WEEK 4: Hungry as He Moves

We are already HALFWAY through our time in South Africa. Time is just flying.

 

       Starting this week, we were just coming out of things with the stomach bug, so it was pretty rough. I went with Kara to get her checked out on Tuesday because she was not feeling good. I’m actually so happy I went because we had such a good experience at the clinic with a sweet doctor named Angie. She talked about how she asks God every day for eyes to see things that aren’t immediately noticeable, and that’s what she did for Kara! At the end we got to pray for her. Kara got some medicine, and is feeling great now.

 

 

 

 

     Wednesday I went out to evangelize with the squad and it was really good. God was moving a lot through joy in the three conversations we had. The first man we talked to named Bongani was saved!! On our way home, our van unfortunately got two flat tires, so we spent some time changing those.

 

 

 

 

 

       Friday we went out again and it was another great day! We had a really good, long conversation with two women. That afternoon we did kids outreach which is a little program Impact does with kids from one of the squatter camps. G squad celebrated our one month anniversary tonight, which Hospitality planned for us! (Reese and Asher). They bought us cake and made some games for us to play.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

      Saturday I had some reallllly sweet time to rest and be with God, and Sunday we went to African church. Worship was so fun, and the pastor gave an awesome message about prayer which was in English.

 

 

 

 

       Behind the scenes from this week was I was fasting Monday morning-Sunday night. Last Saturday I felt like I wanted to fast to do a spiritual/physical cleanse, and immediately 7 days popped into my head. In my walk with the Lord so far, 5 days in Greece was the longest I’ve gone. I’m still very new at learning to discern God’s voice, but it did feel like I should do 7 days for this fast, and I felt a lot of peace about it. Let me just say, it really did kill my flesh. It felt like all day every day I was battling my mind with craving food. I thought a lot about when the trip ends and what life will be like at home. I thought a lot about Thanksgiving and Christmas and how grateful I am that I’ll be home this year for the holidays. Actually now that I think about it, I had a lot of gratitude throughout the week. We were walking around the mall the first day of my fast and I was overcome by gratitude with how I craved food I normally don’t care about. It sounds so funny, but it was pretty cool! Mid-way through, my pride was crushed a little bit where I felt like I should look stronger than I was, because I don’t want to make it obvious that I’m fasting to everyone else. That’s where God wanted me. He sustained me so much like He always does, but specifically the third day my body was so weak. It was a good reminder that I can’t be perfect. I might have needed the physical reminder that I can’t do it on my own strength. Praise God that He doesn’t want me to be any certain way.

 

Food not consumed, but COMMUNITY WAS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunday night (breaking week long fast)

 

 

 

 

 

 

       Ultimately, I think this fast was to prove my faithfulness to Him. This was more of an offering to God that I can give up something that immediately satisfies my body for the One who satisfies my whole being. The way that there was so much peace was just a little fishy to me because Alleah wanting to give up a week’s worth of food can not do that out of her own desire.