Market Square.

District Six museum – displacement of Coloured peoples in Cape Town, very sad.

Visited Mitchell's Plain – where Coloureds currently live.

Ate a Gatsby.

V & A Waterfront.

Not much sleep.

Beach.

Ethiopian restaurant – yum! Ate with my hands.

Experienced lots of Coloured culture.

Drive to Paarl.

Met more of Jody's family.

Wine Tasting.

Ate lunch in prison served by prisoners.

Afrikaans monument.

Mall.

Indoor Ice Skating.

Barely any sleep.

Wake up at 4 am, leave Cape Town at 5 am.

Drive 10 hours.

Randomly saw Chelsea in Knysna, ran down the street after her car.

   

Even though I'm not in the land of twinkling Christmas lights, black Friday, and holiday decorations on every corner, I can still feel that the Holiday season has begun. I have been to multiple end of year parties, kids are finally finished with exams and out of school, and our holiday program is in full swing.

Two Fridays ago was the Young Adult end of year party. It was a Thanksgiving dinner and dance party. Because this was my third Thanksgiving away from my family, it was very refreshing to be with people that I care about and that want to experience a new tradition.

The dinner was not too different than the Thanksgiving that I am used to. We had turkey (I made my very first turkey all by myself!), mash potatoes, stuffing, sweet potatoes, salad, vegetables, and dessert. I really missed cranberries with my sweet potatoes. Unfortunately they are only native to North America. Also, I was really looking forward to pumpkin pie, but the pumpkins are a bit different here. The evening was a definite success. Thanksgiving is not Thanksgiving without handmade turkeys made from our traced hands.

Ithemba, the school for disabled children, had their Christmas play on Tuesday. They performed only for themselves, but they got all dressed up in white sheets and played the parts of Mary and Joseph, the inn keepers, sheep, goats, and angels.

The Firehouse end of the year party was a real hit. We had a Mexican evening where we ate nachos and dressed like senors and senoritas! A few of the kids ate habenero peppers and their tongues turned black!

I had lots more holiday events that I didn't even mention such as our youth cell group traveling supper, young adult cell group end of year supper, and our Children's Church holiday Christmas pageant.

From here until mid January are social events and holiday clubs. So, this will be a nice time to take things easy for a bit.

       

Hello faithful readers! :)

I know I often talk about my heart for the poor. Every so often I have a surge of energy and passion that is geared toward loving the poor that I have to get out. I'm sitting here in my room reading zillions of Scriptures that are direct commands from God about how we are to treat the poor and about how much He loves them. His heart is for them!

With help from the folks at Biblegateway.com, I have tried to compile all the verses that speak about poverty, the poor, needy, the oppressed, widows, orphans, etc. There are so many. There are well over 300, and I'm sure I didn't get them all. And you know what the interesting thing is? The vast majority are from the Old Testament.

Here are a few of my favourites at the moment:

Learn to do good, seek JUSTICE, help the OPPRESSED. Defend the cause of ORPHANS. Fight for the rights of WIDOWS. Isaiah 1:17

And if you give even a cup of cold water to one of the LEAST of my followers, you will surely be rewarded. Matt 10:42

Father to the FATHERLESS, defender of WIDOWS – this is God, whose dwelling is holy. God places the lonely in families; he sets the prisoners free and gives them joy. Psalm 68:5-6

For the Lord hears the cries of the needy, he does not despise his imprisoned people. Psalm 69:33

In the Old Testament, the Hebrews celebrated what they call the Sabbath Year every 7^th year. During this year, every person refrained from working for the entire year. God provided in abundance for the Israelites in the 6^th year so that they wouldn't have to harvest in the 7^th. So, the crops would continue growing, and they would be made available for the poor and foreigners among them that were struggling to get by. Because it was a year of rest, the rich were forced to slow down in their accumulation of wealth, and the poor had a chance to catch up. Thus, the gap between the rich and poor was minimized. The Hebrews then celebrated the Year of Jubilee every 50 years, or rather the 7x7 (49-50^th) year. This ritual alleviated debt, because every debt accrued would be forgiven, freed the slaves, and returned land to its original owner. What a cool idea God had when he thought this up; redistribute property and wealth to those who are struggling. He did not want any poor among them. If this practice was followed closely, they would have been a society without any permanent poverty. We could definitely learn something from this.

I definitely believe that God wants us, also, to fight against poverty. Not just by giving hand-outs but by sharing what we have, by bridging the gap between the rich and the poor, and by genuinely loving people that are less fortunate than us. It really starts with bite-sized change and the power of building relationships. The poor are all around us. Jesus often talks about taking care of the orphans and the widows, which were those in society that could not care for themselves. Today, we see so many around us that are struggling: the single mom, the teenager on the street, those that are battered and bruised. These are the orphans and widows of our day.

I think that's all for now...

and here is a local church that we visited...

I've gone into the township (also called the community or location) a lot more lately. When the team was living in JBay, I went into the St. Francis Township quite a bit, but barely at all since I've been in PE.

I've recently started up Outreach with Firehouse kids and it's been really awesome. Last Saturday we went to a place called Lethemba in the Walmer Township. It is a children's haven that is home to about 13 kids at the moment. Andrew and Sarah Buller used to minister here on a regular basis. As a team, we would refer to it as Doreen's, which was the former housemother. And if my team is reading, yes, she is no longer there. But I went and saw her and she is good; just resting. She was getting physically sick from working so hard. Eight Firehouse kids showed up to go into the township last Saturday. We played Twister with the kids, read books, sang songs, and colored. All of the boys got "arrested" and placed in the corner about 50 times each. Tristan, our youth pastor, came with, which was so much fun and I could see that the kids really appreciated him being right there in the action with them. Everyone had a blast! In the car on the way home, everyone was very chatty and kept saying how much they loved it. A few of them gave testimonies at Firehouse that night about how blessed they were. Many of them have spent very little to no time in the township and their eyes were opened. They realized that you don't have to be spiritual when you go on an outreach, you can be yourself. When we went back today (Saturday) we got invited to watch a wedding that was taking place just down the road. It was so fun and so African! It's so different than the way Westerners do things. Everyone is invited and everyone is instantly family. Wow...what beautiful people they are.

A girl called Donna that I mentor and myself went back to Lethemba on Thursday. Again, we just hung out with the kids and shared life with them. We didn't go to read Scriptures to them or pray or anything; we just wanted them to see they are valuable to us. Donna and I were dancing and singing and laughing the whole time. It's times like these that I wish I were African. I'll always be the white American girl, and that bothers me. I want to be part of them. I want to relate better than I do. I want them to see me for the heart that I have for them.

My favorite story, however, is about another girl that I mentor called Sam. What an awesome heart this girl has. She comes from an upper-class English white family and hasn't been exposed to much diversity. I guess that is true about many white South Africans; they're experiences are limited to what others tell them. One day last week I told Sam she had to get in the car and come with me somewhere. I didn't tell her where because I knew she might freak out. I took her to the township to see what life is like and to visit some friends there. We visited with a few people in their home, and also went to the children's haven. I really think Sam was blown away. She wrote me an awesome message the following day. She said:

hey leah i just wanna say thank you so much for taking me to the township yesterday. I realised people have pre-conceived ideas about things and because of the ideas we have, we become afraid of going places all because someone told us something about that place... but I tell you, we all need to stop thinking the way we do and start taking risks and living it up because seriously, Walmer township was totally different and I actually felt safe there because that's the way everyone else feels there and that is safe!! Fine, I might be surrounded by scary people, but they will not harm me because just like them, I AM HUMAN, and I also had to understand that just like me, THEY ARE HUMAN and deserve to be treated equally and fairly because the flesh does not matter, God doesn't judge you on the colour of your skin or the way you smell or the way you talk, he looks at something much deeper and that's your heart.

I also was blown away by her heart and her vulnerability.

My heart still aches for more. When I'm in the community I am so happy and I feel so fulfilled. It feels like a missing piece of the puzzle. The people are so beautiful. I really wish I could spend way more time there. I just want to rock up at people's houses and drink Coke with them and talk about life. But who would I go with? Everyone is either in school or at work. I talk to God about it day and night. He knows my deepest desires and He knows my heart is to be with the poor.

I've been really worried about my future lately. I think just because I'm not totally satisfied where I'm at. Don't get me wrong, I love what I do, but I still feel a longing for more. But, something that God has really been placing on my heart lately is to desire the BLESSER rather than the BLESSINGS. I know if I seek His face I'll find everything I need. I know God has a plan for me, and I trust Him completely.

Well, that's a bit about where I'm at at the moment. My heart really longs for more. Now, I just have to make sense of it and keep coming to Jesus about it.