He may increase so I may decrease!

Tonight I was humbled by the Lord! Since I have been here in Africa I have been doing Priscilla Shirer study on the book of Jonah. This last week the Lord has been showing me all about my selfishness. Just been showing me how I am so much like Jonah in that I want things my way and when they do not I get angry with the Lord. I act like a child in which I throw temper tantrums. Tonight I decided to watch a sermon by Louie Giglio and it was all about the Glory of God. How we are all created in the image of God in order that we would be the reflection of God. All things are created by God, for God and through God. He used the example of a telescope. He said that many times in life we have the telescope turned the wrong way in which the end we are supposed to look out of is turned and the other end of the telescope many times is pointing at us. We live life that way in which we want people to see us. We want the bigger end of the telescope on us. We are saying look down here at us. When we need to turn this telescope around and start looking up. We need to get our eyes off of us and start looking at up at God. It is then we become small. We realize how big God truly is. We realize how insignificant we are when compared to God. Yet, the coolest thing is that though we are insignificant when compared to God, He still chooses to love us! This huge God who created the whole being pursues and wants to be a part of our lives. He wants to use us so that we may reflect His glory! Wow! How cool is this! God who doesn’t need us still chooses to use us but it is all for Him! He works everything out for Him! The prayer of my heart is that He may increase so that I may decrease…I pray this for everyone who may be reading this! So I encourage you all tonight to go outside and look up and be humbled and in awe of our creator who adores you and calls you beloved! Who we do not deserve anything from except judgment which is death!

Thanksgiving in Swaziland!

Hello everyone so first off Happy Thanksgiving! No, they do not celebrate thanksgiving in Swaziland but our team is taking the day off to all go and celebrate thanksgiving. I will be having turkey and ham and all the fixings today! I am super excited. I just had a thought that I wanted to share today. This morning as I woke up I began to reflect on the fact that today it is Thanksgiving. Yes, I will miss my family back home and I do miss them terribly. Today, I just began to ponder about how the Lord has provided! How today yes I will not be with my family but I will be with my missionary family! I am so thankful for them and what they mean to me in my life. Today this just got me thinking how many times in life how bad things(at the time) have happened and many times I have felt alone in my struggle but the Lord has always been there! Sometimes in life the Lord may seem distance but yet He is always right there ready to be with us. The Lord wants to be involved in your life. He is something more than this cosmetic bring who created everything and then just sits up in Heaven chilling out. He wants to be a part of our lives. He is our Great Father. This was also displayed to me this pass week I spent in Joburg taking care of some health issues. While we were there we had people calling and trying to assist us and people who invited us over for dinner and just people who would call and let us know they were praying. It was just cool to see that yes I may be in another country dealing with health issues but I am not alone! God has sent people some who I only met while I was there to encourage us to keep pressing on. I just have seen this displayed throughout my life. Just want to encourage everyone this Thanksgiving to look back on their lives and see where the Lord at the time may not have seemed to be there but yet once you got your eyes off the circumstances or off of you that He was there. Those who may be going through a hard Thanksgiving I encourage you to just praise and to look to Him today! Those who do not believe look around and see there is a God and know that He is actively pursuing after you! He wants to be your Father! If you would just allow Him to be! I love you all and Happy thanksgiving!

Whhhyy is the Grass so green? Who did it? God did it!

Hello everyone! First off i really do apologize for not keeping up with this blog! I really have been terrible! Anyways, I have this on my heart and I felt it should be shared...Today was a great day! We have been doing care point ministry and sharing the message of True Love Waits with the youth at the care points. We started doing this towards the end of August and have been doing this since we have been here and in like 3 weeks it will be really sad for we will od our last carepoint. Anyways, today we were hanging out in the office and one of the people who works in the office came up to Sienna and I asked us if we were the girls teaching True Love Waits. We responded and told him we were and then he went on to tell us how encouraged he was by our program and how people keep talking about us and telling us how encouraged they are by the message we have been sharing. He told that we really are making a difference here and that we are leaving a legacy here in Swaziland. I do not know and then tonight we presented at a church for a youth group. i had a youth come up to me afterwards and tell me they talk a lot about sex there but that tonight Sienna and I brought up things they have not talked about and was jsut telling me how encouraged they were. I dunno Monica the other day was telling me that we have done a good job here. Sienna and I are not doing this ministry in order to get the earthly praise or good job. Please hear me out on that! We would do regardless of that. To hear that every once awhile can make your day. The pass couple of days the Lord has jsut been showing me how jsut simple words can have such a profound impact on people. Many times we wait until people are no longer around to talk about how much they mean to us or that we appreciate what they do. I jsut write this as encouragement to many maybe there is something that someone does that you really appreciate but you never tell them or you contiously forget. You should go out of your way this week and let them know definitely before it is too late. You may never know you may make their day! I love you all and miss you all!

Yeah...Let's go!

Hello everyone!
To begin I felt like i needed to write about my adeventure to church this morning becuaes i thought it was quite entertaining and was worth sharing! We are in Manzini this week but where Sienna and i go to church is in Mbabane. We decided this morning we would take a koombi to Mbabane and just walk to church. Now we have never had to walk to church becuase for pass like three weeks we have gone we have gone with the missionaries here but today we went by ourselves and we decided we knew where it was.
Well as we start walking to go to church we realize after we had been walking for awhile we really were not sure where we were at. We are trying to decide which way to go becuase the way we had taken led us to a dead end road with to like a construction zone. As we are discussing which way to go this guy comes down the road and he keeps saying things to Sienna and whatnot. Like I just keep walking ignoring him and then we decide we should ask him where to go. Then he tells us the wrong way to go and then he starts yelling sometihng about love i am not sure. Sienna and i have decided since talking to him he may have been drunk. Anyways. we start going the way he told us and then we run into another guy. He greets us and we ask him where the church is. He ask us if we are Christians and we tell him yes. He tells us to follow him and he will take us to a shortcut to get to the church. We turn from the direction we are going and start walking with this guy. We are walking nad he begins to ask us about politics and whatnot. Then he walks us down this like dirt driveway and starts yelling for another guy. Then this other guys comes out of this building and he is standing there with us and they point us down this dirt path throuh the woods and over like a little creek and tell us to go down this path and then when we get to the tar raod to take a left and this should take us to the church. I think okay I am like Let's go! Sienna like You want me to go down there... and was hesistant...The guy were like we will watch you and we go through the woods. To end the story..We got to church! It was so crazy i seriously thought we were gonig to die but God was watching after us this morning so whoever was praying over us this morning at the wee hours..thanks!

Mcd's Cheeseburger for breakfast....Amazing!

Hello everyone! I am still alive and well in Africa actually I am beginning to find myself falling in love with place more and more as the days go on…go figure! Anyways, I just wanted to write a little bit because I have a lot on my heart. First, thank you to all who left birthday messages and whatnot they were definitely appreciated. It was a little overwhelming to get on and see in my notice thing on Facebook how many messages were left. I am not going to lie it was really cool and humbling. Thank you! I did want to write and say I did have an amazing birthday. We actually made a weekend out of it. Thursday night we went out to eat with the Steve and Monica Allen the missionary we are helping out with here for a birthday dinner and then we went to a show the local school put on and it was really good! Then Friday we packed but before we did that Steve and Monica and the kids had made me a cake for my birthday and so they gave me that and it was so good! It was so funny because the only candles they had were a 2 and a 1 so I got to be turning 21 again which I am totally okay with. We did that and had cake and then we left for South Africa. Friday night I decided I wanted Italian food so Sienna and Monica and some friends that we met up with all went out to eat at this Italian place for dinner and can I say I think I had the cheesiest mac and cheese I have ever had in my life but it was really good. Then Sat. was my actual birthday so Sienna and I went to the mall and we shopped like all day but before we did that Monica took us to Mcd’s for breakfast! After we went shopping we went to this place called Mugg and Bean and I think I had the best hamburger I have ever eaten in my whole entire life. It was called the sunrise burger and was so good and then Sienna and I went and saw Larry Crowne (a movie at the movie theatre). Then we went back to hangout while Monica went to go pick up the next team which is here serving in Swaziland this week from the airport. Then when she got back we out to eat for dinner and while there they told them it was my b-day and they brought out some ice-cream with a sparkler in it and sang some little song. It was really funny and lots of fun! Then on Sunday we went to Mcd’s again and this time I ordered a cheeseburger meal with fries for breakfast (b/c it does not matter you can get the full menu all day even during bfast)….It was so funny I never knew I would think Mcd’s was so good in my life! I even ordered a meal for the road. The only downfall no sweet tea...but that is okay! Then we left and came back to Swaziland. Last night we left and came to Manzini where we decided we would celebrate Christmas in July. We played Christmas music while making cookies and then at one point we got out Christmas gift wrapping paper and made elf hats. It was so much. Then this morning when I woke up I had received a package from Bradley so it really felt like Christmas…it was great! Overall, it was a great weekend!

I just want some Mcdonalds....

Hello everyone! It is Heather and I am still alive and well! I wanted to write about something I saw today plus update you on a few things which has been happening here since last time I wrote! Let see here today we went to one of the rural churches to help out and attend the bible study the missionary Steve leads there. After he taught about Isaiah which was stinkin awesome because he is my favorite prophet. The ladies all got up and began placing items on this table like there was a box of matches, a wooden spoon, some clothing items, plastic litter bottles that were empty, just a bunch of random items. The ladies began singing and circling the table. I was watching this trying to figure out what in the world was going on. Then at one point one of the ladies grabbed something off the table and then the next lady in line and then the next the whole time they kept circling the table and going down the line until everything was taken off the table. I was so mesmorized by this that after everything was said and done I asked our translator who was one of the ladies what that was all about. She began to tell me that each lady brings something they no longer use or something of excess just something that someone else can have or use. The missionary told me they started this after he taught them about Acts where it said that each gave and there was a need. They decided to start this after he taught that. I asked well how do you decide like when to start grabbing and she told me the first person in line get to choose first and then it goes down the line. You are only supposed to take what you need and not anymore. Believe it or not it works. The lady was also telling me that they can use anything for the most part that nothing here goes to waste. The plastic coke litters we throw away they can use for storing milk or other things. Glass jars they use those for preserving fruit. I thought it was rather interesting!
We also since last time I wrote on here got to present to a school. We thought we were only going to get to present to like a small group at the high school only to get there and find out we got the whole school. We only got like 30 minutes to present so Sienna presented and it was about to 300 kids. Afterwards, we had them if they wanted to make commitment to abstain from sex til marriage come get cards from us and kids flooded us. It was so CRAZY! We had a huge stack of cards and still we ran out! It was unlike anything I have ever seen.
We have officially been here a month today! Which is very exciting because Sienna and I talked tonight and we both are beginning to feel like we are adjusting and we actually live here and are not just visitors here anymore. Yeah, we have made it one month and now we have officially 5 more months to go. I am excited to see what the Lord is going to do I feel like there is a lot of potential here. I just pray we can get the wheels moving! Okay, well I think that is about it for now. I am really sleepy and cannot really think at the moment. I miss you all…believe it or not I was craving a Mcdonald’s hamburger and sweet tea today…..

Fourth of July...Even in Africa!

Hello everyone! I am still alive and well in Africa! Let see here since I have last written on here we have left Manzini but we did go back just a couple of days ago and do our first True Love Wait presentation at one of the high schools there. I think it went really well especially considering it was our first time doing the presentation. We presented to about 50 or something high school and we had about 30 of them at the end come and make commitments to wait to have sex til they were married from that day on which is very exciting. The teachers that sat in were really good also we had one come up to me at the end and told em He appreciated that we were willing to come all the way from America and share such an important message. He was glad we were there and thought we had a really good program and it was just really cool to have that. It really I think put things in to perspective for Sienna and I. Plus, we got to have one of the nationals named Tommy come along with us and at the end he was able to present the commitment cards in SiSwati also during the presentation he was able to help us out by reading some of the scriptures used in SiSwati. It was just a big help and a blessing! I pray that the nationals are able to come every time.
We also have celebrated the Fourth of July since the last time I have been on here. We had an Afro-American fourth or at least that is what we were calling it. We had the missionaries on the teams here come to one of the missionaries Monica house. We had hotdogs, hamburgers, baked beans, coleslaw, my personal fav banana pudding and choc brownies. We hung out and played Wii and it was a fun time to be had by all. It was really weird though because it had rained that morning where we are and it was so incredibly cold on the fourth. We did all of our festivities inside by the fire place which seemed a little crazy and a part of me wished I was at home celebrating where I knew it was probably stinkin hot! It is all good! Yeah, life here is good and I think we are starting to adjust a little more every day. Sienna is beginning to master the technique of building a fire (I keep calling her our lil girl scout) and I think I may have public transportation mastered…maybe! Also, I am starting to turn into a reg betty crocker! Sienna is teaching me how to cook it is quite comical but in due time it will come! I think this is about it for now….Hope you are all doing well! I love you all!