Hospital ministry and other thoughts

October 23, 2007

It’s Wednesday and my dream has come true,
we get to write and post more than one blog a week.

This
week I have been doing ministry at the hospital. I have been there 3 days in a
row now. We have been having some troubles with the security there, on how long
we can stay and when they will let us in and such. It’s all good though we have
got to go everyday for at least some amount of time. I really enjoy visiting
with the new mothers, and seeing the newborn babies. A lot of the mothers just
want prayer for their pain, and that they will be able to raise a healthy
child. I have been visiting with these 3 small girls everyday in the cancer
ward. I have been bringing crayons and little crafts they really seem to enjoy
it, one of the girls danced for us today it was awesome. One thing that God
placed on my heart to do today at the hospital was to go and pray for the women’s
choice clinic. There is really no one to visit there because it’s a clinic, but
I just sat outside the door and prayed for all the women that go in there
daily. It boggles my mind how small of a thing abortion is made to be. I don’t
know all about the laws about abortion in America. But from what I’ve been
told I believe it’s a very hard thing to do, and it is mostly illegal. But here
in South Africa,
it’s not a un- common thing at all. It is different to walk into a hospital and
just see an abortion procedure room, located just down the hall from the post
natal care ward and the midwifery. It really saddened my heart. I have been
learning here that the value Americans place on life is a lot different than
the beliefs here, if that makes sense.

Like I said in my last blog I believe, we
have been talking about spiritual disciplines. One that I have been practicing
is meditation of scripture. Today in my quiet time I meditated on the verse, Hebrews 4:16 “Let us then approach the throne of grace
with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our
time of need.”

To meditate on scripture I learned to do 5 steps
which I really like:

1. Read
2. Write
3. Say
4. sing
5. pray

Mercy: is not
giving people what they deserve in terms of judgment.

Grace: Giving
people what they don’t deserve.

October 25, 2007

It is now
Thursday afternoon, but I wanted to tell you all about Monday night, it was
awesome. We have been having some troubles on our team with different things
that are making us less unified then we might like. Satan has been creeping in
wherever he can get. So on Monday night the boys: JB, Marcus, Ben, Luke and
Michael planned a sort of service for the team. They talked about how they want
to be servants for the team and want to be able to keep us more accountable
with our actions and words. They have done an amazing job at being our
protectors, but I think they were trying to show that they want to lift us up
in other ways as well. They ended up washing all of us girl’s feet, and then
served us communion. It was an amazing time of worship to God and I think it
changed a lot of our hearts to start thinking more about the unity we need to
have, and how we need to constantly put others before ourselves and have a servant’s
heart. It was great.

So back to
today: October 25, 2007

Once again I did
ministry at the hospital. I really enjoyed it. I got to join some young girls
in the cancer ward, and help them celebrate a birthday I also followed up with
some mothers who I have been talking to all week, and God has really been
answering prayer in some of there lives. I just found out one of the mothers
that have been in the hospital for over a month, waiting to get a portable oxygen
tank for her baby, is getting to go home on Tuesday because they finally got
one. She was so excited. God is doing some awesome things in that hospital.

I need some
prayer for a few things:

This morning we
were informed that instead of having 3 locations to go to in January we are
more than likely only going to have 2. Swaziland
and Kenya.
Which is fine, but I just need prayer because God hasn’t spoke to me in anyway
regarding where I should go. At this point I am praying that I will know soon,
we need to have a final decision in about a week. I am trying not to worry
because I know I will end up where I need to be, but it’s just stressful not
knowing. So please keep that decision in your prayers.

Also just keep
praying for our team’s protection and safety. We are starting to finally get
comfortable with where we live and our daily routine, but we need to make sure
not to get to comfortable where we start to let our guards down. Pray that we
will stay cautious of our surroundings, just to make sure we are always safe.
Pray that the Lord will keep a tight grip on us at all times.

Abby and her favorite snack 

my African home

my super cool discipleship group!