hummm

So my last entry was posted BEFORE the rehab center on tuesday?? woah. SO MUCH has happened since then...Over the past 3 days I have experienced the most drastic change of emotions in my life thus far. Tuesday night, my team went to a rehab center called Careline. I think it was one of the best nights of my life. During worship, I really came to a new understanding of what living fully and only for Christ means and so, came to a new understanding of who I am and how I am called to live; how I want to live. The message was then given by one of the interns from Highway church (where we attended last sunday). The intern was so well spoken and did a very good job of getting his message across. He inspired me because I'm sure he wasn't much older than I am, yet spoke with such confidence and understanding. One thing he said that stuck out to me was that gospel means "good news," so if you hear something that isn't good news, it's not the gospel. In other words, when people say that God gave someone cancer to teach them a lesson, that's not the gospel! God's heart for us is love. After the service, we were just hanging out with some of the residents of Careline and some Highway church members. A group of my friends were standing in a circle talking to a man named Sefusa (no idea how to spell his name...it's like Sea-foo-suh), and my friend Alicia started laughing histarically on-and-on, so I went over to see what was going on, and they told me that Sefusa had prayed over her and given her joy. I went straight to Alicia and said "I want some," and she grabbed my hands and started praying for me. I felt the joy, and immediately began crying. I then went to Sefusa and asked if he would pray for me too, and he asked me to lay my hand on my stomach. I was SO convicted in that moment; more than I ever have been before. I knew exactly what God wanted me to do. See, two of my friends have asked me why I've never had my food allergies prayed for, and one of them was just a few days before Careline. For a while, I've thought that my allergies were a punishment of sorts for being annorexic. Like God wanted to teach me to value my body and food more or something...but after the service at Careline, and hearing the bit about the gospel being good news, I knew I'd been deceived. So, when Sefusa asked me to lay my hand on my stomach, I told him about my gluten and dairy allergies and that I wanted to be healed. He looked at me and said, "Okay, so you are wanting to be healed?" and I said yes, and he said, "Okay, well let me tell you this, you are free!" and before I even knew what I was saying, "I am free!" came out of my mouth! And I am free indeed! For the rest of the night I was between sobs and laughing my head off and the rest of my team was all laughing as well. We were truly drunk on the spirit…it was like nothing I've ever experienced. God's love and faithfulness shown as a whole new light to me Tuesday night. And in perfect timing too.

Wednesday morning, we met for worship, and when we were finished, we realized that one of the members of our team, Joshua, and one of our leaders, Noah, never showed up for worship. None of us were even close to imagining the tragic news we were about to receive. After a while of waiting and praying, we were finally told that 3 of Joshua's 9 siblings were killed in a car accident the day before. Josh and Noah were at the travel agency looking for flights to get him home for the funeral. Just like that. All of us were a mess all day, and I think Josh was the strongest out of all of us. Wednesday seemed to stretch on forever as we were all crushed over the whole matter, anxious about trying to find him a flight home, and upset about him leaving at the same time. But of course, we all want him to be home with his family right now.

I've never gone from such a high to such a low in such a short amount of time. But God is faithful. Sure, I've been confused over the passed few days and wondered what the point of all this is, but if I've learned anything it's that God is faithful always.

Yesterday and today our team has been working in townships, which are basically the slums here in Durban. The ones we've visited so far haven't been as bad as I expected, but are definitely extreme poverty.

So, my emotions have been kinda all over the place, BUTTTT we did get to see about 20 monkeys just chillin in someone's yard yesterday. and found GIANT avocados on the ground and ate them :) we're gonna make guacamole. and i got to hold a precious zulu baby today. :) God is faithful.