Find rest, O my soul, in God alone

I want you to meet two girls that are very dear to my heart. They were both placed in my mom's group when she came during week 8 of Camp LIFE in the summer of 2010. I remember meeting them personally at the end of July, and seeing how much they impacted my mom that week. I want you to get to know them a little bit more. Here are the stories my mom recorded about both girls this past summer: Lillian Banda is 13 years old and does not attend school. She lives in a two room house and sleeps on the floor with a blanket. Both of her parents have died, so she lives with her grandmother. Her younger siblings live elsewhere because her grandmother can not afford all of them. Lillian does not go to school because they can’t afford it. She said that sometimes her grandmother provides foo d and sometimes she doesn't. We are so afraid she is selling herself to have food. When I took her in to the prayer room with Pastor Mutale, he confirmed what we were afraid of and has s...

I realized yesterday that I haven't attached any pictures to my blogs yet. I did post some on facebook, but some of you may not look at those so I hope these paint a picture of my experience here for you. Here is our house- Villa 38- in the Mulungushi Village. It's a very nice and safe area here in Lusaka. It's feeling more and more like home! :) We spent our first Sunday in Africa at the Tree of Life where we house over 100 children permanently. They live in houses that the Lord has graciously given them through giving hearts of people all over America. Each home allows for 14 children, who live in the most dire circumstances, to have a second chance at living the life God intended for them to have. The orphan community is a place where broken souls are restored. The children have house parents who live, cook, and raise the c...

Today was an incredible day for me. I worked with the Education Department Head here in Zambia as we traveled around to different LCA's bringing them supplies. Because it's the new school year, the cleaning supplies were running out, so we went to several communities--Chilenje, Mtendere, and Kalingalinga--to get cleaning rags, detergent, toilet tissue, wax for the floors, and some soap. Just for your knowledge, it takes a while to get places in Lusaka. First of all, the roads are congested with traffic. Secondly, all the roads aren't paved, especially in the communities, so you are dodging pot holes and people to get down the road. Needless to say, it took a while for us to collect the supplies and drive out to the 3 LCA's we visited. Along the way, I got to know my new coworker a little better. One question I asked him was: did you know you would ever work for an organization like Family Legacy? He answered no and went on to say that after grade 12 he went in...

I want to apologize up front for the random blog you are about to read. It's been over a week since I've written because of how little time I had relaxing this week--so I'm sorry for being so random... Whew. This week has flown by and I am exhausted. So much happened while Greer was here! One of the biggest things I learned this week was that it is crazy how much you can get done in one day--if you utilize your time and are determined to complete tasks. I have felt very productive, but very tired. For work this week, I was able to go around and see every one of our schools except one--but I've been there many times before. The children were learning and the teachers were already starting their assessments and enrollments for the new year. Tomorrow they begin the content for the students. It's just so neat to actually be here and watch these things happen. Back in the states, I would get emails and talk on the phone once a month or so with the Zambians, b...

On Friday we were able to do an incredible thing… drive around to see the progress of all the new things happening in the ministry! Greer took us bright and early to one of our schools in Chainda. What we didn’t realize is that school doesn’t start up until tomorrow so we weren’t able to see any children. But I can’t wait until tomorrow when I can be a part of the first of the year for all the schools. It’s neat because not only do we have the 4 schools already running, but we have 3 additional starting up too! With seven schools and 25 teachers, hundreds of our sponsored children will receive a quality education! Exciting huh? After stopping there, we went to the Tree of Life to see the hilltop development where we are building the Legacy Center—a big building where over 30,000 orphans will eventually be able to attend camp throughout the year!! We just broke ground in November and the progress is amazing… I took many pictures, but it takes too much bandwidth to...

Well.. the past two days have been long, but productive! The house is beginning to look like a house and feel like home. Yesterday we all hopped in a van and drove to a place called Kalingalinga to buy furniture. It was the coolest thing. We would pull over, Clay and one of our Zambians, Aphet, jumped out and asked for prices. We were looking for wood for our rooms. I ended up getting a three drawer night stand and I'm having a small bookcase made too. I love that my room is feeling more like a home. :) While riding around, we saw chairs, couches, and coffee tables made out of wicker. We stopped at one and a man was weaving the pieces together... just like everything else, they hand do it all while sitting there selling it. At the wood places, the men were working with a saw by hand cutting the wood and making it straight. I'm not sure why this impacted me so much, but it did. It's just different watching someone create something because they absolutely have to or they ca...

I woke up early yesterday morning to prepare for church at the Tree of Life. Before we left, I spent time in the word but without having a lot of time to sit and think. I kind of rushed through it because I had it in my mind that I had other things to do. Then I thought, "How can I encounter God when I'm rushing through His word with a thousand other things on my mind?" I was convicted. I need to make it a goal to empty my mind of other things and focus only on God. It's cool how I was able to hear him discipline me even when I was focused on other things. Then we went to the Tree of life.. and I can't explain how excited I was to see Joseph and the other children. They ran to the bus and hugged held hands and greeted us with enthusiasm! It was incredible. Church was held at the school because the normal pavilion is being used to build furniture. We were all gathered in this tiny school room preparing for church. No big production. No screens with video cameras ...

Saturday morning I read mainly in the psalms and it was so beautiful. The author repeated in multiple chapters that ALL creation should praise God. The leaves, the insects, the trees, the mountains, everything that has breath should praise the LORD. It is an incredible picture of Romans 8 when it says that all creation waits in agony for the Lord. Every living, breathing thing is called to sing praises to the Lord even as we grow old and decay. I looked to my left at the verse, "Every thing that has breath praise the Lord" and a flower opened a little wider than it was a second before. And the Lord said, "I am and I see you". I mean, when i'm praising the Lord, he sees me, and when I'm frustrated, angry, and sinning, he sees me too. Needless to say, I have been more aware of my thoughts and decisions since Saturday morning! After I read my bible, each of the past 4 days I've been here, I have read from a book called Radical by David Platt. Have you ...