The other night at our fireside chat (although the fire part of it is not so active at the moment as the weather’s cooking) we had some friends of ours over.

When it came to sharing our prayer requests, I asked one of the ladies to quickly tell our friends what had been happening in her life in the last week (she gave her life to Jesus!! woohoo!). I think she didn’t quite hear the “quickly” part though. She talked for about 30 minutes, telling us parts of her life story. How awesome it was! It was so cool to hear what God has done in her life, and how His love was so evident. She kept on saying how “God couldn’t stop loving her”. Isn’t that so true?! No matter what we have done/ keep on doing, God can’t stop loving us! One of the amazing, yet difficult parts of working with refugees is how each one of them has intense life stories. But that’s not the point I wanted to make.

All I wanted to say is that it’s so amazing to listen to people’s life stories. When is the last time you took time out to listen to someone’s story – believe me, they are dying to share it with you. When is the last time you took the time to tell your life story – believe me, you have an interesting life story to tell.

I think I’m going to have a story telling night some time. Anyone keen?
love and peace

My beloved friends, let us continue to love each other since love comes from God. Everyone who loves is born of God and experiences a relationship with God.

The person who refuses to love doesn’t know the first thing about God, because GOD IS LOVE–so you can’t know him if you don’t love.

This is how God showed his love for us: God sent his only Son into the world so we might live through him.

No one has seen God, ever. But if we love one another, God dwells deeply within us, and his love becomes complete in us–perfect love!

We, though, are going to love–love and be loved. First we were loved, now we love. HE LOVE US FIRST.

If anyone boasts, “I love God,” and goes right on hating his brother or sister, thinking nothing of it, he is a liar. If he won’t love the person he can see, how can he love the God he can’t see?

The command we have from Christ is blunt: Loving God includes loving people. You’ve got to love both.

If you thought these words above were quite inspiring, don’t credit me. These are some excerpts taken from a letter written by a close friend of Jesus, John. Go look for yourselves, dust off that bible and go to John 4:7-21 .

Picture courtesy of my wonderfully talented sister Tabitha!

I’ve just become so aware of how powerful love really is! It’s love that draws people into the kingdom. But we’ve also been so aware of how broken this world is, and how desperately it needs God’s love. And how is that expressed?? Through US of course!! And we’re not talking about the mushy kind of love here. It’s a relentless, going out of one’s way, good samaritan, compassionate, kingdom shaping, heart breaking, heart changing, earth shaking love that goes beyond mere feelings.

Man, we’ve got so much to learn!

let it be multiplied….

One of the ladies in our discipling house had to go to hospital last week. It was quite a traumatic experience, not only because she spent two days in the emergency unit sitting on a cold chair before they admitted her, but also because she has a little 11-month old son whom she wasn’t able to see this whole week. It took about 5 hours until someone actually saw to her when we brought her in. Then another few hours to get X-rays, and again a few hours to have the doctor look at the X-rays.

It’s so sad to see how under-staffed government hospitals are. Since our frequent visits to the emergency unit this week, we’ve thought about going there more regularly in future, just to pray for people and be a support. What a harvest field it is!! Let us know if you want to join us anytime.

We’ve been taking care of the little one while she’s been in hospital. It’s been an interesting week. Please pray for us, as I’ve just heard that the little one is really not doing well, and he needs to go to the hospital now (Sheralyn just came back from the doctor now and phoned me).

I am a new creation, the old has gone and the new has come!

So yesterday Z. (want to protect her identity) was discharged and came home. We had our regular evening devotions, and God led me to read Rev. 3:14-22 . It was really amazing how that totally fitted in with Z’s situation. She is from a M. background and hasn’t accepted Jesus into her life yet. But she knows that God is trying to speak to her. We shared how Jesus is knocking on the door of her heart, and she needs to let him in. To end the evening off, the Lord gave us a beautiful confirmation. As we looked at her bedroom door, we saw a verse that we had stuck up on the door quite a few months ago. It was Revelation 3:20, the same verse we had just read!! Praise God!

Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me. Rev.3:20

If you are reading this, and you haven’t made Jesus king of your life, the same goes for you!

We do devotions with our people in the discipling house most nights of the week. Often we stoke up a fire in our fire place and chat about life, Jesus and the Bible. So I decided to create a new category where we’ll share with anyone who’s interested what we’re learning and talking about.