Last week Beat the Drum went really well. I'm thankful because I didn't really know what to expect, my kids are pretty young; they range from age 9 to 14. After going through the program again, I was reminded how powerful the movie is and I could definitely see that it spoke to a lot of my kids. Compared to teaching random kids from Somerset East, I found it a bit harder to teach these kids that I've come to know and love. Although I don't know everything, I do know a little. I do know that for some of these kids, without a miracle, their parents will die soon of AIDS. Even though they would never admit it or feel comfortable talking about it, I can see the hurt in their eyes when we talk about the disease. As for some of the others, they are too young to understand how much HIV/AIDS really does affect their community and family. I hate to be pessimistic but I'm sure that these kids have family members with HIV that they don't even know are sick. I know some of the older kids can use what we taught them and apply it to their lives, as for the younger kids, I just pray that when the reality of HIV/AIDS hits them, they will remember the truth and the hope that we tried to speak over them. Thanks for your prayers.

It's not that we have been discussing it a lot as a group, but I've really been thinking of morality lately. Why do we believe what is right is good and what is wrong is bad? Who decides what's right and what's wrong? Sure the Bible is our guideline, but the Bible doesn't answer all my questions. The Word says "don't get drunk". Okay...fine, so is it wrong for me to go out with my friends and drink a bit? When it comes to physical relationships, how far is too far? It's not like I'm beating myself up or losing my mind about these sorts of questions, I've moved on. I want to know... why be moral? Why DO good? So I can BE good? Who cares about being a GOOD person? This life is fleeting.

I've been reading a few books lately and the authors have shed some light on the reason for morality.

...The truth is, we all want morality. We know morals will make us better people, and we even feel a kind of nobility when we subscribe to and defend a code...Lately, however I have been thinking of morality in less conceptual terms, less as a system of rules and regulations and more as a concept very beautiful and alive...The reason I have been feeling this way is not because morality gives us boundaries or because it helps us live clean lives, though morality does these things, but rather because, in some mysterious way, morality pleases God...The motive is love, love of God...

-Donald Miller, Searching For God Knows What

...When we are faced with alternatives and a choice of ways confronts us, the question is not: Is this good or evil? Is this helpful or hurtful? No, the question we must ask ourselves is: Is it of this world, or of God? For since there is only this one conflict in the universe, then whenever two conflicting courses lie open to us, the choice at issue is never a lesser one than: God...or Satan?...

-Watchman Nee, Love not the World

Love. Love. Love. It seems like it's the answer to all my questions. Who is God? Love. What should I do with my life? Love. Why be moral? Love. Millar suggests that morality shouldn't be a "system of rules and regulations" but rather a way to show the Lord our love for Him and Nee encourages me to choose the course that proves my love for the Lord rather than the one that satisfies my sinful desires.  

I'm pretty satisfied with my answer, Love. Now to apply this to specifics...?

Hey all. i haven't blogged in a while, because i hate blogging when i don't have anything encouraging to write. It's not that God isn't working, because He is, it's just really hard to explain sometimes. Pretty much, I'm messed up right now. The last couple of weeks some of us have been studying a book by Donald Millar called Searching For God Knows What. He tells of a time when he was really unsatisfied with Christianity because his religion just didn't answer the hard questions of life. After thinking about it for a while, Don decideds to tell God that He didn't exist. While reading this I decided to take everything I know about God and question it, even down to his existance. What is just head knowledge and what do I actually believe in my heart to be true? After breaking everything down, I was left with two things that I could not deny; God exists and God loves. Even though in the last couple of months almost everything I've known about God has been striped from me, I feel like the little that I know in my heart is real and sincere. 

Last week I was really broken. I was missing home and I just kept realizing how much life sucks. One of the ladies we visit, Regina, got beat up by a drunk fisherman during broad daylight. The fishermen are getting really violent, they've been on strike since I've gotten here and all they do is drink and fight, even though I have no idea where they get the money to drink. Another of my friends is married to one of the striking fishermen and I know that he takes her money, probably spends it all on booze because she is constantly stressing about that fact that she has no money to feed the kids. When Regina was telling us about how she got beat up, she burst out into tears and began to tell us about how she has HIV and TB and she was SO worried about people finding out. She was a wreck, she wasn't eating or sleeping and she couldn't stop crying, and she had sent her kids to her moms place for the night because she couldn't handle life. That night while feeding the streets kids, we had to deal with racist old men, a 10-year-old kid crying because one of the older kids stole his glue, and a drunk fisherman who got beaten up by other drunk fishermen because he had tried to get a different job. There is just SO much pain and suffering everywhere I go. 

I walk into any given grocery store or gas station and on the front of every newspaper reads, 'Zimbabwe cries for help', or I see pictures or people eating bugs. Almost all my good friends from Ithemba and many from LXP are from Zim, and they've been talking about how bad it's getting there, but only this last week did it really hit me how desperate the situation is. About 600 have already died from cholera and almost 13 000 are infected, these people are dying from drinking dirty water. They don't have any jobs, so they have no money, so they can't by bottled water or food but even if they did have money, there is no bottled water or food to be bought. The Pick-n-Pays are empty. A couple of my friends went home to Zim for Christmas, and they packed the back of their truck with food to feed their families. Their government is a mess, and innocent people are dying because of it. I feel so helpless and useless. 

The most amazing thing to see is these men from Zim worship. Their passion is so inspiring. Knowing what they must be thinking and seeing them worship is so incredible. If they can worship God, I can worship God. If they can say 'God is good', I can say 'God is good'. 

So we figured out all the outreach teams for next semester. There is a group of us who are staying In Jefreys Bay, some are going to PE (Port Elisabeth) and some are going to Swaziland. I'm staying here! I'm really excited; I love this place so much. Before we got to Jefreys I really wanted to go to Swaziland just to get out of South Africa, because SA is so westernized, but I really fell in love with the people here. I have already made amazing relationships with some of the people here and I couldn't stand leaving them already, God still has a lot left for me to do here. As most of the team is getting ready to pack up and leave Jefreys (there's only 16 days of ministry left), I've been praying about what my ministry should look like next semester. Ithemba has a huge youth group; most whom wouldn't consider themselves believers and I really feel like God is going to put some girls in my life that He wants me to disciple. I'm pretty excited about that.

I have a sweet story about one lady that we met during the first or second week of Ministry, Theodora. She was one of the ladies in September that randomly walked up to me and asked me to pray for her to get a job and then we ended up praying together for her to receive salvation. So we've been consistently visiting her since then, praying with her for a job, talking about what she is reading in her Bible, and just hanging out, playing UNO. I've really been praying for her because I can see God is so clearly doing something in her life and she has been stepping out in faith and trusting that God is going to provide for her. Just the other day, she got a job! This may not sound so amazing in Alberta, or in North America, but it's really hard to find jobs here and she got a good one! She's a waitress at one of the restaurants in town. I was so excited when she told me, I nearly pounced on her. The Lord answers prayers!

Other than doing ministry every afternoon, I've been going out on Tuesday and Thursday nights to feed the street kids, just hang out with them, get to know them and show some love. It used to be every time we passed them on the street; they would ask us for food and money. It really bothered us because we can't give them money all the time, or go buy them food all the time, but we really wanted to help them. There is a lot of politics with the street kids that we don't really understand, so we were trying to figure out how we could best help them. Going out to find them and feeding them on Tuesdays and Thursdays is the best thing we came up with. Now when we see them on the streets we can call them by name and talk to them. Some of these kids (ages about 8-18) have crazy stories about how they ended up on the streets, and some of them just ran away from home because they wanted to be able to smoke and drink whenever. Hopefully God is using us in there lives for more than a peanut butter sandwich.

There's a bit on Alexis' life in JBay.