Anna Cade |  |
August, 2010
Hey Everybody!
Its been quite a while since I have sent you guys an update on what has been going on in beautiful South Africa. We Nation Builders have been super busy, and time has been flying by!
The last time I wrote you my class and I were getting prepared to go on our first ministry outreach into the community. We had a Purity youth event at a hall in Jeffery’s Bay. Before it started the guys in our class had gone there early to set up the sound equipment and things. While they were setting up a guy came hobbling in and wanted them to pray for his legs because there was something wrong with them and he was in a lot of pain. So the guys prayed for him a few min, and then the guy just started running around the building! God had healed him. That was just the beginning of the night. The rest of the event was very powerful as well, a group of guys from our church that have been writing songs performed, my class did a drama, and several of my classmates gave their testimonies. Then we opened up for ministry and prayed over a lot of people. I remember standing there right before we prayed God gave me such an overwhelming sense of love for all those people that I didn’t even know. I could feel a lot of the pain and hurt that the people had in the room, I just wanted to hug every one of them. It was a powerful time of ministry and a lot of people got touched by God.
Our next ministry adventure was at the high school in Humansdorp, we ministered to an assembly of about two thousand students. Once again our focus was on Purity. We gave the kids a taste of what purity was all about in the assembly then we followed up by splitting our class into groups and going into the classrooms, and talking to the kids about it. My group decided to split the girls and guys in the classrooms up because we felt like we could minister more effectively that way. The girls and boys did respond a lot better that way because there wasn’t as much peer pressure. We talked about purity, how it wasn’t just abstaining from sex but it was also a lifestyle, then we would open it up for questions. We answered some very tough questions, and in some of the situations you could tell that the girl was being abused. I will never forget how willing those kids were for prayer. In one classroom we didn’t have enough time to pray before the bell rang so we just said that if anyone wanted to stay for prayer they could…all of them stayed!! One girl just closed the door and we prayed. It was really cool for me to see that happen in a school.
After ministering in the school, we realized that there was a need for more then just a one time ministry. So we decided one way to do that was to move the youth group to the school. So our youth grew from about thirty kids to about 200. Our first night we did a special program, it was all about breaking the silence because by keeping quiet it allows the devil strongholds in our lives. We used candles as an example of your voice breaking the silence being a light in the world. If they declared those things and no longer kept quiet then pretty soon the room would be lit up, and the world would be change all because one person broke the silence. We had the kids who wanted to break the silence walk through us onto the stage as we held the candles, and then we prayed for them. It was awesome to see the work that God had started in those young peoples lives.
Another school that we ministered was a small farming town school, that’s really when I saw poverty. The primary and high school were on the same grounds, the high school consisted of about four small broken down buildings. When we ministered to the high school students a few of them were touched but we didn’t feel like we were very effective. We could tell that there were a lot of strongholds holding the kids back from pressing into God, so we were a little discouraged. After going to the high school we went to the primary school. Here we did a program with the kids but I think the most impacting part of our ministry with them was at the end we just started hugging all of them. Those little kids needed that love way more then they needed a teaching. They needed to see the love of God being put into action. They were all so precious, a lot of them looked like toddlers because they were so malnourished, and they just clung to us. Pastor Marshall had to pry them off of us when it was time to go. A month later our discouragement about how the high school students had received us changed to encouragement when ten of them bagged and even paid their way to get to our church one Sunday. It was really cool to see the fruit of our trip over there. All ten of the kids wanted to do Nation Builders when they graduate, and you could just see their hunger for more of God.
In the end of June we Nation Builders had a week long break. I was a little disappointed because most of my classmates were going home, and I didn’t have any plans…haha but God had plans. There were four of us girls staying on the farm, on day two of our break a couple girls who were staying with their Dad during their school holiday came with him to the farm, and that was the beginning of our break ministry. We hung out with those girls everyday; it was really awesome to take them under our wing. By the end of our break they had a totally different view of who God was, and one of the girls who had been a Muslim was questioning that belief. God had great plans for my break after all.
These things that I have shared with you are just a few of the amazing things God has been doing here in South Africa. God has not only been working through us but also in us. God has been working in me He has given me a new revelation of who He is to me. He has made me more bold, I can now stand up in front of hundreds of people and proclaim Christ’s love for them. He has also been speaking to me about my destiny, giving me clues about my future, and what he wants to do through me. It is such a good feeling to be in the will of God, and aligned with His plans.
Thank you all for your prayers, I know that you are all praying because I can feel the prayers. I love and miss you all.
In Christ Anna
April 19, 2010
So sorry that I haven’t had time to write in so long, I am going to try and catch you all up on what has been happening in South Africa.
These first couple months the leaders have been preparing us for ministry, they have been sowing into our lives and discipling us. We have had some amazing teachings. What it means to be single (separate, unique, and whole). We learned about honor. How to honor even in difficult situations and the protective covering you get by honoring your leaders, even the respect you get by honoring your peers.
Another teaching that was very important to me was a teaching on purity or a few teachings on purity. What shocks me so much is that purity is not taught very much in the church and it kind of upset me as well because if I had been taught about purity as a youth it would have prevented some heartache in my life. Purity is just so important I wish that churches would be more open with it. Those were just a couple of teachings that we have had if I tried to write them all this would be a very long letter.
Part of our training to be leaders is by taking turns being leader of the week. The leader of the week is responsible for taking charge that week like giving jobs out and making sure they get done right. They also do exhortations every class day in the morning before worship and prayer. Being leader of the week is fun and challenging and it has a way of moving you onto the next level in your faith.
These last 2 months have mostly been our training ground. We have been building our foundations, our unity as a class, and as a ministry team. Our Pastors have been diligently filling our spiritual tool boxes and getting us ready for ministry. They just told us on Friday that we get to do our first outreach on the 27th of April!!!!! We are going to Humansdorp secondary school, we are going to minister in the classrooms and then in the assembly which is 1700 kids. I am so excited! I would love it if you guys could keep my class and I in your prayers.
I love this place, and my class, and everything that I have been learning! I am so glad God has blessed me with this opportunity! I love you all and pray that God is blessing you as richly as he is blessing me.
Anna
February 16, 2010
Dear Friends and Family,
I just thought I would write a little something to let you guys in on what is going on in Africa. I arrived safe and sound on Friday I did have a few exciting adventures in the airports that I know I would not have made it through had God not been with me…The first one was when I flew to San Francisco. I had just gotten off of my Spokane flight, and found my flight to New York when all of a sudden across the screen flashed a notice saying that the flight had been cancelled. “Sad day.” So I went to the customer service desk along with every other passenger on my flight. I stood in line at the customer service desk for quite some time as the clerk tried to figure something out. Soon a man came up to the desk; I believe he was some sort of flight coordinator. He spoke with the man for a second, and then announced that he needed the person who was going to Johannesburg and the first class business persons. We were then led to a different boarding area given different tickets with different and promptly put on a plane that had been sitting waiting for a pilot for five hours! The previous pilot had flown over his allotted flying hours so all of the people on this flight had been on this plane for hours waiting to take off, and it just so happened that as soon as I had gotten on the plane it was time to take off! “Few!” I didn’t miss my flight from New York to Johannesburg. That was just the beginning of my airport adventures.
In New York I arrived with plenty of time because my flight had left even sooner then my cancelled flight would have left. New York’s airport confused me a lot because I could not find the place where I was supposed to board so I asked a lady where it was, in very broken English she explained that I had to leave the airport cross the road and get on a train. Wow! I was very confused so I asked a couple other people and they confirmed what the lady had said. So out of the airport I go hoping they were right because I would not be allowed back in if they were wrong. I crossed the street and walked to the elevator, it just so happened that I got in the elevator with a lady native to New York, and she knew where I had to go and which train I needed to get on. Another person God just randomly put in my path to direct me. I made it to my flight and passed out on the plane. I woke up about an hour later with the plane still waiting to take off. Sadly it was about an hour and a half late in leaving.
A long fifteen hours later I arrived in Johannesburg. We arrived late for me to make my next flight. The kind lady that God had placed next to me on the plane had offered to help me through customs and rebook a flight so I felt less stressed praise God. After going through customs I went to get a cart for my baggage I was so tired that when I went to get the cart it wouldn’t move because the breaks where on…. But I could not figure out how to make the cart work… I worker hollered over to me telling me that I had to do something with the handle, being so tired I absolutely just could not figure it out. So the guy came over to me and showed me how…. All you had to do wad push the handle down….I was so embarrassed! The guy laughed at me so hard…I can only imagine what was going through his head about stupid Americans.
I found my baggage and the lady and I walked through customs but customs stopped her because she had a box, so I was on my own again. I asked a security guard where I needed to go for rebooking my ticket and he told me the wrong place but I was able to find out where I needed to go from another person. Yes it was another over under and around the corner direction. So I set out very tired and confused when I walked through a group of those guys who try to carry your baggage for money. I so wished at that moment that I had changed some money over but I hadn’t so I told them I had no money. One of them decided to help me anyways and said I didn’t need to pay him anything anyways although he would take an American dollar. He showed me exactly where to go and helped me with my ticket and everything. Praise God for that little man! I think I would still be stuck in the Johannesburg airport to this day if he hadn’t of helped me.
So that was my adventure on the way to South Africa I made safely to the farm, and I am adjusting to the time zone pretty well. I do miss everyone at home very much. Thank you all for keeping me in your prayers, as you have read I needed them and felt every one of them.
Love you all and God Bless.
Anna
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