He came and sat on my lap at lunch on our trip to South Africa. When all the other children left to go have playtime, he stayed.
We sat together. I hugged him tight.
I talked to him (even though we spoke a different language). And he clung to my “Expect Miracles” necklace and turned it over and over, rubbing his little hands on the words.
When it was finally time to go, he clung to me. Someone had to pry him off of me. And my heart just about broke right in two.
I don’t know his story. I don’t know the difficulties he experiences at home or if he has parents or if he lives in one of the many child-headed families in this area.
But my heart is grateful that he’s not alone. He’s part of a class at the Reagaboka Centre — an amazing center run by a dedicated staff who are committed to feeding, teaching, caring for, loving on, and providing a safe and clean environment for these very vulnerable kids to go to every day.
And I’m so grateful that he gets to go to a clean and cheery classroom everyday that you all helped to build.
When we visited, the director of the Centre told us with tears in her eyes how the 2-classroom building is changing lives and how they had prayed and prayed for God to provide a building there. They had land given to them by the local chief, they had plans for a building, but they had no money.
Little did we know, when God brought me to South Africa back in January of 2015, that we were going to get to be a small part of that miracle!
{photo from October’s trip when we unveiled this two-classroom building!}
First, you all banded together and bought my Make Over Your Mornings course and funded the two-classroom building — which we got to unveil on our last trip to South Africa (see all the pictures and read all about that unveiling here).
And now, because you purchased Make Over Your Year and Make Over Your Evenings, you helped to almost finish funding a much larger Community Building (see the unfinished building in the background in the photo above).
{You can see the progress that has happened on this building since the beginning of the year with this photo.}
This building is going to serve a HUGE need in this community. Plus, this Centre will be able to receive a lot more monthly income from government grants and stipends because of having the building — which will allow them to be able to make a difference in even more children’s lives.
Jesse and I stood in the almost-finished building together and there were tears in our eyes and a lump in our throats to think that God would use us as part of the conduits for this long-prayed-for building.
God worked out so many crazy details for that to happen. As we stood in on that ground that day, we realized afresh that He is a miracle-working God.
I want to go through life living in faith and obedience… Expecting miracles! Because, as I witnessed so clearly in South Africa, God is still in the miracle-working business!
Read the Rest of My South Africa Posts Here:
