The missionary mom dilemma

I truly believe I've been equipped with an extra dosage of guts to accomplish these tasks God has given me in life.  Oh no!  By any means, don't think this makes me fearless.  I have as much fear as you and your next door neighbor combined.  But I don't stop at fear.  And I'm not a supper mom either.  But somehow I'll sing up to fly across the world with 2 kids by myself and not blink an eye about it...

Some people think I'm crazy.  I just think I have more God-given-guts to balance out my human super-sized fears.  I think it's a gift.  And for that I'm grateful.  But sometimes even with guts full of holy-steroids, a person can find himself/herself in a parenting dilemma that will knock the air our of your lungs: again, again and again.

This time, our return to South Africa was that air knocking phenomenon.

Coming to South Africa, meant we FIRST had to say good bye to Canada. Tearful goodbyes.  It is heart wrenching enough as adults, but when you have to watch your children break down having to say goodbye, AGAIN, it's hard not to be shaken. It's hard to not doubt and question constantly "Is this the right thing Lord?".

Because they know this time.  They know how flipping hard it is to live on the other side of that massive ocean and to count down the days until they can catch a glimpse of those faces again.  Those beautiful blood-related-faces.  Their cousins.  Their aunties.  Their uncles.  Their grand-parents.  

They know how long it will be until they walk the halls of that small country town school.  Until they see their friends again, their teachers, ...  And my Breath. Is. Taken. Away.

And for all the people who say: "This is amazing, your kids have such a cool life.", I think they have no idea the sacrifice my little ones make on a daily basis.  No amount of "cool" can make up for that. In fact, please don't EVER say that to anyone.  It's awful and not fair. No one does mission because "it's a cool life". So those comments are well... hurtful.  Because my beloved mini-me sacrifice for Jesus more than anyone probably realizes.  

And they have been sacrificing with such grace and even ease at times.  Maybe it is because children are resilient, but knowing their heart, I know it's mostly because they are madly in love with Jesus. They are so inclined to listen to His calling.

But this time, something was dramatically different.  Not their hearts.  Oh no.  Their hearts are infatuated and more on fire for Jesus than ever.  No something else.  Their desires, hopes and dreams were being shattered by returning to South Africa.

Even after a few weeks of being back, the boys were crying often and wanting to go back to Canada. We prayed and asked others to pray.  As Vincent, the youngest, got over the worse of it, our oldest, Raphael, was still really struggling.

He wanted to play hockey. You might say he was struggling with "earthly things" and this too shall pass.  But no amount of distracting him worked or will ever work with this boy.  If you've had the pleasure to know him, you will know what I mean. He usually only has one thing on the mind and it is to play HOCKEY. But as you can imagine, South Africa and hockey aren't very compatible.

He mourned this quietly.  Not with anger, but with genuine heart brokenness.  Including on Christmas morning, when he said all he wanted was to play hockey :(  It was almost too much for my mom heart.  My super-sized-guts were no help.

"What are we to do?" we asked.  The only hockey here is on Sunday mornings and we absolutely love our church family.  Even Raphael agreed all these years with our decisions.  But this time, we needed to re-evaluate, because we knew the long term re-precautions of this could be massive.

He could hate church.
He could hate mission.
He could hate us.
He could hate God.

or

He could think it's fine to not go to church.
He could fall out of love with Jesus.

So what now?  Well I don't know!!! This is the missionary mom dilemma.  And dad too.  And this is where we are at now. Seeing if we can find a different church, as heart breaking as it is.  Or other options of altering hockey frequencies.  There is no magic answer. They all have good and bad to them.  And no one prepares you for this.  So we pray and continue to ask guidance.  And ask that you please would join us!

When crime becomes normal

Turns out the things that happen here in an average week have become our "new normal,” and so since these things don’t surprise us as much anymore, we have been lacking the ambition to write about them!  Eeek, we are the "sorryest".

A significant part of “normal” life here is crime.  In the last 5 days my sister Char and her new husband Mawande had their place broken into and their copper piping was stolen so they had no water when they woke up Sunday morning.

On Tuesday morning when we arrived early for our pastors training morning, we found one of our windows at Beautiful Gate (the ministry we rent space from) had been smashed and the office broken into during the night.

On Wednesday morning we found out one of our 4 hair salons that we have built for our new small business students was broken into and her hot water tank, chairs and various items were stolen.

Yesterday night a local business in our small suburb we live in was broken into and robbed.

And as you might have read on our Hope Africa: Mike & Marie-Eve Facebook page, the Pastor I work with, Bishop Nyanga was robbed at gun point last month, as he pulled into his driveway in broad day light.  This has been a hard time for him and his family who was also with him during this incident.  Please continue to pray for them.

Seeing new things or seeing differently?

It was a Thursday afternoon when I met her in the streets of Philippi, during one of our street team outing.  She looked at me and I looked at her, trying as hard as I could to hide the many questions popping into my head as to why she had a yellow-looking-mask all over her face.  And why, if it was indeed a mask, was she out of her house walking around as if nothing?

credits:https://misseuphony.wordpress.com/

But our street team stopped and started talking to her. She never mentioned it, and neither did I.  I used up all of my missionary politeness on this one, for I am very curious in nature.  And honestly, if I had met someone in the streets and invited them into my house while wearing a face mask, I would have certainly explained myself to my guests.  "Sorry guys, it's a bad time for my skin so I must..."  But this lady, nothing.

She was completely unapologetic.  I had to sit on my hands with the question burning up in my throat, trying to focus on what she was saying.  She was speaking in Xhosa, which makes it 100% more difficult for me to follow!  She did use hand gestures a lot, so it helped greatly, as she spoke to a fellow staff member (Sam).

One hand waived to the stairs and she made a lot of "BOOM" sounds, making me believe that she had fallen down the stairs and her repeatedly pointing to her sound system, while shouting and flailing her arms, made me believe that someone had possibly attempted to rob her recently. Having been here over 2 years now, I have stopped assuming that someone is mad just because they are yelling.   It did take me a full 2 years (and even now and then) to realize that Xhosa people just like talking very loud and even though they sound mad, they rarely are.  And this woman was proper-yelling!

All in all, I was only guessing, and now hearing the word "surgery" and perhaps "infection", I was gathering enough to know that this woman needed prayers.  I first thanked the Lord that Xhosa is sprinkled with English-like words that help me follow along in these types of situations, but also thanked Him that He knew her needs more than any of us ever could!

And as the Xhosa staff listened and ministered to her, I quietly prayed and cried out to God on behalf of this woman and her family.  She was an important woman in the community, I found out, while she dashed out of her home to go get her neighbor lady who had a terrible illness.  She described it as something similar to tuberculosis.

And then it happened.  Her neighbor was also sporting the same facial mask as her.  I had to double bite my tongue again and well...

Let me completely honest, as I have grown accustomed to be with you, when I say that in that moment I also prayed for my own safety and physical strength against this terrible disease.  I felt guilty for my own selfish reaction, although very human, and resumed my prayers for this frail lady.  As I prayed and sensed an overwhelming darkness, I feared her ailment was possibly more spiritual than physical and in my soul I began to pray and intercede on her behalf.

I have often prayed for God to give me wisdom, to give me eyes that see what He sees.  For Him to give me a heart like His.  Yet for some reason, every-time a moment like this happens, where I feel like the Father is showing me glimpses into a person's soul, showing me how He sees this person, somehow I'm always surprised!  Did I not just pray and ask for that very thing?  Then why, oh why, am I surprised that my Father is answering by showing me these things and allowing me to feel such deep emotions and compassion?

Our Heavenly Father is so good and so compassionate, and loves deeply and freely.  He lavishes His love on us.  And when I'm overcome with a flood of love for a complete stranger, I know it's from my Father in Heaven.  He gives me words that I could never know to speak in such foreign situation. He gives me insight that I wouldn't have on my own.  As a girl from a far away land, I shouldn't dare speak up yet He empowers me.  He makes me bold.  He speaks through me when I choose to completely abandon myself to Him and trust Him.  I sometimes feel foolish, like I might not be saying the right thing, yet time and time again I see light and understanding from the other person.  That can only be from God.

So today I praise Him for the lady who had a strange facial mask on, who brought her sick friend over [to perhaps do another facial?].  For I have seen the Lord work in mysterious ways and perhaps it was more to minister to my soul than to theirs, but I doubt it.  He is so good.

Oh, and it turns out it wasn't a face mask.  It was...  a mix of white clay and Umemezi, that Xhosa women [especially older women from the Eastern Cape], apply to their faces to protect them from sunburns and harsh weather.  It is also used a "makeup" and regarded as a symbol of beauty by the women.  Now since our students are younger, I wasn't familiar with this practice, but now I know!

I'm not only seeing new things, but with the Lord's help, I believe that He allows me to see people differently.

Listening to the Holy Spirit

As many of you know, because Mike didn't get his Visa on time, he was unable to leave to go to Malawi.  And because of that turn of event, we found some an unexpected treasure at a difficult time.  No surprising though, knowing we serve an immensely wise God. 

That week was a school holiday here in South Africa, and like we have done during the previous school holiday, we arranged a week of student ministry.  This time, it was for 3 local churches and a group of 25 teenagers (our other programs work with post high-school students).  We spent time in worship, prayer, and teachings times.  We also got to go out into the community to serve at a disabled center and do some evangelism at a local mall.  

On Friday, the last day, we took the group of young people to the beach and had a braai (BBQ). Myself (Marie-Eve) and the kids got to join and I had the opportunity to visit with one of the teenagers and hear some testimony of her week and... capture it all on video for you!!!!!!!!!!!!!  

It is really special to know this young lady was encouraged in her faith, together with many of the other students, and that this would probably not have happened had Mike gone to Malawi.  Thank you Lord for unexpected treasures in difficult times.

You are a coward, go back to the Church!

Sometimes when we minister cross-culturally, we hear the best (and funniest) stories. This one happened recently, during a meeting with a local group of pastors at our monthly church leadership gathering.

Mike was sitting with 3 other church leaders just sharing about life and specifically about what they were learning in regards to discipleship.  One of the pastors shared how lately he has been struggling in his faith as he has not been able to get a job and so he can't provide for his family (most pastors here are not employed by the church).  Responding to him, one of the others (Let's call him Pastor A. for the purpose of this story) shared a bit of his life story.

Pastor Vukile

Pastor A. said he had been following the Lord for over 20 years, and during this time he has had countless trials.  He has experienced tremendous family pain, including having his father commit suicide, having family members lying and attacking each other and persecution for his decision to follow Christ.  On top of this, there were many times of not having enough to eat and many challenges that come with living in poverty.

However throughout this Pastor A.'s faith remained strong.  But about 10 years ago, there was a fight in his church as the woman he wanted to marry was not the one that the church wanted him to marry.  He had gone back to his home province and community and had picked a Christian woman there he wanted to marry, but the church wanted him to marry one of their members.

[Marriages here involve a whole lot more than just 2 people!]

Typical Xhosa wedding

Being attacked by people inside the church left Pastor A. disillusioned, and even after years of trials that he had overcome in his faith, this became overwhelming for him to the point of him walking away from the church and his faith.

Songoma (witch doctor)

After spending some time not walking with the Lord, pastor A. was looking for some guidance about what to do next in life.  He turned to the local songoma (witch doctor) and asked what kind of a job he should pursue.  The songoma looked at him and said, "You have the Holy Spirit, there is nothing I can do for you.  You must go back to the Church to find guidance."  Slightly annoyed at this advice the former pastor went to get a 2nd opinion from a different songoma.  However this 2nd songoma repeated "You have the Spirit of Christ, you need to search the Bible not ask me for guidance."  Pastor A. however still wasn't convinced so he went to a 3rd songoma who said to him, "You are a coward, you have already received your answer, go back to the Church!"

So he humbled himself, repented of his ways, turned to the Word, committed himself back to the Lord and went back to the church.  The pastor used his story to just encourage the other to trust in God, that even in the hard times the Holy Spirit is ALWAYS faithful and He is with us!

This is not going to work

Well well well.  Guess who's been hard at work.  The crazy Fast missionaries.  We have been busy planning a retreat for pastors & church leaders at the end of April, and it's been well... hectic as they say in South Africa.

One of our goals for the retreat is to give these pastors some rest and refreshment in the Lord.  Burn out and moral failure are unfortunately very common, and the pace the pastors operate at often contributes to this challenge.  So we won't ask them to run through the mud (although it's rather refreshing), but we want to make this awesome!

Our theme for the weekend is "Leading like Jesus", and we will be looking at a number of passages together with these pastors to grow our understanding of Jesus' leadership so that they can model their own leadership after Christ's.

But now we have a [good] problem so I decided to make a little video to illustrate this [good] problem to you, as I figured you were getting bored of my crazy blog ramblings!!  I hope you enjoy it (keeping in mind I'm no film director!!!).  

Pastor Zweli, featured in this video, is the pastor Hope Africa Collective has hired to help Mike with church mobilization, so you will get to "meet him" in the video.  Huge thanks to all the Hope Africa staff that participated in the making of this 5 minute video.

--> Pastor's retreat video  

So as you can see in the video, we had booked a retreat site where we could host 25 pastors.  However, now have 80+ pastors that want to come!  So yes, we have a good problem. 

The last few weeks Mike has been trying to find a larger venue to hold all these additional pastors.  We have successfully found a venue that can host about 65, so we are very pleased with this.  Good things people are used to sharing tight spaces here!

If you are interesting in giving towards this: please contact us so we can tell you how to proceed.  

Until then, cheers folks and thanks for stopping by!

To South Africa and beyond

Who knew when we first came to South Africa that God would expand our ministry to the "beyond" part of Africa?  Well He did!!!

Mike had the chance to go to Zimbabwe at the end of February, to join an Annual Equipping Event hosted by Global Disciples.  He had been in discussions with Global Disciples for about 8 months (met with them first while we were in Canada) and this was an opportunity to hear about their work first hand from current program directors.

About 75 Global Disciples program directors (all pastors) came to the event from 10 different countries.  (Just in 2014 these 75 men and women planted about 40 churches in their respective countries, and well over 100 churches in the last 5 years!)  Around the world, Global Disciples planted 1400 churches last year, with 40,000 new believers in these churches! 

I think for most Canadians, when we hear the name Zimbabwe, we think in our heads “ends of the earth.”  Well after spending a week at the “end of the earth,” Mike has a lot to say about his incredible week.

"The country of Zimbabwe has been struggling for the past 20 years, with unemployment now at 90% in one of the poorest countries on earth.  But praise God, the church is stepping forward to share the gospel with this nation of desperate a needed people."

Could the church feed a nation?

"We were hosted in Zimbabwe at this amazing church that is reaching out in so many ways to the people of the nation including teaching them how to grow better crops.  The church is a part of the Zimbabwe Evangelical Fellowship and it is their vision to feed the nation, both spiritually and physically.  In order to accomplish this the church uses a combination of church planting and farm training."

"They run crop demonstrations at the church where their crops are 10 times the yield of the average Zimbabwe farmer.  They have now trained 10,000 farmers, and these farmers currently average 3 times the yield of the national average with just some basic training techniques.  Currently Zimbabwe only produces 25% of the food that is needed to feed their nation, but the church believes that they can feed the entire nation by training their farmers!"

"Each day during the event there was testimony after testimony of how God was working in these servants to make disciples, to plant churches, to heal the sick, and to provide for their communities.  We spent hours every day in worship and prayer, and also took 24 hours to fast and pray on Thursday.  That evening we spent many hours praying for the salvation of the nations, praying for God’s church to fulfill the great commission across the globe.  We prayed against the evil in our world, recognizing that our battle is not against flesh and blood but against the rules, power, and principalities of this dark world.  We prayed throughout the night in shifts with me having the 2-3 a.m. shift with a few other pastors.  I was amazed how quickly the time of prayer went, and in the morning we started to pray again at 7:30 a.m.  The passion in this group to fulfill the great commission seeing churches planted in every people group of earth was both encouraging and contagious."

Our hope and prayer is that in 2015 I will be able to launch some of these programs with the churches of Cape Town.  We are hoping to start with the church leadership training and sometime after that, hopefully to launch a discipleship and church planting program.  We am very excited to see where God will take all these things.

For all the posts that don't get written

This is a tribute to all the random things that don't get written about.  To all the things that don’t usually or often make it in a blog, all the things that are part of any missionary's life but kept "secret".  At least they aren't talked about in a mission blog, or not a whole blog of those things.  

 
Because mission blogs are supposed to be spiritual, full of stories of people’s lives being changed and of how God is using the missionary in question to do His work.  This folks is what a good mission blog is about.  

I’ve never been one to follow the rules.

 

What you get with me is randomness and truth.  Spoiler alert: Our lives aren’t always filled with ministry work, especially over the holidays.  *gasp*  I said it. 

As we take time to focus on Jesus and let Him fill us so we can keep on going, we don’t have as many stories to report back on!!!  So bear with us as we are people too ;)

We like wordly things too

 

Africans love bling + I love bling = I love Africans.  Except I love Africans for so much more than just for their bling, and their style, and their swag.  But for me those things make it even easier!!! Am I super duper shallow?  Nah!  I just love shallow stuff ;)  And I love having conversations about these very shallow things.

My co-workers love love love the bling as much as I do :)

I love making good food 

 

One of the hardest thing for me moving to SA was that I had to learn again how to make good food with the ingredients here.  I spent a good part of our first month crying over the food I was making.  I don't know why, but it was a big deal for me and I really felt like I was failing my family.  With a limited food budget (other missionaries are nodding their heads), it can be so frustrating.  But once in a while I'll splurge a little and come up with something like this.

Stuffed brie chicken breasts

And then all is right in the world again.  Perhaps I should have gone to cooking school, huh?

We pack food in our suitcases 

 

Coming back to SA this time I had at least one suitcase packed with food.  Especially with Christmas right around the corner, I knew I wanted to be ready to make things from home, deserts that I've grown up with.  This is all part of traditions I want to pass down to my kids, and it's hard to do when abroad.  But I was ready people, and I ended making 7 recipes from my maman this Christmas.  GLORIOUS.

Peanut butter chocolate covered balls

I've also had to become quite organized, which goes against my "free-spirited-ness"!!!  But with hosting lots of people over the holidays, and juggling a busy homeschooling schedule, I carved out a few baking extravaganza days where I traumatized my kitchen for a few hours.  My friend Claudia from Malawi joined me on some of those days in order to learn to cook and bake from "the royal master".  Her words, not mine.  She claims I need a cooking show.

Cooking extravaganza chiiiiiiiiiiiiicken

Homeschooling is not natural for all missionaries

 

Wait, aren't all missionaries supposed to love homeschooling and pretty much have been born this way?  EEEEEEeeeeeeeer, NO.

Homeschooling isn't for the faint of heart.  I thank the Lord every day for His strength as I learn more and more about my kids and teaching.

Fact: Boys do not sit still for their mom

And I thank the Lord every day that I get to be my boy's teacher.  I never pictured myself homeschooling.  I'm really not the organized type and I don't have much patience.  So no, I never thought I would be homeschooling.  But situations change, and sometimes life surprises you in the strangest ways.

So I get to be my boy's teacher.  And I get to teach them about Jesus.  Like all the time.  And I get to shape their hearts and pray with them as we work and discover challenges.

Is it easy?  No.  It's the most challenging thing I've ever done, besides being a mom!  This is like being a mom AND a teacher.  Yes, I welcome prayers in this area.

Homeschool work for the day.  Ready, set, go.

Sometimes we even have fun

 

Well folks, sometimes we like to have fun too.  Did you know that missionaries have fun?  Wait what.  Yes we do!!!  Life is short, ministry is stressful.  Did you think all we did was ministry?  Yikes, sorry to burst your bubble. 

So yes, sometimes we have fun, BUT we feel guilty.  And then we feel like we can't talk about it, or post if on facebook (for us social media people) or Instagram (for the MAC lovers...).  And we feel like our supporters will judge us if they knew (but like, they know right?!?).  And we pretend like all we do is Jesus-stuff.  Which is indeed a huge part of what we do.  But the real stuff that doesn't get written about is that we also have fun.  And I'm big on fun (yo, have you met me?).

Firefighting fun

We do kids outings, we go on dates and we hang out with people for pure social purposes, without a ministry agenda.  *gasp*  We iz humans too.

We hang out as a family, and sometimes do nothing at all except watch cars drive by.

We hang out with our significant others.

We like to get stuff in the mail

 

We are perhaps shallow (again), when it comes to getting stuff from home in the mail.  But the truth is, we love getting stuff.  Anything and everything.  Food, pretty things, nice things, ... we love it all.  So don't stress about it.  If you're thinking "would they like this?", the answer is YES.  And if we don't, we have many missionary friends who will like it.

Jelly Beans from Pastor Chris

We get homesick

 

Sometimes we get homesick, and it hurts, and we wish we could go home.  It doesn't take away from the fact that we are so incredibly blessed to be doing what we are doing, but we feel like if we talked to supporters about it, they would think that we are ungrateful.  And one thing we are not, is ungrateful.

Skyping with my family

Our country is beautiful and we ain't sorry

 

Our assignment country, South Africa, is ridiculously gorgeous.  Sometimes we hesitate to tell you, because we don't want you to think that it's the reason for our being here.  It's so pretty, that sometimes we don't post the pictures so you don't get the wrong idea.

South Africa is beautiful

So you get the picture now do you?  Missionaries live a double life, and it's not easy, but it's a life we are told to live and expected to live.  I'm just figuring it out as I go, and I try to be as real with you all as I know how!

Thanks for reading this crazy blog.  CHEERS.