Quotes From Virgin Ears...

  
  Bride, 

 

     It is a muggy Saturday evening in the Jolly Avenue Community Garden and 7 Bhutanese refugees have gathered to hear about the prophecy and birth of a man named Jesus. Once again, something has fallen through with our translator and, once again, God has heard my silent picnic table prayers as I watch our low English listener's walk toward me with weathered smiles and eager ears.

 

    After some suggestions from our growers for a fast fill-in, our sweet Hindu gardener Praki answers the phone and agrees to be there with his wife in ten! He arrives, we ask him to translate, and we're on! Relief hangs in the air and faces of our patient, mosquito mashing bunch. The wait is over and we will be fine. It has been mind blowing to watch God fill in the gaps every week that His people would hear these words of freedom. However, that familiar feeling "sobering" is always sliding in second  as I am witness to the relentless warfare against our Hindu family's through physical destruction.

 

     Last week, we had to cancel because two of our main families were tied up in the hospital at the same time that night. When you compromise one family member in these cultures, you lose the whole clan to a hospital visit because they are simply so familial. It is amazing to see the fight we are in just to gather together for this time each week. Please be our intercessors. He has given us all authority to bind and loose, so let's get to it.

 

    I ask the same set of questions nearly every time I lead each week. "What does this show you about God? What does this show you about man? What did you like? What did you not like?" This particular time Gahadair*, a garden leader whom I'd helped at the hospital during the week along with his wife Indu, was suddenly someone else altogether!  Consistently reserved and faithful in attendance, he began to dominate the conversation during questions!

 

    "So, what does this show us about God?" Gahadair responds, "It is like God is a tree and the people are the leaves. God supplies equally to all the people. Like, He is the tree and they are the branches." This was both Gahadair's, and all other 6 gardener's first time to ever hear of Jesus' birth! "Gahadair!! I believe God is speaking this very thing to you! This book right here is God's Holy words to us and it says just what you've said!" All the crowd begins to erupt with laughter and excitement! "OoOoOoOOWWWW!!!! ...Lots of Nepali I don't understand but sounds very happy."  ( :

 

    Gahadair's face is beaming and I notice a shift has just occurred. Our Gahadair, the Bhutanese man I stood next to talking "Raya Saag" spinach in February and feeling a special love for from the start of my position is the most vocal member of the group today, a title his wife, which I didn't realize at the time, held our first week of storying! Yes, Lord, we ask you would have your worship from this family!!
 

     I can't tell you the sensation of chills running over my body as I look into these dark, serious eyes staring back at me with the answer, "Yus, this ees the fhirst time for ahll."
Don't you feel His love for them? Don't you sense the fierce pursuit of His colorful bride? Let us join Him where He is moving.

Come Lord Jesus,
 

            Jenna in Clarkston 

 

Putting Legs to My Feet:

Mail: Reach The Nations
Care of: Stone Mountain Baptist Association
1200 Green Street, SE
P.O. Box 911
Conyers, GA 30021
Please include “RTN-Jenna Givens” in the memo.

Online/ PayPal:
Go to: stonemountainbaptistassociation.org
Click: “Donate” on the sidebar to the right
Enter: desired amount and then click the ”Make a Donation” button
Enter: “RTN-Jenna Givens” in the description box and then just complete the transaction through either logging into your PayPal account as prompted or entering your information.

"We Must Be Here Every Saturday @ 7:00!" -Laxmi

Brothers and Sisters,

 

 

It is late, my skirt emits a certain cloud of bugspray, my ankles are circled with soil, and this warm-cheeked head is tilty with slumber. So, I will shoot for the bullseye... and probably miss.
 

Why did women, on their way back from a Hindu God worship service in a friend's apartment, show up to listen with finger cymbals still in hand? Why did Yamun, forbidden to pray or learn about God for 3 years after her family members death rush in late from the market with her teenage neice? Why did my phone ring with our Hindu garden leader agreeing to be our translator at the very moment our new intern, Emily, was praying for one this morning?
 

Jesus and His welcomed Spirit through prayer. He is the draw and He will have His way as we invite Him to do what he already paid for.

 

Tonight in the Jolly Avenue Community Garden we held our first Bible storytelling program for Nepali speaking Hindus from the closed country of Bhutan. If I could share just one look with you, I would give you the glimpse of brown, taught and weathered faces reacting to the word of God for the first time in the entirety of their lives.

 

I, a woman of 25, had the high honor of watching women double my lifetime, sit around on logs and listen in with virgin ears to the creation of the world and God's plan for friendship with us. I heard their chuckles when they realized He put them in a garden, and their knowing "AHA'S!" when they were told of Eve's childbirth curse. My heart swelled with honor and burned with injustice. Please pray for our little team of storytellers, Emily Smith, Meagan Wright, and myself, and for those who will hear it!

 

During the question segment of the story, I asked how it made them feel. They all triumphantly declared, "Ramro chha! Ramro! Ramro!" meaning, "Good job! It's good! It's good!" I explained that it made me sad because though God loved them, their friendship had to be broken. Then, an elderly lady agreed she was sad too. Next, another gardener stated "I feel good." Not knowing where to really go with that, our translator Lalee clued me in on the stream of Nepali that followed.

 

 She explained, "She is saying that she likes it! We have never heard this before. This is our first time hearing this story. We want to learn anything you can teach us about God and creation." I was floored. My internal jaw lay square between my feet.

 

These women have daughters beyond my years and yet they have travelled through every memory to this point devoid of Truth. Do we take this seriously? Heartwrenching! This is the heart of God, that He would have His worship and freedom would reach the captives. I have enjoyed them for nearly 6 months in my position at the garden. What if it had stopped at that, accepting that they are Hindus and we just can't communicate much, assuming they've probably already decided against Jesus anyway? I would have missed the privilege of marking, for the first time in their lifetime, that moment when light hit the photo paper and a new image was burned into them, drawing apart the light and dark.

 

Doesn't it make you think, as the body of Christ, that we need to stop worrying so much about the end when there are thousands of Nations who have never even heard the beginning?
 

 

"And the Good News about the Kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world, so that all nations will hear it; and then the end will come." Matthew 24:14
 

Sharing Jesus with those who have never heard is not just pulling up the shade; it is acting to usher the return of Jesus back to earth!
 

I dare you to consider the weight of Glory you've been given,

 

 

                                       Jenna in Clarkston
 

*If you would like to partner with my life amongst the unreached, please feel free to use the details below and contact me with any questions!

 

 

Putting Legs to My Feet:

Mail:Reach The Nations
Care of: Stone Mountain Baptist Association
1200 Green Street, SE
P.O. Box 911
Conyers, GA 30021
Please include “RTN-Jenna Givens” in the memo.

Online/ PayPal:
Go to: stonemountainbaptistassociation.org
Click: “Donate” on the sidebar to the right
Enter: desired amount and then click the”make a donation” button
Enter: “RTN-Jenna Givens” in the description box and then just complete the transaction through either logging into your PayPal account as prompted or entering your information.

Mary, Mary How Does Your Garden Grow?

A lot more interconnectedly than I once thought...
 

Today while registering gardeners at the garden, up walked a man I knew from Willow Branch, my old complex. Yup, he has a plot and our faces met with a look of total shock and excitement of who eachother was, he a gardener, and me the new Director! Guess what else? He is also a member at my refugee church, Reach The Nations, a Nepali man with stained teeth from "Pan" ...Nepali tobacco. We couldn't stop smiling at eachother and explaining to every other Nepali who came up why we looked so silly shocked. Do you have any idea how much joy that brought to me? Today I got a bit of my joy back, because I was reconnected to my love, the people, even if only for a couple hours of sign up.

 

 

Let me tell you why else I walked away smiling and full of energy after 9 days of no eating on a cleanse to kill off some parasites and standing in the frozen, yes frozen because it was no longer freezing, it had definitely passed that checkpoint already, wind. I stood with a man named Ghaja* at his plot, a man my heart already feels so deep an affection for, talking about what his "roya saag," which looks like Nepali spinach, and making small talk in broken, broken English.

 

 

Why did this matter so much? Because beloved body, my strong support, at 18 I went away to study Environmental Studies with hopes to be an agricultural missionary in Asia one day. Then I went to Nepal and God gave me a curiosity and hunger to find a way into Bhutan, the smallest Kingdom in the world and almost completely closed to visitors after being told about it by the Argentine missionary housing me. That began a pursuit in researching what would make me a good visa applicant to be one of the few allowed in. I looked into their agriculture, among many other things and contemplated what could be possible.

 

 

My inner hope was to go and work with farmers in agriculture, teaching new methods to yield a greater harvest, and reach the people of Bhutan with the all sufficient news of Jesus.

That hope died, and even my own boss last semester as a teacher at a private school, mocked my desire to go there as I came across an article on Bhutan while helping my students find collage materials in Art class. "Isn't that where people are fleeing from to get here?!" she said. "Yah..." "Then might make you think you shouldn't be going there, huh?!" No Pam*..."Actually those are the places God calls me to go to because it's worth it," I say with a huge lump in my throat and red cheeks as she overpowers me. Then Today, I made the connection. I am standing here with ghaja*, a man who tells me he was a farmer, in Bhutan, and we are having a conversation about his vegetables right here together. It happened.

 

I walked away in awe of a God who places inside of us desires, but asks us to watch Him pull them together in submission, one blind step at a time, and in doing so, our worship and awe of Him is magnified all the more because He never for one moment went away from bringing that God given urge to pass.


I love the webs He weaves, the obedience He blesses, the way He blesses in such a way it is never divorced from our sanctification and His more intensified worship. I love that it leads us back into the well again. I feel a hope in me rising as God privileges me with seeing even for a season, the way He has never walked away from the desires He put in me that, until this point have all seemed separate and confusing, that I somehow misheard. No, no, He was just putting in what the bread needed before the oven. I am starting to see the dough rise and that it somehow all works together and smells really good.

I trust Him with my plans. I trust Him with the side roads, and I trust Him to make happen what He has given natural curiosity for as I choose to enjoy the immediate obedience of what He has spoken for now.
 

I may not know as much about vegetables as I had expected by now, but I know a whole lot more about yielding a greater harvest, and that is a track He knew all along He was placing my caboose on.

 

 

Blessings my incredible family, goodness how I cherish you.
 

To get more up-to-date on why I was registering gardeners and what this refugee church is all about, see a recent bio explaining my current work at http://rtnatlanta.com/2013/02/09/ciao-chinee-jaimesi-jenna/

~Jenna in Clarkston

This is a photo taken at Urbana, a missions conference where God confirmed my call to missions undeniably in 2006 as a Freshman in college. It was taken because God had just spoken India into my heart in a prayer room as the place He would one day send me. It was on the wall of the booth I visited just afterward. I cannot wait to tell you more about this confirmation and the wonderful web he has woven on this one currently.

To Give by Mail or PayPal:
Mail:
Reach The Nations
Care of: Stone Mountain Baptist Association
1200 Green Street, SE
P.O. Box 911
Conyers, GA 30021
Please include “RTN-Jenna Givens” in the memo.
Online/ PayPal:
Go to: stonemountainbaptistassociation.org
Click: “Donate” on the sidebar to the right
Enter: desired amount and then click the”make a donation” button
Enter: “RTN-Jenna Givens” in the description box and then just complete the transaction through either logging into your PayPal account as prompted or entering your information.

Meet, Eat, and Repeat!

Here's a little sneak peek into the mysteries of Clarkston...

Sitting in my closet at 5:30 this morning...

God woke me up to pray specifically and I am so thankful I finally had the awareness to stumble up and listen!

 

 

Two-way journaling back and forth in conversation with Jesus...this has been blowing my mind. Check out the "4 Keys To Hearing God's Voice" by Mark Virkler if you want to know more!

 

 

Let the apartment visits begin! Yes!!!!
 

Met with my pastor and a friend to visit different believers and nonbelievers in my complex in their homes.

 

Ready, set, go!

 

1. A Congolese believer who attends Reach The Nations, my refugee church, and is awaiting her long lost husbands arrival in hopefully a couple of weeks. It has been almost 5 years since she and her six kids have last seen him! Lunch #1 consisted of goat livers and rice and creamy coffee bubbling over on the stove. I was not too disappointed I was fasting today and graciously explained this to my dear sister in Christ eating a heap of white rice instead. My comrads took one brave bite after another doing everything to keep them from reappearing on the plate. Some were more successful than others. ( :

 

The best surprise of the day came when I realized that the wonderful and interesting smells greeting me everyday in my bathroom are actually coming from my Congolese friend's kitchen on the other side of my wall! She didn't even know we were neighbors! Love that! Funny... I know when she burns things too....

 

2. A visit with an Ethiopian Orthodox family who sees Christianity as something separate altogether... and lunch #2 which consisted of enjeera (a spongy brown bread the size of a pizza crust) smothered with a chickpea and spices saucy mash and eaten with your hands. Her son was named Daniel which was an incredible connection because this is the book I am travelling through in the word right now! He had never read the story of Daniel and the Lion's Den, nor did he know much of Daniel or the Bible in general. I grabbed my easier translation from my bag and showed him how to find his way around the Bible and he started reading the story. My pastor and I invited him to come to our church and I really hope to see that little guy soon! The mother invited me back anytime. It filled me right up inside to meet some of my new neighbors!!

 

3. A high Hindu priest Nepali family was last but not least having suffered a tragedy of great proportions...losing their 22 year old son only weeks ago to colon cancer. Through the conversation I began to realize that the Nepali family I have poured into the past 2 years, and used to visit in the same complex I am now living, are actually the relatives of this family! We had a great conversation connecting dots and opening doors of relationship as my pastor offered encouragement. I especially connected with their 19 year old daughter who already knew of me through our mutual Nepali friend and will be praying through whether this is an area of good soil or not to spend my time investing in.

 

 

I am off to an English house church meeting which was attended by Ethiopians, Americans, and Afghanis last week at our first gathering! It was beautiful to study the word with the Nations altogether in one living room declaring Holy the same Father.

 

 

My pastor has asked if I would be open to beginning a similar Nepali speaking Bible study group alongside of some Nepali believers from our church within my own complex. I would be leading it off with the Nepali couple, modeling how to facilitate it, and discipling other Nepali/ English speaking individuals within it. This is a point of prayer and I ask that you would pray for my wisdom and also for my financial support to be able to continue taking on more ministry responsibilities and expanding the Kingdom.

 

 

I love you all and have to run!!!

Thank you for your prayers!!!
 

                Jenna in Clarkston...

 

How to give:

Mail:

Reach The Nations
Care of: Stone Mountain Baptist Association
1200 Green Street, SE
P.O. Box 911
Conyers, GA 30021

*Please make the check out to "Reach The Nations" and include "RTN-Jenna Givens" in the memo.

Online/ PayPal:

Go to: stonemountainbaptistassociation.org

Click: "Donate" on the sidebar to the right

Enter: desired amount and then click the"make a donation" button

Enter: "RTN-Jenna Givens" in the description box and then just complete the transaction through either logging into your PayPal account as prompted or entering your information.

October 29th, 2012 11:24:25 PM

 

 In The Land of Dumped Couches
 

 

If you came to my neighborhood, it wouldn’t take you long to see one of the many overused loveseats gone awry. You will find them perched on their heads, covered in smears of mud acquired on the team effort trip from door to dumpster, and seeping stuffing from every strange place. Every corner has one and I often find myself admiring the vintage beauties they once were prior to their present practicality. Welcome to Clarkston. The dumpster dotted land I call home.

I never wanted to be here… in Atlanta, Georgia I mean. I always said it was the last city I’d move to, devoid of mountains and all things life-giving for a nature heart. I never wanted to curl up with roaches, ambulance sirens, and the sinking sense of solitude that comes with leaving family behind as I slide the 2x4 through the brackets on my door frame. Maintenance requests ignored, staff delivered neighborly complaints of “my unattended children” running in the hallways causing a ruckus. The worst curse words hurled my direction as a primary language…from kids as young as four. Stolen bicycle seats, late night internet stake outs at the neighbor’s parking space to check e mail, line dried clothes souring for the third time in this constantly changing weather. The normalcy of “color flying” gang reports…from my cell phone… and distant gunshots heard over dinner with friends. Mold, sinus infections, and allergies. Heat, so much heat.

Hmm… and yet.

If that’s all it were, and to be honest some days it has felt that way, it would be downright redonculous for me to leave those lush leaves behind for these cockroaches, crunchy rented carpets, and concrete.

I have been searching for a while now for that final sentence that summarizes the suffering into one beautiful notion of purpose. It has come slowly these days but I am finally starting to write again, and it’s making itself known through the abiding times with my sweet savior who “remains faithful because He cannot deny who He is,” 2 Timothy 2:13.

The odd thing about those couches is that there not too different from the people here… worn thin and barely balancing, set aside with their inner parts coming out in strange ways, They are marked with the journey from their doors to these dumpsters, and for some, the pressure has been too much. A spirit of death has gripped Clarkston recently with many self- imposed deaths. Abuse is common and confessions come my way at the late night hours and the bright ones. It is a place in need of healing… in need of someone to see its potential, its original beauty, to pick it up from it’s dumped form, head to the ground, and repurpose it. Jesus.

This week I held a “secret church”night on my balcony for what was supposed to be four little girls from Burma, Sudan, and Ethiopia. It, of course, became 7. They are excellent negotiators, never, never underestimate them. ( : So, at work teaching till’ 5:00, quick gym class, leave early to make it back to anxious faces there at the door the same time as me… sweaty hugs and joyful exclamations. They were ready. We set up the hot chocolate in a coffee pot on the porch and they go to work layering blankets and Ms. Jenna’s dirty laundry basket towels all across the railing so no one on the playground will see us. We become more acquainted with the process of making hot chocolate with a packet and everyone passes the spoon and takes their turn sharing whatever they’d like. It’s Muslims, Christians, and Jesus at the party. I explain persecution and the way others must follow Jesus in other countries as they have “birthday parties” to protect their times of worship from the government’s eyes. We try to talk quietly as they do… we failed. ( :

I open the floor for the questions I have asked them to bring about God, any and all, and it unfolds into the beautiful time of truth-telling and exposure of misunderstandings of who He is. I ask, “Can I ask you a question about Jesus now?” The contagiously genuine Burmese Muslim responds, “Ya-ah…That’s why we’re here!” I am speechless. We read from the word and talk about it… my temple will be called a house of prayer… and we practice that too. Too many pictures make the girls a little rowdy and I have to lay down the law of respect. We finish early and everyone washes dishes, vacuums the carpet, and begs not to go home. I pray it is only the beginning. Before they’re even gone, another one is calling to me from below the balcony… one who currently lives in abuse and comes to my door for refuge and takes me to hers for help, mediation, and support. The night is over and I go get a movie to start the rest part of the weekend. Friday’s aren’t conventional and I would never change that. I would probably add a few others to the story and I pray God will bring the right roommate who will stand in the gap with me for these kids.

It is time for bed though my heart would sit here for hours just to write to you again. It is eleven and I have to teach again in the morning. Last night was one of the wee hours due to the aforementioned family’s presence in my apartment as I was the door she came to crying. I pray God will provide for my needs through the full-time support of others as the balance of 40+ hours of teaching responsibilities that often come home with me after staying late are met with the needs of the place I came to bring the Kingdom to. And, they just aren’t balancing out. This is my call and this is the obedience I choose.

On a sweet note, I am now a member of a trilingual refugee church plant and the partnership has been powerful. Every Sunday the knocks of way-too-early knuckles announce it is time to go to church. I am running out of room to stuff them in my car. This week 6 walked in with me, last week it was 8. We sort of supply the children’s church. All but one are Hindu. This Sunday I took them home and was invited in by the Christian aunt to eat. There I was, sitting across from the abusive, addicted, Hindu father of one of the boys I take with me while spitting out fragments of beef and chicken bone in my rice and Daal. And I think to myself, God you are working in this, you are faithful even when my time is small. We are all being connected.

Please feel free to write to me. I LOVE to hear from you even though my internet only happens in others parking spaces, coffee shops, or work. Thank you for your patience.

I thank God He has me where He has me even though, lately, I have been struggling with working full-time and living in ministry full-time. I am seeking as I know the long-term call is overseas… but we can only live out today, today. So, here I am with the unreached in the field of preparation. I covet your prayers and feel the work you put into them. I ask that if you feel led to continue, you would focus them on what God wants to do here and for my wisdom and freedom to be a part of that. Thank you. You are family.

                  Love,

                         Jenna in Clarkston

Mail me!:

Jenna Givens

822 N. Indian Creek Dr. #E19

Clarkston, GA 30021

Some Things That Feel Normal

   The view I see as I run at sunset on the farm plot of Johannesburg in the distance.This one however, was taken from the driveway as we pulled in from a long day. It never stops taking my breath and filling me up with that creation centered charge I get as I recognize God's incredible marks.

 

My home for these 2 months.

  Yes I ate this. And more of the same the night before. South African Braai's aree like a huge meatfest BBQ and everyone loves to show them to the Americans. Go ahead all of you who've dedicated your life to make me eat a steak. Bye bye 11 1/2 years of vegetarian/veganism. No, I still didn't love eating steak. Don't have a cow or anything... bahahaha.

 Today's play.... bug themed and just the beginning of chaotic! We should have taken a before and after picture, but the looks of exhaustion would envoke far too much pity. 140 kids showed up from all over and from every status in society.... Needing more of His strength as I became an unexpected group leader and so did many of my teammates to help cope with the unexpected abundance of children, and more are coming tomorrow! Africa is a wild place.

 A creche (creche's are preschools) craft training our team led. This was a project my teammate and I came up with. The ladies rotated through learning how to implement crafts in their own classrooms out of trash that would cost them nothing. Many of the ladies have never learned how to use a pair of scissors. It was a blast!! I came up with this idea as an adaptation from the brown paper bag vest I learned from Mrs. Dottie Shuman in one of my environmental education classes in college! People in South Africa use only plastic bags.... so we improvise!

 These ladies came to the training from creche's all over the place. Many of the women are immigrants from other African countries. These women work and live in the townships (slums) and are the women who bring the light of Jesus to the kids they care for. Please pray for them. It is not easy doing what they do where they are. The lady on the bottom left is our wonderful countryside leader. We danced around the room singing I will follow Jesus in a train line in both English and Zulu to start the training off... their idea! I loved it.

Soaking in love while this little one drifted off in the warm sunshine. This was at the community center in the township (slum) where we were observing the youth put into action what we've been training them to do with Bible storytelling programs. Two highschool teenagers led the program while we assisted as they taught the young children. Incredible!! Please pray that Jesus would penetrate their hearts with the gospel they have learned to preach as questions have arisen of their own decisions for Jesus. Discipleship is SO important! We have to continue to go deeper than the surface with those we are pouring into... 

 Sharing testimony at a township church that took us an hour to find! Luckily because it was so cold that morning, people did as they normally would and just came when it got warmer so we weren't late! How awesome! This was a very special Sunday as we shared the story of Jesus calming the storm and then a few of us shared individual storms in our own lives. I would have laughed my face off if you had told me that I would be sharing about broken heart relationships from high school and college at a church in Africa with women tisk tisking and amening me in that beautiful deep African tone. I guess God works all things together for His good. Even messed up broken hearts and break ups. Just stand up and see what happens.

 PS: this little boy laid in the middle of the floor nearly the whole service. PPS. they served us pumpkin and butternut squash and rooibos teas afterward with rice, MY FAVORITE!!! The pastor and his wife had an adorable story about their engagement and how she turned him down originally... people are just people, no matter where they are. That's her in the red. We are the same age. ( :

I really wish I could show you more of the abundance of little faces we see on a weekly basis, but I can't place their pictures here. Just imagine and then pray for what creative thoughts God shows you! All my love, very very early 5:30 am morning ahead of me! Goodnight ( :

Shedding Light

Sawubona dear family,

I find myself sitting in an African living room that a week and a half ago seemed foreign, wide open, and sun peirced with ornate white washed barred windows for walls. Not so anymore. I now know the routine of drawing the wall of curtains for warmth in the morning and the importance of their 6-o-clock cinching as the sun falls into the biting cold of evening. I know the smoky scent of this place in my air dried clothing, how long it takes to get the glass water boiler to swirl with bubbles for warming Rooibos tea, how to convert kilojoules and kilos, what the lady is actually asking me when she says, "plastics?" at the grocery store as I respond with a confused "uhuh" smile only to watch the screen glow with a mysterious 21 cents.

I know how to light a blowdryer on fire even while using a converter, the nearly correct way to drape the 6 heavy blankets on my bed so that they stop falling on the floor in one sad slump everynight leaving me a frigid popsicle, and how not to sleep with your socks directly against an old fashioned hot water bottle unless of course you want to repeatedly blister your ankles and arches as you dream your getting a splinter. I also know what it means for a fire training to turn into an emergency call to the fire brigade while you fight with everything you didn't know you had in you to save the neighbors animals and feed, how fast I can jump into said fire clothes and the back of the bukkie (pick up truck) to go off roading at the alert, and that South African sweet potatos are not orange.

But none of this matters much.

Let me tell you instead what I'm learning...

That I wish my arms were each 3 feet longer so I could fold in that many more jealous little ones,that if I am willing to stand up in front of His people and listen carefully, He will give me a steady word even if it comes through a shaking microphone, that I LOVE training women to be empowered and effective in reaching those in their own reach, that unity in ministry with other believers amidst so much chaos and struggle is possible, beautiful, and real, that I was never supposed to produce for God as one earning His good pleasure with me and it's finally sinking in, that there is such a thing as a healthy balance in ministry and rest if you are in it for the long haul, that loving the Godly community God gives your for today will always leave you fuller if you are willing to engage in it despite the painful promise of brevity, and how much I am once again reminded that God intends me for this life and the time to jump is growing ever nearer. For today I just thank, think,and walk contently in His love.

For tonight I'd like to give you a mental postcard of the sunset that washed my heart clean and straightened up my minds living room as I ran on the red path and stood between the cabbages.

At 5:20 pm the sun begins to sink into the skyline of Johannesburg miles and miles away. The buildings become visible as if they have suddenly been drawn in with a heavy charcoal pencil. The tall, brittle, fields that seperate us from the city look as if a blanket of gold has laid just across its tips and the dismissal mounts. Sunsets here are like a song you hear in an orchestra. They start soft with taps of color here and there and bits of light piercing the still white cloud cover. As time passes the expression gets louder and more complex until the volume is so brilliant it is an overwhelming punch of beauty that your spirit bonds with and forever craves. The clouds are always different and so are the colors. The tangerine glow is always faithful and the fields certainly don't change much from their coffee with too much creamer shade of dry. scattered, hazy, Stacks of gray begin to appear all across the horizon as you internally converse any need for worry. It is my favorite time of day. The neighbors clustered cows and old windmill get so black against the contrast you feel as if you eaten too much cake or smelled too much potpourri it is so rich.

My favorite part is when the inevitable let down of it's fall is over, you suddenly look around and see all the twinkling lights from the shack cities and towns that neighbor our agriculture plot. I love that part. I even love looking at the mine dump behind us where they've gathered Gold which I call a mountain. Life is about perspective. I really love how quiet it gets and how all you can hear are laughing doves as you breathe the scent of the musty smoke that falls everynight from the day's brushfires and all the people's cooking fires from the slums. It's so still I can finally be with Jesus and talk outloud and no one will hear me. With 7 girls on a team sharing a house and every minute of life, this is a treasure. Tonight the clouds started out looking like someone rapidly unstuffed a mattress and then changed to the symmetrical imprint of a george foreman grill. The colors grew deeper and richer until the sky looked like one ginormous grilled quilt of orange, fuschia, and lavender. Please remember to include in this postcard a scratch and sniff sticker with the abundant scent of cow manure and you have just what I'd like to send you. ( :

More to come beloveds, I cherish you each! Goodnight from South Africa!

If any of you have the wonderful desire to send snail mail... don't deny yourself!! The postal strike is over and I happily await my chance to jump up and down like a deranged maniac with waving mail in hand!
Send it to: WEC SA Johannesburg,
                        (Lucky Me)
                     P.O. Box 10148
                       Dalview 1544
                 Republic of South Africa

All my love,

Jenna in Brakpan