Prayer Room Reflections

Last night, Mikey and another young guy here named Ryan Emery led a special time of worship and meditation to end our weekend of prayer. It was a worshipful, sweet time to be together as a community in the presence of the One who saved us all. I have been so excited to write you all and share what a success the prayer room was.

Our leader here, Jeremy Price, shared that the Lord had been speaking to his heart about prayer for the community and that when I came to him saying that I felt led to facilitate a creative prayer room, it excited him with how much that was in line with that vision from God. It was really humbling to hear that because it was proof that this prayer room had nothing to do with me or my ideas and everything to do with God and His plans for this community.

Here is what SUCCESS looked like this weekend: -believers were refreshed after coming out of the room, having spent time quietly before God -there is new and renewed excitement about prayer
-ideas about prayer and about how to interact with our God were stretched and grown! -believers were moved to pray for each other and to pray boldly for the work being done here -the Body of Christ (here in SA and people all across the states, from Connecticut to Hawaii) came together as ONE to worship for a whole weekend!
-some of the volunteers and youth from the communities we serve came to join in prayer

Even though we had an intruder late Saturday night and had to shut the room down from 1am-5am for security reasons, God gave me a real peace that it wasn't necessarily about praying every moment from Friday to Sunday, but was about some bigger and more important things.

AND NOW...for pictures :)

Finding a good location is sometimes hard. We were able to use the office area here on base. Here's what it looked like before-hand. I went shopping almost all day Thursday to gather some needed supplies and laid it all out on the table to survey my tools :).

With the help of a few others on base, we were able to transform it in a few short hours to a quiet space with lots of ambiance!

Creativity bloomed! It was really cool to see people's creative expression offered to the Lord as prayer. Even going through the room and reading or seeing what others had done was very worshipful and encouraging.

Taking down everything was very hard, but I am pleased to say that I believe the Lord used it to have lasting impact on His community of believers here at University Village. Thank you for your prayers that were behind this event. I hope you are as encouraged in reading this report as I am in giving it!

Blessings,
Laura

Anticipating the prayer-room kickoff!

Hey readers!

I want to thank you all so much for your e-mails and facebook messages of encouragement, especially since one of our last blogs, when we talked about trying to be OK with the reasons God has us here, rather than forcing our agenda. It means a lot to us to have you reading and commenting on our blog, and to have you e-mailing and messaging us.

I wish I had been able to post about this earlier but I hope some of you read this in time to pray for it! God laid it on my heart several weeks ago to facilitate a 24/7 creative prayer room for the team here on the base to gather as a community and pray. My hope is that it will offer a quiet space for people to regather their thoughts, spend some intimate time with the Father, and be refreshed through that communion. It starts tonight (Friday) at 8pm our time (2pm your time!) and continues non-stop until Sunday at 6pm our time (about noon your time), when Mikey will lead us all in corporate worship to celebrate at the end of the event. I have spent this week planning and purchasing needed items, and the previous several weeks leading up to it, praying.

Please join me in praying that:
-this will be a time of restoration for team members here
-members of/volunteers from the communities we serve in would accept our invitations and be able to come join us in prayer
-i would step aside and be concerned about realizing GOD'S vision for this prayer room rather than mine
-i would have all the materials and help i need to accomplish GOD'S vision for this prayer room
-i would allow God to define the success of this prayer room in my heart and not allow myself to be disappointed, self-critical or discouraged by anything that happens between Friday and Sunday (as you know I am apt to do!)

I know this is short but I wanted to put this out there for you to be helping through your prayers!

Much love,
Laura

Visual Tour

Hello again! So Laura and i thought that it would help to give some of you a better idea of what University Village here looks like, so we took a few photos around the base to give you an idea where we're staying and where we do stuff! Most of the stuff is real basic, and it's hard to give you an idea how close some things are to others, but we did our best :)

Here is Laura in our little room that we stay in on base. Just enough room for our bed and some of our belongings!

The clothesline where we dry all our clothes -- and yes, i do laundry too!

Here is the front of the main building, including the entrance to our room and the office area here on base.

This is the other side of the main building. This is where the entrance to the kitchen and laundry room is.

Right near the main building we have a small pavillion for community dinners here with the staff. It's also a nice place to chill out on a warm day (which there haven't been many of!)

Ah, the bathhouse! This would be where we took our showers and used the toilet for our first week or so here, before we moved out of the windy houses.

The Windy Houses. They work quite well, and from what we understand they are pretty cheap to raise up and provide close quarters for a lot of short timers! Watch out for spiders though, hehe.

Here is a picture of the back of one of the full time staff (Zach Price) houses that we have been helping add on to for his family. Before this was finished him, his wife and his two children were making due in what amounted to a two room house.

And finally, we have Laura overlooking the view we have from the back of the property. The picture can't really do the view justice -- there are tons of mountains and hills and long plains. It is quite amazing to take in.

I have really been given a heart to help out here at University Village. I realize, much like i do back home, i am excited about helping make sure the basics are covered, that way it is easier for people who are full time in the communities to come and go without having to worry about the little things. It is always harder to get support or interest for the base as it's not the flashy part of helping the poor and vulnerable, but it's just as necessary. It's been real encouraging to see all the parts of this organization work together to build houses, and provide HOMES for children out here.

Stambiso's Church

This past Sunday the Orlando team, along with the staff here on base, were invited to Pastor Stambiso's Church (the Church located in Ebonsweni). This was intended to be a great time of fellowship, worship, and rejoicing between the team/TTH staff and the community all coming together to build more relationships so that projects like the current house being built would become easier and more common. Also, many of us had just never been to a local church service in one of the poor communities.

In preparation for this Laura and Hayley (a full timer here) spent a long time on Saturday making wonderful cakes to take with us for post service goodies. Without going into it too great, let's just say that the cakes were a big hit with everyone, especially all the kids! We also took the water kettle from the base so that we could serve tea, which the older ladies of the church REALLY appreciated.

The church service itself was very amazing. To see so many of the community together worshipping with accapella songs to very nice harmonies was very uplifting. Pastor Stambiso and his youth leader Franci did a lot of translating between the team and the community. It is also common practice for whenever someone new visits a church, THEY are expected to do the speaking! so, Chase, a guy from the Orlando team brought the message (translated by Pastor Stambiso).

Before it was all over, Pastor Stambiso did say a few words to encourage and thank the team and his youth for what they were doing in the community. He talked about how for many in the community the biggest worries are "where you put your head when the stars are out and what to put in your belly when the sun is up". He encouraged the team by saying that even though there are many problems in this area of South Africa, we should not think that we aren't making a difference just because we are only building one home for one family. Healing takes time, and that it is one less family that has to wonder where they will lay down at night. Also, as Laura pointed out in the previous post, lots of times we want to do things not because they help someone, but because you want to SEE the change or PROVE that you have made a difference, and that is hard when there is so much left to do, but Pastor Stambiso again sais "we want to impress God and the world, but it doesn't work that way."

Laura and i were both very touched by the worship and the message of the church. we really enjoyed meeting a number of the youth from the church who are helping on the construction of the house. There is a very promising relationship forming between Pastor Stambiso, his church, and the TTH community.

Love,
Laura and Mikey :)

"Becoming Last" blog post

Hey friends and family!
Mikey and I were asked to do a guest blog post for a friend of ours from college named Matt Windley. He has a blog themed "becoming last" which you can follow at http://becominglast.wordpress.com/ if you're interested. The following is the post that we sent to him. We wanted to share this with you too (of course!) because it's a picture of where our hearts are right now.
Much love,
Laura and Mikey


Even though I tried really hard not to, I had expectations for when my husband and I arrived in South Africa. (We had been planning the trip for almost a year, raising support and communicating with the YWAM team here in White River, South Africa. This is the first time Mikey and I have been to Africa, and certainly the first time we’ve done overseas missions together as a couple since we got married almost 4 years ago.) Some of my expectations were small—“yeah, it’s winter there, but it can’t be that cold can it?”—and some of them were huge—“It’s going to be so hard to leave after all the deep connections I make there; I may never want to come back to the U.S.!”—but almost all of them have been completely dashed to pieces to this point, now about three weeks into the six that we will be here.

Yeah, it’s freezing and I wish I had packed clothes differently, and the food has taken some adjustment, but the expectations that I’m having the hardest time letting go of are the ones about my purpose or ministry here. It was hard to pack up our entire apartment, move into a storage unit and leave our dear community and families behind for the whole summer, but in the midst of all that, there was this excitement that I was going to be used for something great for the kingdom of God…and it’s been very hard to believe that is actually happening here. To be honest, what I imagined was that my friendship, my presence, my prayers, my time spent feeding and playing with kids or talking to the native volunteers, would have a visible impact and that (although as I think of it, I can’t even describe what I thought that would look like) I would know beyond the shadow of a doubt that I was supposed to be here, and what I was supposed to be here for. It’s not like that here. Things aren’t cut and dry, and they don’t happen on my time-table. Here in Africa, everything takes longer; especially in the face of it’s gigantic problems—unemployment, illiteracy and lack of education, harmful native rituals and traditions, AIDS ravaging families and impacting everyone’s lives—it’s no wonder that in our short weeks here, things look the same as when we arrived. It’s hard, too, to look at the programs and relationships here and think: does it even matter that I’m here? If I were gone, someone else could do what I’m doing…what’s the point of it being my hands and not someone else’s? What’s the point of building relationships that last six weeks and then we never speak again for the rest of our lives?

So here’s what I sense God is trying to teach my stubborn heart: it’s not about me. God spoke this message to me through a native pastor at a local church in one of the communities we serve in. He was speaking to a short-term team that is with us for two weeks, saying that their mission there (building a house for one family) has eternal impact and is worth their time and efforts. Even though he was speaking to the team and not directly to me, my spirit was moved by those words. He said “we want to impress God and the world but it doesn’t work that way.” That’s exactly what I want to do: I want to make my life have meaning by doing something that people (and God) can SEE was impressive. I want to make sure that no one can look at Laura Ellen Fissel and ask the question, “what was the weight of her existence?” because it was undeniable. Here in Africa, the hole that needs filling is so inescapably huge that my wimpy life philosophy isn’t holding any water. I am faced with my own insignificance in the vastness of this world, this life, and it’s not entirely pleasant. That’s the smack in the face from reality. Here’s the beauty: I am dust and ashes that are loved and cherished by the Creator, the God of the Universe. Because it is impossible for me to accomplish anything truly magnificent and life-altering on my own, I don’t have to work so hard to give my life meaning. It already has meaning! Jesus in me is the meaning, the weight of my existence.

For me, these questions, my doubts and dashed expectations have been the hardest struggle. Mikey came to Africa without specific expectations, but God has been dealing with his heart in a different way. Since we’ve been here, Mikey has had maybe five healthy days when he wasn’t bed-ridden with diarrhea, a hurt foot or a severe bladder infection. It certainly seems to be one thing after another and has left him frustrated to think that he has come all the way to SA to lie in bed while the community buzzes with life and work around him. Every time there is a bit of hope, and he is starting to recover from one ailment, another begins. So this is what we’re trying to wrap our brains around: when I go on Thursday mornings to sit next to my friend the single mom and smile at her and inquire into her life and joke around with her, or when we play with the orphans at the feeding programs, that has lasting impact. But our physical actions aren’t everything (they can’t be!); if we are lying in bed sick, staring at the ceiling, or making conversation with another missionary, or maybe praying, questioning, doubting, our lives don’t have any less meaning. We don’t have to be discouraged that only certain things in life are able to impact and affect others. That’s hope, right? Hope that speaks to any person of any background, origin, situation, or physical condition.

I’d love nothing better than to figure out why God brought us to Africa—I’d love to be able to point my finger at one lesson, or one event that explains it all away—but I don’t think that’s ever going to happen. Here’s a taste, though, of how God is showing up and helping us Become Last.

Orlando Team

Here at Ten Thousand Homes there is a close partnership with the organization YWAM. Actually, i think most of the staff here are actually full time staff through YWAM (apparently it's kinda complicated...?) This has definate advatages though! Because TTH is closely associated, YWAM Kruger (our base here at University Village) is one of the spots that YWAM teams can be sent to do their field work. So, it looks like about once every month to month and a half they have a team from YWAM come in for a specific project. All this to say...

A team from YWAM Orlando arrived last Monday and things have been busy since! Adding twelve new people to an already small base makes things crowded. The team raised enough money to build an entire house before they came so Laura and I have also seen the first house building since we've been here. It was fun to go out and see the location (a section of Embosweni) that had been selected and meet the family that it was being built for. We prayed over the workers and the area that it would make a huge impact on not only the family receiving it, but the community.

The busy part about them being here is that all the normal community outreachs and feedings, etc have to still take place, so trying to get twelve people to a work site and the rest of us to our other committments has been a challenge. Also, nearly all of us have had a chance to go out to the building site and help a little between our other responsibilities, so it has been a very rewarding experience.

It's also been nice to have team meals every night since they have arrived. since our kitchen is very small it makes more sense for everyone to just eat community meals then try to gather twenty people in a kitchen all trying to share one gas stove! but even this caused extra work as two full timers (Ryan and Mongaliso) and myself had to build a table and rearrange the entire kitchen to make room for all the food.

The team is here for one more week trying to finish up the house before they have to go so they can actually see the family move into it. it looks like it'll happen too! The whole community has really gotten behind the project and many youth from a local church have been on site every day to help out. This is the kind of thing we love to see as it does no good for people (especially white people) to come in, try to fix things then leave. Empowerment is a big thing, and having a community come together like this has really been a blessing.

anyways, much more going on here, hopefully i'll have time to write more soon. thanks for all your prayers and support, we need it! we love you...

Mikey & Laura

Ebonsweni

On Wednesday, we actually got our look at the second community that TTH works in: Ebonsweni. Sorry that it's taken so long to report on that experience...on Thursday night, Mikey got sick and then on Friday and Saturday, I got sick. I actually went to the "chemist" (a drug store with a little clinic and a nurse practitioner) on Saturday morning and was diagnosed with a bladder infection, which I've been taking medication for. BOY was that miserable! Pretty much like having the flu. I am feeling much better today and am re-gathering my strength to go into another week!

SO, Ebonsweni.

It was a very different experience than being in Kabokweni. When we arrived, there was hardly anyone there except for the volunteers and a couple of kids. We met everyone and then I kicked the soccer ball around with the few that were there. Gradually, the place filled up. We had brought a big coloring book so things got moving when the kids lined up and each got a page and in groups of five, a box of crayons. They dispersed to color wherever they could find a spot. As I held a very clingy little baby (I think one of the worker's daughters), one of the girls layed her page on my back and colored there. I was glad to be of use, although I did start to cramp up after a while! Mikey made the "mistake" of drawing a portrait of a kid on the back of his coloring page, which then everyone wanted him to do for them. He must have drawn 25 by the end of it, all with a crayon! My first feeding experience, I helped serve up plates; this time, I don't even remember seeing any kids with plates...we just sat around wtih groups of kids trying to entertain them.

There was one little girl who I taught to thumb wrestle and she got attached to me. Everytime my hair was down, she and some other girls took the initiative to put it back up. They couldnt seem to figure out why they couldnt get all the stray curls into one tight ponytail, but boy did they try (to the detrement of my scalp sometimes...)! The eventually contained it with a tri-ponytail style. I taught them how to play "rock, paper, scissors" and then "duck, duck, goose" and we stayed occupied for a few hours.

These two communities are very different. When I first went to Kabokweni, I had certain expectations for the children...I mean, I expected that they would behave a certain way: independent, self-sustaining, cautious, greedy in the sense that they have the mentality of getting what they can for themselves and not letting anyone take it from them. I didn't find that there. The kids were fairly welcoming and very well behaved. They treated each other and the volunteers with great respect. In Ebonisweni, on the other hand, I felt like I saw that behavior for the first time. They were much rougher with each other, seemingly more self-concerned than others-aware. They would hit each other and take from each other, and when I tried to give out stickers near the end, they mobbed me and tried to dupe me into thinking I hadn't given them one so I'd give them another. They two places have a very different spiritual feel, to paraphrase one of the TTH workers.

Other than the kids, I feel that my place there is different, also. In Kabokweni, I connected more with the volunteers (one, in particular, whom I wrote about earlier). I was able, on Thursday morning, to be a part of a volunteer Bible study that they do there, and I am very interested in continuing this ministry to the native volunteers. In Ebonisweni, I hardly spoke to the volunteers at all beyond introductions, and played mostly with the kids. Also on Thursday, I tagged along to a girl's club that is run in an elementary classroom after school once a week by a post-high school, pre-university girl named Nanzamo. She is the daughter of the woman--"Mamma V" (or Victoria)--who runs the feeding program in Ebonisweni from her home. Anyway, so that program is something I could be involved in. Mikey wants to use his gifts of organization and administration here at University Village, but isnt sure where he is most needed.

Things seem still a little complicated as we aren't sure where to plug in our talents and resources. We do feel led to help build community within University Village, though, and hope this week to start some night-activities that will bring the TTH missionaries together rather than all of us dissipating to our rooms after dark. Continue to pray that we would find a place to be a part of ministry here. That is foremost on my mind. Also, that I would continue to heal and stay hydrated (something that Mikey has taken great pleasure in seeing to...) for my bladder's sake.

We love you and appreciate your thoughts, prayers and e-mails!