four-minute friday: 10 years old
Go.
Now the challenge is to get this typed in and posted before the power goes out again. I think we’ve spent more time without power than with it today.
2008 is a pretty monumental year for us. Thrive Africa turned 10 years old! We’ve been working on a new page for the website that tells more about our journey. It was fun writing the copy for it, although it was challenging to not go on and on about things. (I’ve got a decade worth of stories to tell… It’s hard to fit that onto one page!)
We even dug out some old pictures from our early years and scanned them in (yes, we used film back then!). There’s a whole gallery of these classic photos on the ministry site. (Kitty, enjoy the trip down memory lane!)
You can read our story and see our pictures here.
(Yay! Power’s still on…)
Done.
inside scoop
It seems like I’ve been working forever on our new ministry website. Thankfully, I haven’t been working alone. Over a year ago, our stellar creative guy started working on the design, and simply never stopped. With the new site having way more depth (meaning way more pages) than our old one, there was a lot of new copy to be written. Thankfully, in June I got some help in that department. I suddenly had a department when I discovered that one of our interns (now a dear friend) is a phenomenal writer, and I recruited her to help me write for various projects, the largest being the website. She wrote the first-draft copy for the entire site.
Hundreds and hundreds of man hours later, we finally went live with the new site on New Year’s Day. Dave and Becca, thanks for making us look so good.
I love our new look. The whole feel and vibe of the site definitely seems more… us. And one of the biggest changes is the interactive ministry blog, which I’ll be writing for a few times a week. Please, please, please drop by to read and comment. (Yes, I’ve resorted to begging…)
We aren’t announcing the new site until the end of the month. In the meantime, please check it out and let me know if you find anything that should be fixed… like typos, spelling errors, or the like. And definitely let me know what you think.
Don’t you feel special for getting the inside scoop?
holy moment
We experienced a sort of holy moment at our women’s conference.
One of the speakers had the women partner up and wash each other’s feet. It was very “improv” in that we used glasses of water and napkins to do the job, but the awkwardness of the supplies was not enough to override the holiness of the moment.
Throughout the room, women were weeping as they served each other. They wept as they themselves were served. Walls were broken down, hearts opened wide, and the presence of God was thick and palpable.
Linda, a missionary in Botswana whom I respect deeply, called me over. “Can I wash your feet?”
I sat down and removed my shoes. As she started to wash my feet and speak words of affirmation over me, I just started to cry. I can’t even put my finger on what it was that moved me; I don’t think my heart was stirred by any one specific thing she said or prayed. The whole moment was just overwhelming.
Then we switched places; I washed her feet. We continued to cry together as I lifted her up before our Father.
To be served by this beautiful woman, to be flooded with sweet words from her heart, to be immersed in the presence of God… It was a holy moment indeed.
this year in missions
So far this year, we have…
…hosted 218 people
…on 13 teams
…from 11 churches
…for a total of 115 days with us.
We have…
…given 12 Thrive talks
…had 19 team leaders over for coffee (thankfully, not all at once)
…gone on 12 safaris
…eaten at the Carnivore 10 times.
Best of all? We’ve…
…seen 154 salvations.
And the year’s not over yet!
beauty for ashes
“No weapon formed against you shall prosper.” This verse holds hope. Promise. It also holds an undeniable fact. If weapons formed against me shall not prosper, it means there will be weapons formed against me.
Saturday night, the roof of our dining hall caught on fire. Somehow, sparks from the fire in the fireplace made it all the way up the chimney and set the thatch roof ablaze. After six hours of prayer, hard work, and brave efforts, the fire was completely out.
While the entire building suffered extensive damage, things could’ve been much worse. We were experiencing strong winds up until just minutes before the fire broke out. Had they not suddenly stopped, the fire would have spread much quicker (and affected other buildings). The temperature was only 40 degrees, and we were soaked from all our efforts to douse the fire with water. Although we were all exhausted and freezing, no one was seriously hurt.
We had a mission team with us from a Spirit-filled church in Michigan. We were so strengthened by their prayers and faith, and their eagerness to jump in and help however they could. Our staff and interns were also all involved; everyone really pulled together as a team. It was a blessing to see unity at work.
While facing the possibility of losing the entire building, Niel and I felt our resolve strengthening. The enemy could take our “stuff”, but he could not take our vision. We were determined that we’d find a way to continue reaching people and raising leaders, with or without a dining hall. We knew that there was more at stake than just a building. The enemy’s aim was to discourage us, to distract us from the vision, to cause us to lose heart. He did not win.
We are now faced with the challenge of figuring out how to feed our interns and host mission teams without our industrial kitchen and eating hall. We are faced with the uncertainty of how to rebuild and where the money will come from. It’s hard. But the decision to not give up isn’t.
We will move forward. We will continue doing what we’ve always done. We will keep our eyes fixed on Jesus and on the vision He’s given us. We will not give up. We will not slow down. We will not wallow in our losses.
Yes, a weapon was formed against us. But it did not prosper.
