Project Revolution

This is my mission field. Since I have been back from Africa God has shown me so much need here in America. I prayed that God would continue to use me like He did in Africa, and I am convinced that He will. While on the mission trip we were in a constant state of this "looking for need"....... "seeking for opportunities"..... "searching out where God could use us".......

Since coming back I have tried to stay in that place, keeping my eyes open. Satan tries to use the everyday, mundane things of life to keep me from being productive, but God is making me strong, and teaching me many things. Just today going through the parable of the mustard seed I felt God speak to me.

I have in the past been stuck on the "faith like a mustard seed" part, but today it hit me, it is the whole parable that paints the picture. Having just a speck of faith, and then stepping out (i.e. planting that seed) God can grow it into a Revolution (or "tree") that provides shade and herbs and branches for support.

This is what I see that we started in Belle Glade!

The need is here, we just have to be looking for it! I didn't know until 3 years ago that some of the richest people in the U.S. live 20 minutes east of me (Palm Beach Island), and then 45 minutes west of me (Belle Glade/Pahokee) is the AIDS capital of America. And we are taking hope to the youth in these towns! I am proud to be a part of the ministry God is doing there.

Prayer Request

Silvio age 14, pictured in the photo on the left. He is one of our Belle Glade Revolution kids. He has a brother and sister. He and his brother, Ronel, were the kids that inspired us to start Revolution. Please pray for Silvio that God would use him in mighty ways to reach the people of Belle Glade. Pray that his eyes would be opened and he would begin to understand more of God, and most of all experience Jesus for himself. He asked Jesus into his heart about a year and a half ago, but daily he struggles with his surroundings.

Living Conditions

Here is one of the signs we saw outside the city......



  Okay, so those of you here in West Palm, if you did not get a chance to hear about Jesse's Africa experience you are really missing out!  Just listening to the things he saw and the people he met, it inspired me to post more pictures of exactly how the Africans live outside the city.  

TRAVEL IN THE BUSH

Riding into the Bush we saw many

 people traveling..... 

- some by bike  

- some by foot  

-some by car

- and some by half a car pulled by 2 cows.

COOKING IN THE BUSH

- These are pictures of the huts they use to cook in.  Here they have a charcoal fire (their charcoal is just smoldered wood) and they cook over an open flame.... inside..... all year round, and it gets HOT in Africa.

- As you can see there is not a whole lot of room in here for a whole village, so many times they will also cook outside over a an open fire.

-They also pump their water to cook and clean with from the village well about a km away.

Here you see the ladies cooking Nshima (the grits of Africa).  This is everyone's favorite food there.  Seriously, I only talked to one person there who liked it 2nd to rice.  Imagine grits everyday for lunch and dinner......... mmmmm.

THE TRUTH

-In the middle of the Bush I took this picture.  If you cannot read this, it is a Jehovah's Witness church.  This really convicted me that what we are doing through Grace and the project Africa and Asia is needed!   These people want to know the truth.  And because they typically are not bombarded by materialistic things, they are able to see their needs both physically and spiritually.  They are reaching for answers, and they are being reached.  Unfortunately it is not always the TRUTH that they find.  So, let us pray for the people in these hard to reach places that God would use us, our resources, and HIS word to open their eyes.

Gospelink (& The College)

Going into this trip we were most excited about visiting The International Bible College of Zambia of Kazimba.  The college is the long term goal for reaching the unreached territories in Africa.  The vision is sponsored by Gospelink.  Gospelink has the vision to school local people to be pastors, and send them out to share the gospel and start churches.  The vision requires only a fraction of the cost of sending Western Missionaries and reaches far more people.  But westerners are not left out of the equation.  They need well educated people to spend a few weeks each year at the college and teach a couple of courses.  This is what Orie and I are excited about.  In the years that lie ahead we are praying that we may return to teach some classes or discipleship groups.  It was great to see the depth of the vision and how many churches across America have already taken pieces of this project as their own.  Our church Grace Fellowship is one example of this.  They started 5 or 6 years ago funding and sending missions teams to build a compound consisting of 5 student houses, 1 staff house, and a wash house (bathrooms and showers).  This is the first of 15 compounds to be completed as of yet.  It was awesome to see how when we gather our resources together from different churches no matter the denomination what can be accomplished.  God is being glorified through this immensely!  The college is free to the students who are hand picked to go through the program.  Along with the 30 hours of school, they are also required to work the crops on the campus.  The crops are used to make their meals and one day hopefully to fund the upkeep of the college itself.  While we were there the students along with a few of the workers sang for us and in turn we sang for them.  They were infatuated at the guitar and told me one morning that the top story at the college is how we play and sing at the same time.  God put it on my heart to take time and teach them a little guitar.  Orie, David, and Christian helped me make fake guitar necks out of scrap wood so they could all practice.  Christian and I taught them the basics, which was nearly 3 hours of class, and at the end I gave my guitar to the college.  Although I was very sad about leaving my guitar I knew they would be very blessed and encouraged. That night we heard them practicing and passing the guitar around and trying to play.  Orie heard them practicing before breakfast and then after breakfast they carried it with them as they walked to the field to work in the crops.

 

Prayer Request

At the college we had the privilege to spend time with a missionary family from the US.  They are a young couple with 7 kids.  They shared with us the blessings and struggles they have experienced since they moved there last year.  One of the toughest things is relationship.  They long for friendships and a sense of family there, but haven’t found it yet.  Please pray for them and their family.

The Orphanage In Lusaka (the capital of Zambia)

We had the great pleasure of visiting and sleeping over in a full-fledge orphanage in the city of Lusaka.  We arrived and were greeted with excitement and given the grand tour of the place.  The meager conditions of the housing were balanced with the stability, safety, and love the kids were obviously receiving.  The girls dorm was cozy, they all had bunk beds a sheet and a blanket, sheets over the windows for privacy, and a few had pillows.  The boys room was missing a few windows, they had mattresses on the ground with one sheet and a blanket each.  If I did not name it they did not have it.  We noticed most all of them had no shoes.  In addition, the school room was bare walls with one chalk board and a corkboard.  No desks, no seating at all, just an empty room.  So God really laid it on our hearts that He wanted to use us to provide for them.  And that is when we pooled our money together to buy them shirts, flip-flops, tennis shoes, and school supplies (including a huge world map for their classroom walls, and a few educational posters).  Francisco, one of the guys with us, and he made it his business to fix the broken windows in the boy’s dorm.  It was like Christmas but better.  All the Christmas’s I have had in America consist of present’s people like and use a few times, but this was bare necessities being provided like these kids had never seen before (and honestly it seemed like so little to us).   

Along with these gifts we also gave each of the kids a New Testament Bible.  The kids immediately began reading to us passages they had been taught in their nightly Bible Studies.  One little girl, Agnes, was so thrilled about her Bible she did not put it down, not even to play (she is the one in the yellow shoes in the picture above).  It was a testament to how we should all feel  about God’s word.  Honestly, I learned more about what God wants from us in 3 days with these kids than I have in the past 3 years. 

The kids were appreciative and ecstatic to be able to serve us as well.  We watched as they prepared a dinner for us.  In their outdoor kitchen they built a fire with broken timbers they had scavenged from the neighborhood, and our guys helps them as they drew water from the well in their front yard to cook with.  

It is hard to describe the character we saw in these kids.  They were not quarrelsome, greedy, easily tempered, lazy, or the least bit concerned with how they looked.  It was quite refreshing, and humbling all at once.  I can only hope that one day soon we can take Peyton to a place like this and expose her to true character. 

This particular place, Wons Orphanage, is run by Eunice and her husband Stephen.  Eunice is handicapped, but fully able when it comes to being a caregiver and mother, as the kids all call her.  Along with three kids of their own they take care of 21 orphans, kids they found wondering the street with no place to go.  Many of these kids were forced to be beggars even with relatives in the area they had no one to take them in.  Fortunately for these kids Eunice had been there.  At the age of ten she became an orphan, living on the street and begging to stay alive.  She made it her mission when she grew up to help as many children as possible and keep them away from the life she had lived through.  She and her husband both work full-time.

They can afford to feed the kids atleast once a day and are able to send a handful of them to school.  The other kids get home schooled by two young teachers who come in the evenings and teach all subjects as best they can for a few hours a day. 

 

Prayer Request

Eunice and Stephen.  Please pray for them that they do not weary from doing this great work, and pray for provisions, that people would see the needs and help them as they can.  Also, pray for each of the kids that they would see the love of God through the lives of Eunice and Stephen.  

The Bush.....

While in Africa we visited a remote village called Manyika.  We drove 48km from the main highway on a dirt road that was so rocky, pot holed, and rutted that the van we were in broke down 1km from the village after a rock punctured the transmission.  (Click on the picture to the right to enlarge)As we walked the last leg, we were met half-way by the women of the village.  They were singing us a welcome song (as they do customarily in this part if the world).  They hugged us like we were old friends coming in from a long trip, and though there was a bit of a language barrier we were welcomed by each women as they told us how happy they were that we had come.  Once in the village we got a tour of the church, and the “facilities”.  I use that word lightly because there was no electricity, running water

, and therefore no toilets!  The girls were the first to christen the “restrooms”.  These restrooms consisted of thatch walls, no roof, and a hole in the ground that had bees and flies living inside. 

On our way to the village we had to stop and pick up some chicken for dinner.  They were nice white chickens full of life and headed down the green mile.  The girls had mentioned we wanted to see them “prepare” the chickens, so once we were all settled into our tents the ladies of the village came and called us to see the chickens being prepared.  The process was simple, and looked like easy work. 

We hosted a VBS for the orphans which was a full day of games teaching and crafts.   It was scheduled to begin at 9am.  Around 9am we were standing there with about 15-20 kids and wondering if anymore were coming.  Then out of the tall grass around us children began 

walking out of nowhere until there were more than 160 kids.  We did not know where all these kids had come from or how they had even heard of the VBS, but it was obvious they had been talking about this for weeks.  We spent the day teaching the kids about the armor of God, and we made bracelets, decorated gift bags, made book marks, painted faces, played games, and the kids were with us from 9:30am through lunch until about 5pm.  That night we were exhausted as we sat around

 the fire with some of the local national pastors.  We had brought s’mores to share with them and the pastors were hil

arious.  They had never had marshmallows, and only liked them cooked over the fire. 

Prayer Request

Since we have been back God has continued to put these people on our hearts.  One little boy has been in my prayers.  He is one of the orphans in the village.  This particular boy is deaf, and with no means by which to learn sign language I wonder how much he understands and is able to communicate.  He was a sweetheart and was by our sides every moment the sun was out.  I just ask that you pray for this boy.  I do not know his name, but God knows.  I just have this hope that maybe there is someone  who can one day go and spend a few months teaching these people sign-language so this boy can communicate.

Back Home.....

Dear Friends,

We are back from Africa and the trip was fantastic. We thank you for all your support, prayers and finances alike. Your help was immeasurable. During this time we got to experience so much more of God, His love, and His provision for our lives. We re-entered America with a renewed sense of home and hope.

It is hard to sum up in words all that we saw and experienced while in Africa, but we had many opportunities to bless the people with the financial resources you sent. Twenty-three orphans received new shirts, flip-flops, tennis shoes, school supplies, and tote bags. One hundred ninety orphans were fed two full lunches (including dessert), and more than three hundred children and youth received New Testament Bibles. We desire to return to Africa in the next year or so and revisit these dear people we spent time and ministered with. In this blog are a few pictures and stories from our nineteen day journey to Africa and we hope you enjoy what we have to share.

God Is Good ALL The Time!

Orie, Lacey & Peyton