Travelling, training and praying

I am about to set out on a month of training in Human Trafficking awareness. Together with Sister Colleen from the Sister of Mercy I will be travelling around to a few centres in South Africa speaking about Human Trafficking and hopefully making a few folk aware of what they can do to help young girls escape this terrible experience.

The more I speak and teach on this subject the more I realise that this world needs a Saviour. We are living in a time when human life has become so cheap. In South Africa a young girl can have an abortion at 12 - without parental consent. They talk about counselling but little is given. A child herself - often raped by her own relatives can have an abortion because we can't fix the initial problem! So when someone offers these girls a way out - out of the country, out of poverty, out of their parents homes they grab it with both hands.

I try so hard to protect my children but you can't protect them all the time. There are times when you have to trust the world to treat them well- you have to trust that you have taught them to make well considered decisions. That's what I want to achieve with this training. To place before people options for better decisions.

Pray for us as we go around to Limpopo, Shosanguve, Durban, and Gauteng that God will touch hearts and place a passion for saving people from exploitation of the worst kind. We have been told that women are used more in Africa then men to recruit the young girls into this terrible world. I want to reach the hearts of those women. I want to reignite a belief that life is precious and that it must be guarded and protected.

We have a huge soccer event happening in 2010. We know the event will bring in many tourists but also it will introduce many dangers to our young people. Evil moves in crowds and young people are attracted to crowds. We have very fuzzy boarders in South Africa and high corruption - officials are easily bought over. Girls will be brought in and shipped out in the flow and ebb of these crowds. If we can prevent even one girl from leaving we have done a great thing.

young girls are most vulnerable in this terrible trade. We will be speaking to young nurses, but also to a few grannies, we have Officers at the boarder towns who will now know a little more about the things happening in their towns.

My prayer is that God will grow a passion for the lost deep within our hearts. That he will develop it and grow it until it consumes us and carries us from one place to another.

I want God to build a hedge around me to protect me from the evil one. that my family may be safe and my children never be taken into this terrible world. I ask that God allows me to keep the training work for the training and family time for the family. That my children may be happy and healthy and my husband a good father and husband to us. That my life may be a shinning light for others to see what a difference believing in God makes.

Pray for safe travelling for us. We will be covering quiet a few miles over this next month.

Repentance

I'm getting myself ready for a Good Friday. I will be speaking on Christ's destiny his call to reconciliation and repentance. As I was looking through some really good books I rediscovered Charles Swindoll's book Simple faith what an amazing book and in it I found this beautiful Puritan prayer from the book the valley of vision. Its a beautiful prayer and one that I will pray more often:

I am a shell full of dust But animated with an invisible rational soul And made anew by an unseen power of grace Yet I am no rare object of valuable price But one that has nothing and is nothing Although chosen of thee from eternity, Given to Christ, and born again I am deeply convinced of the evil and misery of a sinful state, Of the vanity of creatures, But also of the sufficiency of Christ
When thou wouldst guide me I control myself When thou wouldst be sovereign I rule myself When thou wouldst take care of me I suffice myself When I should depend on they providing I supply myself When I should submit to thy providence I follow my own will, When I should study, love, honour, trust thee, I serve myself I fault and correct they laws to suit myself,
Instead of thee I look to man’s approbation, And am by nature an idolater. Lord, it is my chief design to bring my heart back to thee. Convince me that I cannot be my own god, or make myself happy, Nor my own Christ to restore my joy, Nor my own Spirit to teach, guide and rule me.
Help me to see that grace does this by providential affliction,
For when my credit is god thou dost cast me lower When riches are my idol thou dost wing them away, When pleasure is my all thou dost turn it into bitterness.
Take away my roving eye, curios ear, greedy appetite, lustful heart; Show me that none of these things
Can heal a wounded conscience, Or support a tottering frame, Or uphold a departing spirit.
Then take me to the cross and leave me there.

Beth Shan opens

So much has happened since last I wrote! Beth Shan (house of quiet) is a shelter for women victims of domestic violence, has been a part of a bigger programme called the Family care programme for a long time now. We had so many problems mainly that the ladies would enter into relationships with the men staying at the centre. Broken lives were helping other broken lives.

We knew something had to change. Thanks to the Envoy at the centre we started to dream of a shelter away from the care centre. We were given a legacy and allowed to start looking for a house. We found one in a lovely quiet suburb of Pretoria, South Africa.

It has a flat at the back and we have decided to make the flat for the exclusive use of victims of Human trafficking. We can accomodate 17 ladies all in all.

We are a very qualified team Carla - our social worker and Innocentia our aux. social worker as well as me - the manager. We are having a lot of fun getting started in our new home.

We have made a decision to be an example of excellence in all that we do. We want the ladies to leave our shelter ready to face whatever the world has to throw at her.

Presently we have 7 ladies in one is a pregnant mom with two little children. She will have four tiny children in a short while. We want her to be so well prepared for her future even her children will be safe and have a good start to life.

God is teaching me so many lessons. I have so much to be grateful for. We have a home and a family that is really well adjusted to the stresses and strains of today. I have so much to say thank you to God for. I have a loving husband - we have been married for 23 years this year. I have four beautiful children and I have a career I love (sometimes) which allows me to grow in so many ways.

Just hearing some of the stories of the ladies in our care I know that God has really spoilt me so much. I would love these ladies to experience just a small amount of the joys I experience daily.
We have not had any Human Trafficked ladies yet but I believe that when we are ready they will come.

I had the privilege of joining a friend on a ladies camp. It was in Bronkhorstspruit set next to a beautiful river. It was amazing. I just love worshiping God in such a beautiful and peaceful setting. There were 120 ladies all ready to worship God and allowing God to speak to us.

Preparing for Easter Weekend I have once again been reminded that sometimes we get so pedantic about details with regard to this weekend that we forget the focus needs to be on Jesus and on God and on the fact that Easter is all about His love.

I've been doing a lot of awareness training on Human Trafficking and have four workshops lined up before the end of the may. All in all life has suddenly become more than hectic. Keeping the balance is going to be difficult. But I hold on to the fact that God is my Father and He looks after me and keeps a check on my diary. He also gives me the strength I need to keep going.

I am so grateful for the people that God has placed around me and how he places just the ones I need to hear from or listen to at any given moment.

Please pray for Beth Shan and for the team who will be leading these women into a new way of living.