Hello friends and family... Shelly here...still in Australia.
I want to give you a brief glimpse of what God has done in the 3 months prior to this school. As you know i went to Indonesia, Mozambique, Swaziland, and South Africa. On these missions trips my worldview has expanded greatly.
My dream was to go to Africa, one day God gave me a heart for Africa and I longed to go and now I'm longing to go back. In Africa my team was able to teach in bible schools, preach sermons, hold the children, interview a community for a church so they can address needs of the people and plant a church, lead youth groups, see really old cave paintings, we painted the walls at the orphanage, went to two African weddings, visited and spoke to Heidi and Roland's ministry (Iris) in Maputu, visit the villages, worked with an orphanage in all 3 African nations...and we did much much more... We also tried chicken throat, fish eye and cow heart.
A story from Africa: One night our team was sharing with a village and with little notice I was going to speak to the group (this is in the outskirts of Mozambique) and i was kind of stressed and frustrated... praying hard... trying to put together something fresh especially for them and i didn't get anything... (the people were worshiping by lanterns and they just worshipped and worshipped and when we got there... and they said we are hungry to hear what God has put on your hearts.. pressures on) so i asked... chasity one of my leaders to share a testimony 1st and just as she started to speak a few lines in.. i got it.. and out of no where... the Holy Spirit spoke... and gave me a beautiful message for the people... and it spoke a lot to me too.. Through that i realized even more... just how faithful GOd is...
Indonesia: we united the youth of two churches together... and together they made a 2 year commitment to minister to a slum, we taught english in the slum every tuesday night, shared about Jesus with even the taxi drivers, we taught in schools of all types, we read the entire bible out to the city, we visited our slum at least twice a week... and were able to paint a mural just as you walk into the slum (it brought a lot of life and color), played lots of games, told stories, ... and we ate lots of interesting food like sketchy squid.. (the whole thing)...
one story from Indonesia: Fishing by faith... my leader Alicia and i (the other leader) were talking with the people in (Tanamara) the slum (a muslim slum...with a translator of course) and we were looking for a new place within the slum and we came about a fishing pond.. so we sat next to the fisherman and began to talk with them... and we started with telling them about Jesus and praying that they'd catch fish.. we started with the story when he told them to cast the net on the other side and they caught so many fish they had a hard time bringing it in... and they loved it so we began to tell them every story we could think of.. and almost on que... we'd tell a story and they'd catch a fish... and they said... this is because you are praying... so we kept talking with them and were invited back to fish... Fishing by faith part 2: we went back and this time ready.. we were praying for 12 fish all day.. the men caught 8 but God grew our faith so much.. i usually caught the little ones... but it was a lot of fun. We told them as many stories as we could... the rest of our team was praying and we were able to report to them the number of fish every once in a while... we were able to share the gospel in many ways and one of the men took a bible... they call it an alkitab...
Ultimately.. dts was different than i thought.. the teaching time... rocked my socks.. if i wore any i guess... and i loved every minute... took lots of notes... lots of quiet time.. processed a lot... definitely life changing.... and outreach.. well... outreach was stretching... changed my heart... and i am excited to tell you about what God is doing now..
Thank you so much all of you who supported me, and pray for me, and read my updates... it means a lot to know you are loved... and that others around the world partner with me.. i am thankful for you.. very thankful... be looking for an update about the biblical core course this week.i love you, shelly
