The Last Post

Leaving is so hard. I don't know if saying goodbye is easier when you feel the reality of it to the pit of your stomache, or if each time you become a little more numb to it until you're hardly phased... Unfortunately I will have several opportunities to find out.

I don't know if me leaving home was because I needed to get away, or because I needed to discover apart of myself that couldn't stretch it's legs inside of a classroom, church or at home. It's hard to understand life in its progress, it takes a bit of separation from the ordinary to find some clarity. I needed to leave my thoughts, friends, family and all my "known" behind to come back with my eyes a bit more open.

I don't think I ever knew that it was about changing my world. Maybe you knew that all along, Mom and Dad. Maybe you already knew before I left that it was only the prologue of the book I am in the process of writing. Thanks for letting me go. And thank you for letting me come home. Thank you for releasing me to leave and come home again when my feet need to go barefoot once more. I love you.

Mom, I remember one morning while you were flipping pancakes you told me, "Steph, I really hope you find your voice in writing again. It was beautiful." At the time I thought nothing of it, but you spoke that over my life nonetheless and I want to thank you, because I think I have. God has given me a peace over my thoughts and a confidence over my words that I have never had before, and I'm excited to see where that develops.

Life is more than clothes and cars and a new flavor of toothpaste, that it is community and creation and beauty and humanity. And I think I am starting to prefer the latter to the former; by that I mean I am getting used to not having any music or television and not pulling over and buying something as a way of feeling some kind of change. There is a serenity in life, after all, and once a withdrawl is felt at having left the lies behind, a soul begins to feel at home in it's own skin. - Donald Miller

The other day I had to say a hard goodbye to a bunch of my friends including my big brother. It was tough, and I realized that this season of my life really is over. I have found that in times like this it is easier to see the end, not the new beginning because there is always this dark area inbetween full of doubt, displacement and confusion. After saying our goodbyes, the next thing I know I find myself bundled up in my sleeping bag on Nobbi's beach watching the sunrise.

This season is over, it finishes reluctantly and even in the midst of my anticipation of going home, I miss this place. I miss the people, environment, accents and what could have been had I stayed longer. I'm not going to try to summarize this experience, or the foul taste I've carried for the past week, but I do know, that even though it's dark in the period between dusk and dawn, the sunrise is always faithful, and always beautiful.

Vagara na nomu bula

Tourists come to J-bay to live the high life of good surf and cheap drugs. So many of the local people have such a skewed impression of white people and Americans because they come here to take their luxury vacations, flaunt their money and leave. Meanwhile, there is a whole culture that has fallen through the cracks of recognition and live under the heels of the ignorant and uncaring. Tonight I climbed into this hole and broke bread with the street kids of Jeffreys Bay.

It was dark, cold and the sky was clear as we pulled into a vacant parking lot and got out of the van. It was obviously by divine appointment that we arrived at this time and place because we hadn’t even crossed the carpark when a drunk, wounded Afrikaans man crawled across the street slowly in our direction. My brother Zack spent a good twenty minutes trying to communicate and help this non-english speaking man while Sai and I stood protectively and cautiously nearby.
This man smelled rank of alcohol, urine and street filth, while his sweat pants held clear stains of the source of the urine smell... The information we could get out of him was that he had be beaten up by a bunch of kids --- he pointed in the direction they had gone, so we went off to try and find them because our outreach contact said he had relationship with them.

And so I meet Jonathan, Chris, james, Leon and Colat. These boys are legit street kids ranging. from age 13-16. They are orphans, thieves, barefoot and sleep on the concrete, yet they are awesome kids. It turns out that the previous man had stolen blankets from the boys-- their only source of warmth on the FREEZING nights-- and so the boys had went to get them back when the man pulled out a knife and grabbed one of them. So defending themselves, they knocked the man out and took their blankets back.

We bought the boys a loaf of bread and bologna, sat down on the curb and talked with them for a long while.

I don’t know if this awakened a part of my heart, or broke it, but something in me stirred....

As we were talking to the boys, and they were challenging us to a break dancing duel (which we adamantly refused) God challenged my faith and sincerity. I kept wanting to give up the jacket on my back, but my mind kept making lame excuses: “It’d be awkward or offensive” or “I only have one other hoodie, and it’s freezing and it will always be wet...” etc. Basically what I’m trying to say is that I needed to get over myself!
As we were leaving, I shrugged off my jumper and gave it to the smaller of the boys who was wearing just a t-shirt, shorts and one shoe. He gave me a huge smile and very sincere “thank you”, as as I walked away, he put it on, donned the hood and started dancing and swinging around the street poles.

Driving home thirty minutes later, I saw him dragging a piece of cardboard behind a building where he would curl up and shiver the night through in a large, blue hoodie.

Oh dear, mankind has got a long way to go.
If I, a missionary in training who will “dibs” the most unappealing job and lay down my rights to sleep, food, rest and privacy for 6 months in an attempt to be others-centered, can’t even recognize the cry of fellow flesh and blood because my ears are so accustomed to hearing “me me me me!”----Hmm... I think we all need to wake up. I am beginning to see things, but I think it will take much longer for me to start to understand the many "whys" and tendencies of my own heart.

We ended the night by stopping at a secluded beach and going star tripping. Star tripping is where one person looks at the stars and spins around in circles very quickly, and then another person shines a flash light at them and yells, “run to the light!” The spinner locks their eyes on the light of the torch and tries to run towards it. Of course they fall and sway like crazy, and rarely make it to the light- it’s funny as heck to watch. I laughed so hard watching my friends do this, and didn’t laugh as hard when my turn ran me knee deep into the icy waters of the ocean. Isn't it funny that the little things can make you feel the most alive?!

Love it.

JBay Mercy Ministry

My day of outreach begins at 6:30am every morning. We finish breakfast before the sun comes up, and when it finally rises the sight is a beautiful water color painting- if the clouds over the sea don’t conceal it (and if the clouds cover, we see only a unimpressive ‘gradual lighting of the earth’ SHOUT OUT LAURA AND LAUREN!)

I will show you an example of our daily schedule based on yesterday:

After breakfast, we skip the showers and set straight into base cleanup. This YWAM base is unique, as the dining room, kitchen and lounge are all outdoors, so things get dirty very very fast. We pull weeds, pressure wash the concrete, paint the walls and fix benches. After this we went to a community where we cleaned up the trash around a community center and pulled out the thorn bushes. 3 hours and 2 dozen full garbage bags later we were about halfway done with the job. From here we go straight to an orphanage and teach english and math. Insert half an hour break for lunch. Once we’re finished with the dishes we went to another community where we started the massive project of building a house from scratch. Insert half an hour break for dinner. Before we were finished eating, we had to scrape our plates and run to sweep, mop and repair a church building where a meeting was to take place- myself and three others on my team left half way through this to hold a small group for the teenagers of the community. When we returned to the base at 9:00pm, we had to do the dishes and clean the hall after the meeting, but this was AFTER taking an hour and a half to babysit the pastor’s kids. So 11:00-11:30pm, we roll into our rooms, filthy and exhausted, and climb into our beds not to sleep, but to work on our outreach journal assignments, ministry report and book reports. Finally we go to bed around 1:ooam to wake up five hours later!

Whooah! So for those of you thinking I’m spending my time standing on street corners, or riding on top of elephant’s backs screaming: “Jesus loves you!” Let me correct your thinking! Mercy ministry is all about practical work- and the blisters on my palms is the evidence of that! We are bettering lives here- whether it be relationally, or giving them a new house and cleaner living. It’s good. It’s very good. The Bible says that to be first you must be last, and I interpret that as, to do the most important work for humankind, you’ve gotta get a little dirt under your nails!

Week 4

This week I stood on the southernmost tip of Africa. With my left foot in the Atlantic ocean, and my right foot in the Indian ocean, I faced the beach dunes of Cape Point, my back to the merging of the two oceans; I stood in awe. Friday was my “day off” but instead I decided to take the long 4 hour drive to Cape Point with my two leaders and only two other members of my team-- it was a long day, far from restful, but I believe it was the opportunity I needed to get a good dose of reality. We made the journey for the soul purpose of standing in the frigid sea waters and praying over Africa- being at the bottom of the continent as symbolism for our prayers and words to be carried up through the two oceans from Nigeria to Egypt.
Yes, perhaps it was a bit unnecessary, however, I’m coming to discover that after seeing the things I see, and working in the environments I’m working in day after day, a bit of practicality helps to ground me and reawaken my mind to comprehend that yes--little 19 year old Stephanie is far far away from home. But it’s alright! It’s a good reminder. As my friend Tyler wrote me in a letter when I left home, “The world turns fast and sooner than you know it, we’ll be saying hello again and you’ll be back home.” It’s too true, and so even when the waves of homesickness and the longing for my own bed come down on me- I can rejoice in where I stand now. It’s quite a blessing really, because even though for the past three days I’ve only eaten sauerkraut, chicken liver, rice, hot dogs and chocolate bars, and I sleep in a little room with 12 other girls and have not had a day to sleep in or a day off since I stepped foot in this country, nor have I had the luxury of showering more than twice a week -- I’ve seen that God provides everything that I need daily. He’s provided me with the food, clothing, rest and even fun to get me through everyday. Amen.

I did not plan on going off on that tangent-- sorry-- now getting on to what I’ve been doing the past week….

Language is a barrier. It’s starting to get frustrating. Sure, love is shown more through action anyways, and laughter is a universal language, but how can I share truth with those who won’t listen, and who couldn’t even if they wanted to? Yesterday we went to a colored marketplace to do street evangelism. To be completely honest, this is my least favorite thing to do, for the market is dirty and overwhelming in everyway. Pushing your way through the crowd you come across more who are drunk than sober and my team pretty much sticks out like a sore thumb, being the only people with white skin and long hair. And because we are so noticeably different, not just by our appearances but also for the mere fact that we are friendly and accepting, everyone seems to want to talk to us and touch us. The only SLIGHT problem is that these people only speak Afrikaans and we have no translator. So with smiles, gentle nods, and occasionally rough shoves and punches from our boys when necessary, we try our best to communicate.

I got into a “conversation” with a drunk homeless man who knew enough English to accuse me of supporting apartheid and coming to condemn the black and colored. As Tessa and I tried to talk with this man, we had to have several guys stand around us just in case this man got out of control because his anger towards us as white people mixed with his drunkenness was a pitiful rage. I tried to explain to him that I was not rich by any means, and just because I was American didn’t mean I was living a life of luxury. He just went on spitting and snarling about how he hated me for being in his community and that I didn’t care about people other than Americans. I tried to talk to him about forgiveness and that’s where the language barrier got in the way and our conversation died. As we drove away a while later, I saw him in the crowd as he ran after our van and waved at us as we left. There is definitely a spirit of confusion here in South Africa. Tessa and I prayed that God would provide an opportunity for this man to receive revelation on forgiveness and truth-- little did I know that in less than 12 hours we would be meeting him again!

Every Sunday we help run a service and soup kitchen at a Salvation Army church for the homeless. This particular Sunday, we came halfway through worship and stood in the back. As I came in and sat down, there was a shout from the front, and I looked to see my marketplace friend pointing and staring at me in complete shock and maybe some disgust. The sight actually made me laugh! During the service Tessa gave her testimony about growing up in poverty, and we were able to talk to the man about equality and God’s provision with an Afrikaans translation. The church pastor said the man was again very drunk, and probably wouldn’t remember our conversation in the morning-- but the man left with a new jacket, stomach full of soup and bread, a new haircut and words of truth in his heart--that’s all we can do, and I’m glad for it!
We also started going into hospitals and praying for the patients, and for three straight days we spent hours praying for a terribly ill 22 year old girl with lung cancer. My team along with the Swiss outreach team crowded around her thin, frail figure where I felt the heaviness of mortality more than I ever have before. She couldn’t open her eyes or focus, her inconsistent breathing made it impossible for her to lay comfortably and she was so thin that I could see her heartbeat shake the front of her t-shirt as it pulsed. The first day we went there we talked to Rosalie about Jesus. Rosalie. I don’t want to forget her name. We talked to Rosalie about Jesus and heaven, and she told us by slight nods that she was a believer and that she was being comforted by the Father in her pain. Even bald, thin and with dark circles under her eyes she was beautiful and peace was in her eyes. As we left that first day the doctors told us she would not last the night.
We returned the next day to find Rosalie in a similar state. She even smiled as we entered the room, and this time upon request I brought my guitar and we sang a couple songs to her. We prayed for healing, but after a while we had to leave again.

On the third day we were excited to hear that her family was requesting us to come back and continue our prayers. We got to meet her sisters and speak with her mother and father, but this day Rosalie showed no response to our words or presence. I held her hand and said a prayer whenever words would surface through my incoherent thoughts. The feeling in the room was terribly heavy, and several people on my team had tears running down their cheeks for this girl whom they had never even had a conversation with. After a two hours of being a comfort to her family and standing beside Rosalie through her pain, the tiny heartbeat in her chest slowed and I had to let go of her hand and step into the hallway as the doctors closed the curtain around her bed. Yesterday we attended her funeral upon her family’s request. It was not a terribly sad funeral, which brought much hope, for everyone rejoiced over her life and her faith and her heart. Oh yes, Rosalie is home now, and because of her testimony her family knows the comfort and the grace of The Lord. God saves.

To end on a lighter note, every Thursday we spend the day in a colored community where we work in a soup kitchen, make stew and serve it to the kids while playing soccer with them and painting their nails, etc. On our first day there, I made a friend named Robin. Robin is 11 years old, and she’s quite the dancer, but secretly she wants to grow up and be a doctor. I have spent several days with her, playing basketball, teaching her high school musical dances, learning Afrikaans songs and giving piggy back rides. Robin has a growth on her little left arm that had been cut open and had gotten infected. Every time I saw her it had grown worse because she doesn’t have the ability to go to a doctor or get the right medical supplies for it. Last week she had her entire arm bandaged and the infection was seeping through the gauze. I asked her if I could pray for it. We bowed our heads together as I asked God to heal this wound.

On Thursday, as we drove in Robin was throwing open the door to our van before the engine shut off. She pulled me off to the side and rolled the sleeve to her jumper to reveal a scar the size of a small mole. She looked at me with a big-shy smile and whispered “Jesus healed me.” I hugged her and looked again at the tiny healed scab which had been oozing with infection only 6 days before, “Yes. Yes, He did.” I’m not going to lie, I’m pretty stoked about seeing and being apart of that healing. I wonder what more is to come!

--If anyone reading these blogs has any comments, responses or questions for me about anything specific that I am doing, learning, seeing, etc. Please email me at stephmissiontrip@gmail.com. My access to internet is inconsistent, but I would still LOVE to hear from you and respond when I can!


Note to my prayer warriors back home!:

- If you could pray Ephesians 4:1-16 over my team and I, that would be awesome! This passage is soooo relevant to where I am right now as far as warfare, fatigue and areas in need of growth.
-I only have 1 week left in Worcester before the nine hour drive to Jeffreys Bay for the remainder of outreach. Pray that God ties up and shows us how to finish all the work we have put into this place and these people! Also, I’d LOVE to see God do some more crazy things--that’d be heaps cool. ;)

High School Ministry

I had been forewarned several times by my leaders that I would be stretched during outreach. That I had to get over fear of man, fear of public speaking and fear of making a fool of myself. Luckily enough I don't really struggle with the latter as it is.... but yesterday I understood why.

Yesterday my leaders, Tessa and Sai, decided that they wanted to challenge us in our independence and leadership- so the would not be doing anything or going anywhere with us. This was fine, we have Zack who acts as leader (for he is the only male) and he can take charge just fine. Not that we even need appointed leadership, for we all get along just fine. But here we go, the 7 of us in a van, with the knowledge that we would be doing a program at a high school. 45 minutes later, we walk through the doors of a high school auditorium and are standing on stage with over 1,500 students staring down at us expecantly. The only background knowlege we had about this school is that the previous day, one of the students had stabbed and killed another student. How do you address an audience like this?! Well, we didn't have much time to prepare, so we just went with everything that we had and by the end of the program, I had performed a hip hop dance, sang a hip hop song, played my guitar and led worship in another language and shared a piece of my testimony-- all before lunch. Yep, just another day! I wish I could say I had a good attitude doing all these things, but that wouldn't be the full truth. I kicked and fought all the way up that stage as I was being told I had to play the guitar- and that I didn't have a choice. It turned out ok, yet three songs in I broke a string- and I have no idea where I'll be able to get that fixed.

But the important part of this day was not the program, or in what ways I had to step out... it was that afterwards my friends and I were swarmed by students who wanted to talk one on one, confess some of the things they were doing, and even commit their lives to Jesus. I personally prayed for 4 girls to bring Jesus into their hearts-- and let me tell you, their desire was legit. Amazing things are happening here in South Africa.


Another update to come soon- we're off to another high school in ten minutes to do a skit.

Can You Feel the Mountains Tremble, Can You Hear the Ocean's Roar?

Have faith, have courage, for my eyes have been made to see many wonders. Take a Breath. Creation is longing for the day it is healed. My eyes need to see for my heart to begin to comprehend. I have been made this way—to appreciate and to wonder at what is hidden behind the mountains. Praise God.

Cape Town, South Africa is the most beautiful place in my world. This is saying quite a lot, because I have seen the sunrise on Australian beaches, the stars shine over secluded lakes in the bush, and I live in the green heart of Eden itself. Still, I have to say that South Africa really is the most beautiful place my eyes have seen—yet. I step out the front door of the YWAM base and all I can see is enormous mountains and acres of vineyards. The sky is twice as big as it is in Montana and the clouds- oh man, the clouds! We drove by the beach yesterday, the sand rolling white like snow. Ah man—it was amazing.

I apologize for the informality and vagueness of this post, but I am beginning to accept that there is no possible way to describe these experiences in words of any language. Nonetheless, I will try- bear with.

The only thing that has proven itself to be more beautiful than the countryside is the children. During my time here I have been spending nearly every day working in the streets, cooking and feeding meals to the kids on the streets or teaching lessons and doing programs in schools. Let me tell you I have never experienced a love and acceptance like these kids show us. I don’t know if it’s because we are white, have a smile on our face, or if they can discern something different about us, but the second we walk into the communities we are swarmed by children wanting to hug us, hold our hands and touch us.

They speak a mix of languages, and English is often thrown in, nonetheless I’ve learned to sing several songs and say some phrases in their tongue—which the love and laugh at when we sing with them. This is a singing and dancing culture! Oh man, we will put on some music and it will be one giant dance party on the African plains (and quite frankly the little one’s put us white folks to shame with their dance moves!) Much to my…delight…*cough*… we discovered early on that the school children here LOVE High School Musical, and when they find out we’re from America, they always want to know if we’ve met the cast. Well, my team and I figured “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” So we learned the High School Musical dance and we perform and teach it at the beginnings of our program. Who knew I would be using High School Musical to minister in Africa?!

We stay on a YWAM base with 36 nationalities represented. Other than our team, there are only 2 North Americans amongst the 200 people living on base. Talk about beautiful diversity. When we have base gatherings there are so many different languages being spoken at once, it’s overwhelming! All 8 of the girls on my team room together along with the girls from a Switzerland outreach team, who is serving with us. We have been getting along great with the Swiss team, they are a lovely group of people, and I enjoy getting to know and performing with them. I can also say I’ve never eaten so much chocolate in my life. (P.S. The USA has by far the worst selection of candy and chocolate I have come across. South Africa has delicious chocolate!)

Yesterday we drove 2 hours into the peaks of the mountains to run a 3 hour program at a vineyard school. The building was too small to fit us, so we all moved outdoors to the light sprinkle of rain and danced in the mud. (I was wearing my brand new shoes, so I left them in the car and worked in the mud barefoot—have I mentioned that my feet are ALWAYS dirty?!?!) We brought shoes, socks and snacks for the kids and they were so greatful to receive cheese and crackers while stylin in their brand new converse kicks! There was a language barrier, for the kids were too young to have learned any English yet, but my fellow Young Life leaders back home will smile to hear that the skit ‘People With Shirts Over Their Heads’ breaks ANY language barrier! We were singing a song that says “One day, we’ll all be in heaven together. Praise God, Praise God, for He makes me happy forever” in Affrikans, and I just had to stop and breathe. I was standing in the middle of the mountains in Africa, surrounded my smiling, shivering African children, singing silly songs in a different language and watching a mother Baboon carry her baby on her back a few meters down the road. I am living in a season of blessing—and I want to soak in every minute of it.

As we were leaving, a 6 year old boy ran up to me, took my hand and kissed my cheek. He felt my hands were cold so he covered my fingers with his tiny palms and rubbed back ‘n forth to try and warm them. Meanwhile a little girl noticed I had a cut on my foot, so she ran and got a wet cloth and cleaned it for me—despite my insistence of her not to. As we drove away under the double rainbow in the sky, the children chasing us down the road in their new shiny shoes, I had to wonder: Who felt more loved today, the kids, or me?

My head is still swimming with questions—this exchange of affirmation shouldn’t have made sense today—yet it was the most natural thing in the world. Like breathing air after holding my breath and wondering why I haven’t been doing it all along.

--You can find weekly updates on my South Africa team at ywamnow.com

On to Outreach!

I can't believe it's already been three months. Three months away from home, three months in Australia, three months living in this new family. The time seems so short, but looking back, I see how enriched my time has been and so when I look forward to the next two months in South Africa, it seems like an eternity.

This transition is bitter-sweet. The other two outreach teams have already left, and the house is terribly empty. The April DTS school started today, we are moved out of our rooms and no longer have responsibilities in the kitchen. It's a time for change-- needed, anticipated and slightly reluctant change. Our goodbye's to the Fiji and Iraq team was emotional, even though we'll see each other again in June. I guess we've all grown so accustomed to being just the next bunk or room over whenever we needed each other. We are best friends and family, we fight and love each other, but most of all we've been here to watch and experience this time in each other's lives of significant growth and discovery. I had to fight back tears when I hugged my close friend and fellow kitchenworker, Kim, goodbye. Kim will not return after outreach, for she will be flying home to walk in her high school graduation. She has been one of the most important people in my life during this season, and now I don't know when--if ever-- I will see her again. But I know she, like I, will be great. :) Greatness is upon the shoulders of those who will accept it.

My heart is on the verge of breaking. I think it's been at this tipping point for a long time, and I have a feeling that some experience in South Africa will finally push me over the edge. I'm ready for it. I'm ready for my heart to be softened.

A note for my prayer warriors back home!
1.) I love you heaps! I know I am protected, encouraged and energized because of your prayers. The thought of what could have, or could NOT have happened without your prayers scare me-- so keep going! If there's one thing I've learned here, it's the importance and power of intercession; I am blessed to have you fighting on my behalf daily.

So here are some prayer requests~
- health and safety
- safe, unstressful travels from location to location
- that God's favor and hand rests on us, and we are constantly used by the Holy Spirit to do the unimaginable!
- Every member of my team wears a bracelet with 6 beads on it, each representing something we will pray into for our team and time in S.A. daily. These are:
- Persistance
- The children in the vineyard schools in SA
- UNITY
- Healings/miracles
- Compassion
- Love/ seeing through God's eyes
- Also pray that God will speak to me, and CONFIRM some of my thoughts and feelings about what I should do next fall after I return home from DTS. Outreach is an awesome time to discovery the next step in my journey.