Friday was an amazing day at the orphan school! Last week I had challenged the staff to learn the books of the New Testament in order, in English, and I in return would learn them in Kiswahili! Friday was the day we said them from memory to one another. We had so much fun! They all did a great job and yes, I now can say them all in Kiswahili!

Tomorrow I will be headed to Kenya for a 4 day women’s conference where I have been asked to teach some of the sessions. It has been a challenge for me to prepare the lessons simply because most all of the illustrations I would use are not familiar to them. They know nothing of the world I come from so I have been working on getting some new illustrations with things here that are in their daily lives.

The challenge isn’t just in the illustrations, it’s also the reality of whatever I teach they will take as biblical truth because many of them cannot read or write. I set aside yesterday here at the mission house to take the day spending time praying and finishing my lessons. By middle of the morning I was struggling because through my prayer time I had realized the enormous responsibility of sharing the Word of God correctly.

Through that time of struggling I was reminded of how truly inadequate I am to teach, yet how my inadequacy makes me totally dependent on Holy Spirit. Which I am sure was what Holy Spirit was trying to remind me of all along. It will be my first time to teach with an interpreter as well as my first time to stay in a hut out in the bush! Don’t know which one I am more nervous about!

I’m not taking my laptop because I want to give all of my attention and time to these precious women. I will probably have lots to write about when I get back, so expect a long update! (Oh wait, my updates are never short, what was I thinking, maybe you should expect a realllllllly long update).

Please pray for me as my heart’s desire is to be a vessel Holy Spirit can use. One of the main reasons God sent me here was to teach the women, and I long to help them grow in their relationships with the Lord. I’ve been through a lot of heartaches in my adult life and through it all I learned to hold on tighter to the Lord, never ever thinking of letting go. So many times I have heard people say that when they went through a trial, they got mad at God and allowed a distance between Him and them. But for me it just hasn’t been that way. Although my life has had its share of heartaches, my life has been a bed of roses compared to the lives of the women here.

I know that the heartaches I was allowed to endure, those caused by others and those I brought on myself through bad choices and mistakes are now being used to help me identify with the women here. It is really true that God uses everything in our past both good and bad if we will let Him, to help us become what He always intended for us to be.

How thankful I am that He never gave up on me. I am continually reminded through the 139th Psalm which is my favorite, that I am fearfully and wonderfully made! What a joy it was for me many years ago to learn that He knew the life I was going to live before I surrendered to Him. He knew the sins and mistakes I would make and yet He saw something in me worth keeping. That is why I learned to trust Him completely because I was a good candidate for not being worth keeping. I stand in awe of His love for me and the way He has given me the most intimate relationship with Him that I could ask for.

I’ll close for now, I need to pack. I’m sitting here laughing as I just realized I have no clue what I should pack and what I shouldn’t pack! What do you pack when you stay in a hut out in the bush???????? Oh well, I do believe I’m in for another learning adventure!

Love to all

Joy Breedlove

Missionary – East Africa