Spring has A-sprung!

An invite I designed for a ladies picnic Danja and I are organising on Spring Day...
I like jobs like this!

Reconciling Truth

one of my journal entries during the conference

Writing is my way of making sense of life and seeing the significance of all life takes me though. Writing confronts me with my deepest inner thoughts and physical reality; revealing truth and the significance there of. Blogging forms another part of making sense of it all. I keep a blog because I have experiences, moments or just random thoughts that seem necessary to share. Sometimes to stay true to a thought is to not just leave it lying on the pages of my journal, but to share it.

It’s taken me 3 weeks to write something about my experiences in the Philippines, because I’ve needed the 3 weeks to really process and allow the significance of the whole trip to sink in. The more I allow the reflections of the Every Nation Conference to sink in the more they change me. I know it’s a cliché phrase to use, yet in this case I want to use it, and I don’t mean it lightly either… what I experienced at the conference, has changed the way I view life.

Simple, yet as complex as that.

What I loved about the conference, was that most of it was compromised of testimonies and feedback from our churches around the world. As always it’s the stories of ordinary people who are allowing God to take hold of their lives and bring eternal change where ever they tread, that change us. Most of the speakers who shared with us, were ordinary people, who understood their brokenness, their dirt, their sin, their dependency on God, and through their meeting with a Living God have gone on to transform people's lives, cities and nations through being used by God.

There were numerous stories that shook me, opened my eyes, challenged me, inspired me, broke my reality and changed the way I view life. On the second day of the conference, the first session we had was focused predominantly on the churches being the hands and feet of Jesus. We heard testimonies from persecuted churches in Asia where people were planting and starting churches by serving in their communities. One of the stories came from a man named Jesupandam (his name means Jesus’s feet) He shared how he dramatically came to salvation. He grew up in very harsh circumstances, he was born as an ‘untouchable’, his mother died when he was young, got involved in gangs, and became an extreme communist, and then one day as he was dying on the street after not having eaten for two weeks, ONE man walked passed and cared enough to take him, a nobody, to hospital. This man also happened to believe in Jesus and as Jesupandam got better, he shared the Gospel with Jesupadam. The result now, is that there are 100 upon 100’s of churches that are being planted in India led by his serving, passion, laying down of his life and calling to preach the Gospel in India. Revival in India is happening not through our ‘traditional’ idea of church, but rather creche’s, school’s and hospitals are started in communities of need and the natural outflow is a gathering of believers and conversion of people, ultimately forming churches. Listening and experiencing Jesupandam’s expressions and sheer joy in the abundance of life he holds because of the Gospel, I was cut in the deepest part of my heart. Another testimony was that of Efren Penaflorida a Filipino who was named CNN 'Hero of the Year' for his involvement with education in the slums of the Philippines. He too grew up in impossible circumstances, met Christ, and faithfully obeyed Christ in starting a school from a trolley. Which has led to extreme transformation in the community where he works.

The question that drummed in my heart over and over after seeing and hearing the stories was, "What am I doing? I have so much, so many resources, so many opportunities, what is my excuse, what do I have to show for this?" Jesus served, and from serving and being with people He brought change. It’s true I am His hands and feet, now, here on earth, but am I living it? Am I living in the fullness of what God intended when He said you will follow me and do more than what even I have while here on earth?

I was confronted with questions, that needed answering, but I had no idea how to find the answers? After the session with Jesupandam & Efren we had a 3 hour break before the next evening session of worship and more testimonies. Miemie and I were both deeply challenged and a little vulnerable, so we found a quiet Starbucks on the waterfont and sat journalling and reflecting on the words and images we’d just seen. I remember very distinctly feeling overwhelmed and silent in the smallness of my worries and world view in comparison to the new world of the persecuted believers God was introducing me too. Yet even more clearly, in all my confusion, I felt the call that God’s been washing over my soul for so many years, clear and stronger than I have in a long time. Almost as if, when we’re most vulnerable, and feel the weakest, it’s then that the calling God has placed on your life, the dreams He has buried become more illuminated. I won’t go into detail of what I Know God is asking me to follow, but in that moment of insignificance I clearly heard God’s promise a life that counts eternally and fighting for more than I could ever imagine – to be true.

As Miemie and I walked back towards the conference hall I could feel God asking me to stay close to Him and be quiet. Be quiet and just watch, was all I could hear. So when we got to our seats, I sat at the back of our SA group, and while the worship of 1000’s of believers continued, I was silent. And I watched...I saw. I saw the depth of what God wanted me to understand: when you are the least Nicole, I am the most, when there is non of you left, then you will walk in the fullness of what I have called. Let go of yourself. Let go of what you think you need to do and die. Die? How God. How do I die? I’d merely asked the question, when my eye’s were drawn to a group of students to the left of me. I had interacted with a few of them and knew that they were from Laos. One of the most persecuted countries in Asia. The group of about 15 of them are mostly between the ages of 18 and 25 years, since revival in our Every Nation church in Laos has happened on the university campus. The students were worshiping God, but not a subdued and ‘ritual’ as we know it. They were worshiping God, with all of the life they had in them. Observing they’re thrown out bodies, they’re out stretched hands, their faces of streaming tears, their cries to God – I was humbled and brought to tears at the confrontation of my self-focussed western faith. Here was a group of students most of them who had never had the opportunity to freely worship, singing and conversing with God in a way I had never seen, or even experienced myself.

I realised then, that the way in which I measure life – my priorities - they steal from the true joy’s of life. We allow our priorities to be shaped by the societies we live in, more than what they should. I realised in the next session how 'poor' our western mindset of 'life' really is. We place priority on so many things that eternally have no weight! Our Gospel has become milky, watered down - because our priorities are wrong.

Watching the Laos students fully embrace the precious gift of conversing with and praising God, and realising how easily we overlook worship, or even just the freedom to converse with God as something that we 'do' as Christians, I began to comprehend what the persecuted churches meant when they thanked us for praying for them but convinced us that we needed prayer more than them. We’ve never fully understood the cost. They know the fullness of life which lives in Christ because they are dependent on it every day! They start their walk with Christ at a point of choosing to die, literally. Some of us never even reach the point of answering whether we're willing to die for Christ or not? I could feel God revealing to me how I've made this thing I call ‘faith’ self focused, inward facing and how I was 'sick' becasue if it, I'm only expereicing half of what God wants me too because of my self-focussed life.

That worship session led us into a prayer for the nations of the world. There people on stage praying for the lost people in their nation in their own language. I couldn’t contain the tears, I didn’t understand most of the prayers, but my spirit did. My spirit understood well, and the emotions that stirred within my spirit were what I believe for the first time tears and repentance that began to comprehend a new perspective of what it’s all for. It was as if my spirit was crying and expressing it’s relief that finally it could live for more than the small issues I had made my faith applicable too. This is why we need to feel, why our hearts need to be broken, why God allows us to hurt and feel the pain, why we need to see the huge scale of despair around us even to the point of it being too much, overwhelming us – God needs us to be awoken. We need to awake our soul to Him, to the real reason we exist. He needs us to see. He wants us to seek TRUTH. Because it’s only then in our brokenness that we really understand what He did for us.

Lord may You open our eye’s to Truth. Pure Truth. And may it overwhelm us so that we will die to our 'idea' of life and live a FULL life in You alone.

Thank you for a bigger body of believers than just ourselves, our city or our nation. This faith was meant for the world - not just for oursleves.

Matthew 28:19 summarised "GO" reach out to people around you, open your eyes to brokeness and you will understand.

Inspired by Katrin

Meet Katrin.
My very first friend.
We sat observing while our mom's chattered away, we drew, played and climbed tree's together, we went to german Kindergarten together, we started private art classes together, we studied Visual Communication at Stellenbosch university together for 4 years - and still she remains a big part of my life.

She is currently doing her masters degree in Fine Arts Illustration at Stellenbosch University and freelance's in between. I know without a shadow of a doubt that we'll be seeing her beautifully captured, cleverly placed, detailed and delicately lined illustrations on many 'a wall and book in the future!

Here are just some of my favourites:

For more visual eye-candy visit her blog
http://babanangu.blogspot.com/
or her website
http://www.katrin.co.za/

A Rest Reminder

I didn't journal much while on holiday in Boracay, Philippines. It was good to rest from writing for a while too, and just observe. But when I did journal the entries were thoughts from a place of spontaneous reflection and rest.

I treasure these pages and reflections because back in reality - craziness of work, people, appointments and the day to day rush - glancing over these thoughts remind me of the rest and perspective I find in God. He was with me on the island, in the water, in the plane back, in my work and now every minute of the day. Palm trees and blue waters are carried within me :)

Feel it, they need to hear!

We started our new sermon series on Sunday entitled "Ke Nako (it is time) - feel it, they need to hear." We're using the hype and energy from the Soccer World Cup to inspire people with the same enthusiasm and vision in discipling Africa.

Once again doing the media for the sermon series was a Link media group effort! Beryl Kruger illustrated and animated our 'ke nako mannetjie' and Elmien Fourie created our Ke Nako intro clip (Unfort the file is a too big to load onto the blog). Podcasts from the sermon series on our website www.enpta.co.za. will be available as the series continues, so have a look out.

Once again I feel so blessed to be apart of what God is doing in our city and what we believe will flow into Africa. May this sermon series not be merely good ideas, inspiring media, emotive dreaming and heart felt messages... but may the convictions and Truth that rings true flow into action. And may we go and disciple Africa as a team of believers, teachers, engineers, artists, doctors, businessmen, architects etc. To His Glory.

Feel it, people need to hear. Will you go?