kristiapplesauce

Cross-reference

Psalm 54:4
"God is my helper; the Lord is the sustainer of my life."

So I read that this morning and I was like...Rock on. Thank you Lord...You are amazing. Then I cross referenced that and came up with Psalm 118:7 and Isaiah 41:10.

Psalm118:7
"With the Lord for me as my helper, I will look in triumph on those who hate me"

Isaiah 41:10
"Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be afraid, for I am your God. I will strengthen you; I will help you; I will hold on to you with my righteous right hand."

Thanks God! What an amazing God we serve! Yay.

Feelers

Okay, so maybe this isn't mission stuff per-say...but maybe. We have a Kodak something or other or rather (as I like to say) for our digital camera at the moment...and it actually totally rocks. But it doesn't have a ZOOM (or a very good one) and we are in freakin AFRICA for goodness sake. So we need a better camera (for those elephant encounters). Right? Right. So I know that like at least 10 of my friends who hang out with me in blog land are professional or semi professional photographers that need a bump to go buy themselves some new equipment and then will let us buy their old right? Right. Who doesn't want new stuff? So please please pretty please send us the info on your old camera (that you totally have been wanting to  get rid of anyways) and then we can figure out how to get it to us because seriously we need to be documenting this journey a little bit better. Okay then. Thank you. Thanks.

God is so funny!

New animal pictures under "Wild in Africa" on the right hand side...go check them out!

And I bet you only saw other cars on your way to work this morning.

Working girls....

I don't know, maybe because I hang out with kids all day that this opportunity to make some new friends really excites me, or maybe because I just like to say the word "hookers"...I don't know. Either way, I am digging this new "thing" in my life. Yesterday we were near my new favorite place - the beach I was telling you about, so of course...we stopped by the girls and there were 6 this time. I had gone to the grocery store before-hand and loaded up on some prayer and made sack lunches. The sacks were filled with love, bread, fruit and chocolate (of course). I approached from a slight distance as last time when we drove right up they hid. So Daniel parked and I walked. When I got there, they were just hanging out and I greeted. With a couple of "hello's" and "do you remember me?" we were off. We introduced ourselves again and I said I brought goodies. I asked them all their names and tried my best to remember. I wrote them all down when I got back to the car so I would remember next time. I talked a little about stupid stuff...if they were all having an alright day, and if they were hungry. Whatever, small talk. Told them that I was there for them, and that I would be back. They didn't seem surprised. So I gave them their lunches and reminded them to be careful. Yay for a good visit. I think we are going back tomorrow. Please pray for us all.

Okay God, here I am.

About what? Maybe 5 maybe 6 years ago, Tim (the interim youth pastor) and I were crazy enough to try to run the youth group at Westside. We had this big Sunday night gig that we called “THE FORGE” where we sometimes had bands come, sometimes played games, sometimes spoke, sometimes let the kids speak to us. We were just doing what we believed God was telling us to do. So one week Tim was like “Hey Kristi, why don’t you lead this week? I am sure God is speaking to you”.

And He was. Like daily. It was an amazing time. We were rocking the youth group, we were praying daily, we were a team (the youth volunteers), we all were broken in so many ways. Our youth pastor was just fired and we were scrambling to keep relationships with the kids in tact. Outside of the youth ministry, I was involved in the singles ministry, and they were most of my friends who I was hanging out with…so I was surrounded…And we all were (in my opinion) surrendering in so many real ways.  I know that sounds like I was in a bubble…but I think that God was growing and healing me. Healing me. Healing. Healing. When was the last time in your life you have had that?

So now I am here. Here in Amazing, Incredible, Glorious, Worshipful Africa…and God is hiding. Hiding? I don’t know if that is entirely accurate…but sometimes it is easy for me/us/me to take my walk with God, my God for granted. Maybe I am hiding. We are so busy. That is such a lame excuse. We are in reality no more busy then when I was at Westside, but my focus is now blurred. We are working, working, working for God, but that is never the same, or what God asks of us.  I have now traded my surrender for something else. For a story or an experience. But I am still so broken. I miss my heart for Jesus. I miss the broken and I miss the real focus of why we are even here. Serving these kids and feeding the hungry is a real thing…absolutely, but it means nothing if I am not in surrender to Christ. So Lord, here I am. Broken and sad. I miss you and I have nothing left. I have become something less-then. Remove these sick walls and make me the woman you have desired all along. I am yours.

Let's get it on!

Today Daniel took me to a beach he had discovered yesterday. It was off the beaten path and had an amazing view. We spent an hour walking the coast and picking up sea shells. On the drive back, we ran out of gas...but luckily we were only about a mile from the nearest gas station. So we started walking. That is where it got a little weird. As we were walking, I was complaining and when we came around the  corner, he lowered his voice and said "yeah...those girls up there are prostitutes"....What?!! So we kept walking and smiled as we passed. When we passed them on the way back I smiled again and God started tugging at my heart. We got back to the car and I knew that I had to go make conversation. What? I had no idea. So we pulled up and they must have thought I was nuts. I got out of the car and out of the 5 that were sitting on the dirt 3 got up and left as I approached. The 2 that were left just looked at me as I said "Hi, my name is Kristi". One girl offered her hand and told me her name. She also told me that she was 22 and when I asked why she was there, she plainly stated that she was a prostitute just like she would have told me that we were in South Africa. I asked her how long she had been working and she said again, plainly "3 months". My heart sank. I asked her how much she charged, "100 rand" (14 dollars to you and me). So I thanked her and we went back to the gas station to fill up on 5 sack lunches and brought them back to the working girls. But my friend was gone. Only 2 remained as I guess today was a busy day. So I gave the sack lunches to her "partner" and asked her to share when the others returned. She promised that she would. When I got back in the car Daniel said that I could start visiting these girls whenever we go to the townships as it is only 5 minutes or so out of our way and we go there at least once a week. Yay for getting it on. I love it when God speaks so clearly to your heart...you know?

Insurance.

And this is how we feel about you - insurance company that we have been dealing with for 5 months. Thank you for NOT helping us. Thank you for not telling us the truth when you said that you would cover us. Thank you for all the money we have now spent on the communication on faxes and un-necessary phone calls only to tell us you were never to cover us in the first place. Grrr. We are now starting over with a new "missionary health insurance company" so sorry to have wasted your time. But really we are sad that you lied to us in the first place. Why do "Christian companies do that? Okay ready...END RANT!!!!
Sorry guys. We are so frustrated. We started this drama I month before we left our jobs and came here. Promised coverage and money spent. And now...what? Here we are. Middle of Africa. Please pray for our safety and health as we look for a new company that will cover our unique health needs. It is pretty crazy to think we aren't covered. But you know...Faith right? Not stupidity, FAITH. 

Oprah part two

I was going to start this post by giving you all sorts of statistics on this woman...her show, her opinions, the latest saga of her backing Barack Obama and his views on abortion....all of it then I was going to follow that with how scary it is to live here with how people feel about her. Because in America there is a strong Oprah following. We all kind of joke about it. Ha ha, yeah, Oprah gave away 100 cars ect. ect. but whatever. Here though, it is cult following. I don't even know how to describe it. People are so passionate about this woman and I am not exaggerating when I say that she has a "saint-like" status in peoples minds. Whatever. Scary. So I was going to elaborate on all of that. But then we had 2 days that our computer didn't work, and we were busy with all the stuff at Oceans and the kids and the stuff that we are here to do. I trekked down to the free clinic to get 3 of our kids tested for HIV and in my mind, whatever I think that Oprah is doing, or not doing, or maybe doing, or could possibly do later has absolutely nothing to do with any of us. You know? Daniel and I are here just trying to rock it and so, whatever Oprah! Today we will spend our time taking our kids to school and helping them with their homework. I will clean the house and bathe 3 kids at a time and laugh as they bathe me with all the splashing. Daniel will sign up 50 more kids into the Child Sponsorship Program this afternoon in Motherwell and we will probably eat a late dinner because it is Friday, so that means a late "fun-something" with the kids. Mama will need ran here or there, so we will need to do that by day's end and we will have changed um-teen diapers. So you can take your 100 cars and your backing of Obama, because when all is said and done I am not going to waste another post on talking about dumb stuff that doesn't matter.

Okay, I lied. I probably will totally talk about stuff that doesn't matter...I mean, seriously...my blog name is applesauce.  But I won't talk about this particular subject anymore. I promise.

Oprah part 1

Do you dig her? Do you watch her if she just happens to be on? Do you have a dream of being on the show? Do you support what she does? Do you watch the big Christmas show or talk about what happened the next day if it was something big? Come on, I need to know for the part 2 of this series.....be honest.