Beauty in Ashes; Spoken Word

Hello lovely creation! Two posts in one week! Don't I deserve a round of applause or something?? lol so I just want to say thank you so much to all the people who were super concerned about me after my last post. Just to let you know I am doing better and I have an inhaler with me. So don't worry :)
Now why am I doing this post so soon after the other one? Well as you have probably seen in the title this post is a spoken word piece. I haven't updated one in a while, actually I haven't even written one in a while, but from being in this city I feel like God placed this one upon my heart. One of the things I learned in DTS is that different places have different spiritual atmospheres and as soon as my team stepped into Pattaya (the name of the city where we are) I think we all felt the havyness on the city, and it affected us but as we've been here longer I have found a kind of beauty even in the brokenness which leads to the spoken word without further a due :P
(it's kind of long so hope u don't get bored)

Beauty in Ashes

We are broken,
In this world we have called home yet so foreign
Man is broken
Filled with pain, anger, hurt, not to mention broken hearts
It's easy to give in, give up when we fall down
Never again stand up
To feel useless and weak
when we hear world politicians speak about how world peace is all they seek
Truth be told that is never going to happen
because we are human, we are broken
I have seen it with my own eyes,
and the thought makes me want to cry
The world's brokenness, the sadness, darkness, and heartlessness
it's all one massive mess!
I see it in the small things
when that little girl sings, and nobody listens
Her heart breaks a little though you may not see through
A small part of her feels like she is not worth listening to.
Or those times when we let our pride get in the way of relationship. Thinking about what is best for me, Our  excuse is "nobody really understands me"
Because honestly I don't want to see, what you have to say
Your point may be valid, but just not today...
Then there is her. She understands the idea of love but can't seem to grasp the concept
Because in some passed moment she accepted that she wasn't worth it
So she believed the lie that all you need is a guy, to know where your beauty lies
and when none showed up she questioned her size, her nose and even the shape of her eyes. Leaving no tiny detail out she criticized...
Then there was him. He had no father figure.
He never learned what it meant to be a man yet he hated being called a boy.
From all the porn no one stopped him from watching he learned that a female is just a toy.
Nothing more, nothing less
Use her until it breaks then leave without making a mess
That is the world's brokenness
I see it in the big things. stories that tug at your heart strings
Like the pain and loss that death brings
That never ending feeling that someone is missing. Hoping and praying that time passing would cause the aching to start fading and bring healing until you can finally say, "oh death where is your sting?"
I see it in the girl walking on her street near the bar.
All grown up. Tall and beautiful. A star.
To the gentlemen around her.
In this market she has learned to use her assets,
Swaying her hips and pouting her red colored lips,
Batting her eyelashes, until his attention she catches
Pushing her dignity aside, she relies only on her pride
Pulling her close he whispers to her, "you are a beautiful little star."
She lets him take her home to do with her what he may. His fee was a very small price to pay.
But as he invades her, she tells herself "it's okay" and lets herself imagine that maybe one day this will be the man that will take her away
She isn't thinking, or conveniently forgetting the gold band. On his left hand, seems a lot like a wedding ring
This is the world's brokenness.
He is also a victim. Though it's easy to judge him. To call him disgusting,
For using a girl who is young enough to be his daughter, for his pleasure
But he has been taught to use her as a toy, solely for him to enjoy.
This is the world's brokenness.
In so many ways we see it's face
Like the guy who thinks he needs one more high to be alright,
Or one more beer to get rid of the constant fear.
The girl who just wants to end it all,
Because she is tired of trying to get back up after every fall
I once heard that people are meant to be loved and things are meant to be used, but the problem with the world is that people are used and things are loved.
That is the world's brokenness.
No wonder we get stressed, the world can be such a mess!
But that's not it. This is not the ending.
Because somewhere in it's midst there is a light unending.
Over 2,000 years ago what was broken started mending.
Three words uttered
"IT IS FINISHED."
Irony because it was also just the beginning.
The whole universe could hear darkness groaning, because light had started winning.
Like every super hero story we've watched, heard or read.
Good verses evil, and good is always ahead.
After all has been done, after all has been said, that is the hope each human heart holds onto until the very end.
That hope is the light rising from the darkness.
It is the beauty found in the ashes...

I know this was super long, so if you have read until the end. Thanks. There is allot that went into this spoken word and majorly to do with what I have seen in this city. The brokenness, the hurt, and the beauty in it all. God has broken my heart for this people in a way I can't even put into words but I tried my best. Hopefully in my next post I will explain more about that but for now I have to get back to ministry.

Love y'all and bye for now.

Near DEATH, MOST embarrassing moment, and HOMESicK in one WEEK :)

Hello fellow people :) how are you? Or in my new language 'Sawadica?' :P So I have officially been in Thailand for two weeks! It honestly feels like I have been here two months, it's crazy like being honest if you are ever told outreach is hard, BELIEVE IT! Because we tend to romanticize being a missionary like "ohh I am going to save the whole world, because they need to know about Jesus and I am going to change their lives."
It is amazing to have that vision and fire, but also remember there is still room for personal growth. So I am taking a break from my themes and sharing with you a bit about my long short experience here so far. (plus I am supposed to be the team journalist so 2 birds, one stone) You ready for this?

OKkkkaayy! So last week we started our official ministry in Thailand, we were in a place called Fang and we started off with children's ministry which honestly did not sound like the most exciting thing in the world since we had just done a week of children's ministry in South Africa, but we put on our stick-with-it faces and did the ministry, teaching the children english and stuff. By the second day I realized that the humid weather was affecting my chest and it was getting uneasy to breathe so I rested that day, then that night I couldn't breathe at all. My team had to call an ambulance to get me to hospital
I had an asthma attack. Yup my stupid chest almost gave up on me but I got to the hospital on time and I couldn't move and amazingly the doctors hardly spoke any English which sucked but long story short, I was put under an oxygen mask and an I.V thingy majigy was put into me and after a lot of confusion, the doctors thinking I was having a heart attack and stuff they realized I also had a panic attack, in doctor terms hyperventilation- which by the way- you only see in movies lol now that was not even the end of it.
So while I was in that weird daze I heard my friend Yu-jin telling me about the cute doctors which did not help me because I was thinking about how If I cared about anything besides not dying I probably looked horrible! Plus later while I was lying in the hospital bed I really needed to pee like three different times and since I couldn't move they had to give me what in docter terms is called a 'bedpan' in layman terms its basically a pee bowl, and I will save you the gross details because it makes me cringe just thinking about it but it was not pretty! lol plus quite embarrasing was I was the only black person in the room as well so I wondered if the cute docters thought black people are uncivilized, then I realized that was a stupid train of thought ;)
So the crazy thing is the next day I got another hyperventilation attack at night and the same process was repeated and I had to go back to the hospital... One it was the most pain I had experienced in a super long while! Two if your my facebook friend you saw my status about homesickness, well I think that was the point passed the honey-moon phase where all you want to do is suck your thumb and say "I miss my mummy" but ofcourse because even though you are the youngest on the team everyone else is an adult you have to suck it up and say "Lord Jesus I you better see what am doing and have mansion planned out for me somewhere in my future or else boo me and you are through :P" Jk, you know I love you..
Soo Thursday this week we did another 13 hour bus trip from the north of Thailand to the capital Bangkok, then another 2 and a half hours to a coastal city called Pataya which is where we are now... We started ministry today, working with prostitution and teaching the ladies english which was actually super fun... Plus umm this is random but we have seen a lot of lady-boys (men who become women, very common in Thailand) and to be honest they are beautiful! Literally they make an effort to look gorgeous so you may not even tell the difference, and it would be very easy to judge but being a missionary is about looking for beauty in the ashes, and seeing it even in the brokenness of people!

So right now because we don't have wifi I am at an internet cafe which I have payed for 1hour worth of use so incase my time runs out I will end here, but am hopefully going to resume with the topics thingy majigy next blog post... Hope you enjoyed and I love you <3  

Stereotyping: 46 countrieS in 10 years!

Sooo hello my fellow people! How is your beautiful self? (technically that sentence isn't englishly correct :P NEITHER IS THAT ONE. Anyway guess who is finally in Thailand????? Like seriously I bet you can't guess? lol
So it has been a struggle and a half to get here. I honestly was not 100% sure I was going to be in Thailand until I was on the plane, and honestly Jesus came through in ways I don't even understand but that is a story for another day. Today the story is lightly different. I have honestly been trying to get another angle on stereotyping since before I left South Africa. I was going to write about a girl who heard God tell her to go into missions with her parents on her last year of high school, before exams but I was not able to talk to her in detail in time so hopefully when I go back to s.a I will get the chance to.
So back to my trip, we arrived here Friday at 4 a.m when it was still dark out after almost 3 days of travel by air and by bus. Believe me you I did not know what pregnant feet were until yesterday. We, as a team, were all super tired and had just arrived into the Thailand humid heat that makes your clothes stick to your skin. *to be honest it's better than the cold I left behind in Capetown.* But the point is we finally arrived here (Chiang mai) and found out the house where we are staying is Heaven! :P hahaha okay maybe a little piece of Heaven but after the traveling and pregnant feet it honestly does feel like paradise. and we were all like

It's a huge bungalow with fans and spacious rooms and a spacious kitchen and dinning room. Sadly we are only here until tomorrow but as an introduction to Thailand it is a great way to start :)
Now the man behind it is what this post is about. Basically this place is a hospitality house and Len, the man who owns it just wanted it to be a place of rest and receiving of missionaries to send out into the rest of Thailand. He lives here with his son, Jonah, and a beautiful couple from South Africa who heard God's call to come to Thailand as missionaries. In all their lives you can see their hearts to serve us and hearts that shines Jesus' love so bright it burns. So the last two days have been amazing *but I still have pregnant feet, does anyone know how to get rid of that?*
Anyway back to the point one of the benefits of these two days is that we got to hear their stories and it turns out Len and his son have a kind of extra ordinary one. You see they are originally from South Africa  and even though have now been running this hospitality ministry in Thailand for about a year, they originally left South Africa about eleven years ago!
So what- you may be asking- have they been doing for the ten year gap period in between? They my dear, have been on a pure backpacking evangelizing and tract giving ministry where they traveled to 46 different countries all over Africa, Middle East, Asia, Europe, and the States in 10 years! Now this is how it started according to Len...
Ten years ago as a not too old but not too young man either, Len finally listened and obeyed God's call for him to be out on the mission field after a long time of being stubborn with God. It wasn't easy because God told him to give everything and I mean EVERYTHING away and live out his faith. Jonah, his son, also heard God speak to him, and in his own words with a silly grin he told me, "but I wasn't as stubborn as my dad was ."

 

*they look much more good looking than this* lol.
So they set out, leaving behind family, friends, and possessions behind with only 300 dollars in their bank accounts, no supporters, the backpacks on their backs, and God's call on their lives to trust Him.
-now let's pause for a second, as you read this your probably thinking about how it sounds like a super another sweet story with another lesson about how God will always come through, ending with they lived happily ever after- but *play* this is more than that!
Can you picture yourself and your mum, or your dad, or your child, getting rid of all the plans you had for yourself, to be a doctor, a lawyer, a business person, a doctorate, having quite a few degrees to your name, the security in being able to provide and the simple comforts of life as well... Like seriously? Can you picture yourself giving all that up?!
First of all the scrutiny you will get! Don't you think in this day and age everyone who truly loves you will think your crazy! Like I know if I went to my friends and family and told them on a very serious note that I am leaving next week for a few years, not knowing what or how God will provide they will look at me like I am plain retarded and tell me to wait at least a few years until I get my life together.
But they went for it, and they told me they have a million and one stories of how God proved He was God countless times.
The fact is it was NOT easy, but honestly you should see the light in Len's eyes as he talks about visiting Israel and feeling God, or giving out gospel tracts and seeing people break down because it was God ordained, and seeing Jesus come through in miraculous ways! His words were, "I get so much satisfaction out of it." Basically even though it's not easy, if it's of God it's worth it. And the truth is...

I am not going to be all preachy and stuff but A verse I have come to love is 1 Corinthians 2:6-7. It basically says that our generation is so stupid that we think God's wisdom is stupid. In a way that is also the cool thing about God's Kingdom. It's crazy, upside down, backwards, and again is stereotypical plain stupid to the world but it is a heck of an adventure and if you can handle being stereotyped as a Jesus freak it's most probably worth it. :)

Now I love you all but am sleepy and we are traveling tomorrow again to our outreach location by bus! *oh no stupid pregnant feet* again any advice on that please let me know :P GOODNIGHT :)