Prayer Requests and Praises!

After next week we have our "winter break"! Christian's parents, Paul and Kathy, and my sister, Jocelyn, will be coming to visit for 3 weeks! We can't wait! Since there is no way we would all fit in our apartment, they will all be staying in a furnished apartment in our complex. It will work out well! The past couple of weeks have been an emotional rollercoaster on campus. On one hand, Christian has seen remarkable growth and fruit with the male student leaders. This week we had an leadership training time at UWC, and 9 students came...one brought a friend! After learning there how to share their faith, Christian took one of his disciples sharing for the first time, and BOTH of the guys they shared with came to Christ! It was a very encouraging day! On the other hand, we've been struggling to align some of our key student women leaders. There have been multiple hard conversations, and a definite battle against the enemy. We've learned a lot about the culture of the majority of students at UWC in this process, which has shed light on many of their views and convictions. In the end, we have come to the mutual understanding that we're not heading in the same direction. We've been sad and heavy hearted, as we truly love these women and have seen God use them in so many ways! I've learned so much through them and had been encouraged in my faith. I really can't believe it's happened...but we're trusting the Lord and His sovereign plan. All of our new believers were being discipled by these women. It feels a little bit discouraging that we are coming to the end of the new semester, and feeling like we will almost have to "start over" next semester on the women's side. But we're also going into it knowing how to better align and communicate our mission and vision from the beginning. Please pray for these student women- for teachable hearts and reconciliation. Pray also for peace, wisdom, forgiveness, humility and reconciliation for our team as well. Pray against the work of the enemy...division and unforgiveness is just what he wants! On an encouraging note, our babysitter accepted Christ today! She was a friend of a student we'd had babysit, and she has been watching our kids almost every Friday for staff meeting over the course of the semester, and the girls LOVE her! She's a freshman at a technical college here, and recently I had been realizing we hadn't even really talked about her faith. So this week before she left I asked if there was anything I could be praying for her and if she, herself, prayed. Long story short, we went for coffee (Lily wanted to join us), and I shared with her about how she could have a personal relationship with God. She had been to a few different youth groups over the years, but didn't know much of anything about who Jesus is. She said a few times "now it's making sense!" I saw her "get" it, and she surrendered her life to Christ! She's the first person I've met that has had little to no spiritual background. She went from not ever really wondering about God to having a personal relationship with Him! Praise God! It was SO fun! All the while Lily was in and out of our conversation and playing outside...but she told Christian "Mom's talking to Megan about the Bible". It was fun to include her in our conversation and celebration. I'm looking forward to meeting with Megan soon for our first follow up Bible study. So exciting! We've had BEAUTIFUL fall days here this week. I went to Stodel's two afternoons, just to let the kids play outside. I pretended it was our back yard as I watched the monkeys play:). Lily and Anya still have lingering colds...I took Anya to the doctor last week because she'd had a fever for more than 24 hours, and it turned out she had tonsilitis! She just finished her antibiotics. Two rounds of antibiotics since we've gotten here! We're still doing eye drops for her stye, and it seems to be working. Please pray it will go away so she won't have to go under for them to drain it! And yesterday Lacy (the William's daughter) came down with something similar to pink eye. Pray it will heal quickly and no one else will catch it! I got a library card this week...makes me feel like a local:). We went to story time last week, and besides being half an hour late, it was in Afrikaans! Oh well...at least we found the library:). Hoping to celebrate Mother's Day at the beach tomorrow! Yay! This week Lily and I were doing her paper doll sticker book and I asked if she was sure she wanted me to dress one of the girls. She said "Mommy, you always dress us so pretty, I know you will dress her pretty too!" It was so precious. I love my girls!