finally

At last we opened Beth Shan. We have been operating the shelter since March but on Sunday the TC André Cox offically opened the shelter.

There were many wonderful supporters at the opening and they have pledged to continue helping us both with finaces and aid in kind.
This Saturday a group of young people from Choose life Church will be coming along to paint our bedrooms. While they are doing that I will be taking my ladies along to Etembeni where they will give the toddlers there a Birthday party and help to look after the little babies they have at the home. We are all looking forward to a morning of service.

Today is International Aids day and Carla and I were guest speakers at a function celebrating life at the South African Revenue Services (SARS) in Centurion. I spoke on HIV and Carla spoke on Domestic violence. The folk listened carefully and I hope we made a good impression on their hearts.

On the 26th the staff from Beth Shan and Mercy house went along to Church Square and for 2 and 1/2 hours spoke to many folk about being aware of the domestic violence that plagues our country. We handed out many booklets and information pamphlets on all the services available to folk regarding their personal rights. it was a good morning and we really think we made a difference. It was great to meet folk from all over the world as every tourist that came to the square came to the table and some even told us that they were going to suggest our initiative to their social departments.

We asked people to sign a petition stating that they were against any form of gender based violence and they were against any form of child abuse. We managed to get 530 signatures in a matter of hours.

today I took Tabiso to Etembeni. He is a beautiful baby whose mother left him at our shelter since Wednesday. She now has another tiny baby to look after. Tabiso is wonderful he is gentle, shy and vocal. His mom really loves him and she agreed to allow us to place him in a place of safety until she can find somewhere to live and until she comes out of hospital with the baby.

While we are a shelter that looks after moms and their children we are not equipped to look after little children without their moms being around. Etembeni on the other hand is a baby home and is more then equipped. I thank God every day that I belong to this amazing organisation that really does meet the needs of the community. Pray for Tabiso that this young child will grow up to be an amazing young man who will do great things for God and for this country. I believe he has the potential to be a president.

Nicole (my second child) has just passed her first year at University and again we give thanks to God for a bursary for her second year of studies. She did really well and we are very proud of her.

Matthew and Mark are busy writing their exams and they are confident of a pass ( I'm praying their confidence is well placed) Natalie is on holiday with her boyfriend. She is my eldest daughter and keeps me on my knees.

My husband and I are looking forward to a busy Christmas and then a few days of camping out in the veld.

Beth Shan

It has been some time since last I put fingers to a keyboard. So much has happened. Beth Shan is really do well. We are more and more convinced every single day that this is aGod thing. I love working in the shelter. I am facinated by the stories of heroic deeds. Every woman living at our shelter is a hero. one has escaped Human Trafficking another from an abusive relationship and its amazing that they are finding peace, and restoration at Beth Shan. Whats even more amazing is that they are find God.

The Salvation Army in South Africa is busy taking a good hard look at itself which can be an excellent tool as far as development is concerned - if used properly and if everyone really takes it seriously.

So far its looking great. Get to look at the website TSA Southern Africa Strategic Plan '10-'15
http://safstrategy.ning.com/forum/topics/leadership-development?unfollow=1

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.

marriage as a value

Life just seems to get more and more interesting every day. Our commissioner has decided that our territory must speak about the values of Christ and what it would mean to live out those values. The first value we need to look at is the family, relationships, marriage.

Looking at marriage as a value is very different from looking at it as a way of life. Marriage has come to mean so many different things including a tax break!

As we were looking at marriage Paul McCarthy was in the news with his divorce and possible engagement - Elton John had married his life long partner and so Hollywood was again making marriage the popular thing to do. But at what cost. Does nothing worth having last anymore???

Marriage is not an easy option. Its hard work. Two different people coming together with the common goal of making "it" work seems doomed from the start. But God takes two hearts and bends the one then the other, he works on our temperament and refines our lives. All so that we can know the picture of the bride (church) and his son (Christ). To prepare the bridegroom goes to his fathers house and builds a suitable dwelling place for his bride to be. To prepare the bride starts on a journey of cleansing. She purifies herself by reading the word of God for Jews this is the Torah. She sits under the counsel of wise older women. She makes her clothes, she prepares her body - for Esther an entire year of preparation for one night with the king. For the family its a time to prepare the daughter and help the son.

What we lose we make a marriage all about a wedding and nothing about a life. I have had the privilege of working with women who settled for less then the best in a husband and paid the price by the beatings they received. For many the man started out great but turned into a monster with the help of alcohol or drugs. Good intentions became empty promises and life turned from great to hate and misery resulted.

How do we get back the original intention of marriage? How do we encourage our young people to know that marriage is actually such a sacred act. You have to enter into it with reverent thought and intention. Keeping true to one another is all about being true to yourself and who you are and with that integrity comes union.

I guess life is what happens when you're not looking. I'm not sure that values are the breaks on the wheels of life and really need to be those moments when we actually stop and smell the roses and think about our actions.

So slow down, think, imagine, dream then live

Poor Prophets

I've been reading Ezkiel and been very thankful I am not a prophet. As I read of all the things God wanted this man to do - just to be an illustration to the children of Israel was mind blowing, but the most amazing of all was the simple obedience seen in these men.

This man spoke to my heart. His pleading with God for the people - not for his ease or his comfort but for the people all the time. I look at the Corps and wonder how many I want to please and how many I want to make uncomfortable. Then I wonder what I would be prepared to do for God's sake. Would I be prepared to be a walking illustration? I don't think so.

I love God and I love the people he has sent me to minister to and I want them to get to know the message from God but where would I draw the line - I wonder.