Tanzania HERE WE COME!

so this is my last post from beautiful South Africa! I begin the very long 5 day journey into Tanzania at 5 a.m. tomorrow morning and I am extremely excited! We have stumbled upon a few complications with registering the vehicles etc. so we got set back a day but it turned out ok and gave me an extra day to tie up some loose ends. I have really enjoyed the lecture phase portion of my dts and am very excited to go out into more of Africa and do some of the dirty work for God. I dont imagine I will have very much internet access in a Tanzanian or kenyan village so I imagine this may be the last post for a while but I assure you I will update as much as possible if oppertunitys open up. Once agian I love you all and am so thankful for your support and Help. Blessings!

pictures

Photobucket Album

lots of news

hello everyone!

So yesteday we finished building a house! Our team built a house for a family in Zwelethemba in 2 days!!!!!! The whole story is quite an act of God actually. We were planning on buying what is called a Wendy house it is a small house that a company comes and buildes for pretty cheap. However in the end we could'nt afford the house and the materials we needed to mend a house that burned down in Zwelethamba also..... so Suzy a woman on our dts remebered a place that sold sheds neaby so bought the shed took it apart and went to work to build the house ourselves. Most of us have never built a house before and none of us work in construction only like 3 of us have ever been involved in anything like it. However by the grace of God we did it!!! The family we built the house for was a family of 7 girls and two babies under 1. A boy and a little girl. The mother/granmother has Aids and is most likely not going to make it much longer. The father/grandfather just passed away in September because of AIDS. Two of the 6 sisters that live there have babies one of the girls in 22 or so and the other is 17. We felt so blessed by God to build them this house. There is no work at all in the area so only one or two of the sisters have jobs and support the whole family. Both of the babies are also sick and had really bad coughs. they were extremely grateful for thier new house however and are excited to have a clean open space to eat as a family. We also did some evangelising in the area and a few were lead to Jesus for the first time. They have no running water and share bath water everyday all 9 of them standing in a baby bath with a cloth. They also eat poridge everyday just because it's cheap and filling. We had a party for them after the building was over though and they were so happy and were singing and eating and then they sang us off....
Now we leave for Tanzania in 5 days and guess what WE ARE DRIVING THERE! So the whole trip will take between 4-6 days! However it does mean that i will get to drive through and stay in Zimbabwe and Zambia and hopefully on the way back Mozambique too! So wow by the end of the trip I will have been in 6 maybe 7 African countries; South Africa, Senegal, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Tanzania, Mozmabique and Kenya! we are really excited about how God is and will working in us and how funny it is that we try to make plans for outreaches and God seems to always have a bit of a different plan.

Well I updated some pictures on our Photobucket so if you click the link i made to it down below a few posts ago you can all see them!

I will try to update again before I leave but in case I dont Merry Christmas and happy new year everyone I hope you are all blessed this holiday season!

read this

so let me explain something about Prophecy as far as my understanding goes. Prophecy is not alway accurate and you never change future plans because of what you recieved in prophecy. It is not a fortune telling thing although sometimes it can fortell things in your future it is more of a confrimation from God than anything else. We are not perfect however and sometimes we get it wrong and so we should always pray about it afterwards. People recieve prophecy in many different ways as well some hear it in their spirit others see visions and ideas others simply are motivated to do things or begin feeling different emotions... All need some type of interpretation by the one who is recieving it although sometimes it may seem so weird. For example the speaker this week told us a story about a woman who God told to go and stand on her head next to a coke machine in the grocery store. Ok weird ya? So at first she ignored it thinking what an odd thing God was asking and she was too embarressed finally she reasoned with herself and just did it and ran out of the store. A man stopped her as she was running and said "what on earth have you just done"? and she said im sorry you wouldnt understand it's just God told me to do it and i did and now i just want to leave and he said "no but you see I asked God to give me this outrageous sign of someone stading on their head next to this coke machine so I would know he was real otherwise if I didnt see this sign I was going to commit suicide because there was no more hope will you please tell me about Jesus"? i was totally wowed by this story. The stupidest things God is telling us to do can be so crucial! So if your saying to yourself well whatever that is not a first hand story maybe it's true but Lauren does not even know this woman well thats true I dont but I still believe however I will tell you something that just happened to me a few hours ago and maybe this will shake you and you will see that prophecy is still so so real and a huge form of communication between us and God. Today we sat in groups and tried to get prophecy for one another and I was in a group with Dina from Denmark and Magged our speaker. I got a vision for Dina which totally applied to her life although i thought it was kinda weird but I got an even weirder one for Magged i couldnt stop getting this word out of my mind i saw it heard it I almost felt it so although i had never heard this word before i told it to him hoping it would mean something and when i said it his eyes filled with tears and he said to me "this word Hassar means protection in Arabic my native language and im going to Pakistan in a little while with my family and I was so unsure about my safety but you have just confirmed to me that it is ok for me to go there". Now how on earth could that not be from God? I spoke Arabic to this man although i know absolutely no Arabic!?!? Trust in God always and simply obey what he says it really is that easy for us. Think if I had not taken that leap of faith when i said to him this unfamiliar word? His whole plans for his future steps were changed because of that one word. God provides thats it he just does so please pray about Prophecy and open your hearts and minds to it's possibilities. I will update with some more news like stuff soon love you all