Meet my team!

Hello Family and Friends!

So I am going to have a blog coming up
about Christmas, but since Christmas isn’t really finished here, I am
going to post a blog about my team, and people I am working closely
with. I have pictures of everyone, and then I will do a little
introduction. Hopefully this will help you to understand why I love
them, see how they resemble Jesus, and will put a face to the name.
Enjoy!

 

This is Rebecca, or who we all like to
call Claire! She is an amazing, amazing, woman of God. She is the
most dedicated servant of God I’ve ever met. I’ve never seen her
frustrated, and if she does, it won’t be in a way you would expect.
She won’t blow up, she will handle it the way you should. She is
persistantly persuing God and His truth, Trying to reteach herself
things that she believed about Christ and dying to herself. If there
is a situation that is stressful and someone is having a hard time,
she is saying, “We need to pray.” Just the other night, I was
getting really nervous about something while we were driving, and she
prayed for me. I have no idea what she was praying because our car
was so full of noise, but I felt peace. She has a great attitude
about everything. Some of the members of my team tease her for some
of the noises she makes, and call her a squirrel and she takes it so
well! We could all bear to learn how to handle instances like that
from her. You literally need to ban her from the kitchen because she
WILL stay in the kitchen and serve the heck out of my team. She
serves not because the Bible “says to”, but because
that is the person God brought her to be, and she does so with a
huge, beautiful smile on her face.

 

What a character Myles is.
He is our “team leader.” In that, he is in charge of our team
finances and calling America to let them know we are alive, host
relationships, and a few other things. He has such a unique sense
of humor that I am just now getting to understand and enjoy. I see
God working in him in so many ways that I don’t know how to describe
it accurately. He was called to work with kids in Africa through
visions at a church kind of retreat. Every time I see him with kids
is a confirmation to that vision. He is some sort of kid magnet. The
kids gravitate toward him. He doesn’t even have to try, and that is
precisely because God brought him up for that purpose. On one
occasion, I went outside to play with the orphans at the orphanage we
are staying at. The kids and I were having a great time, and then
Myles walks out. They all run toward him and hug him and love him and
are just drawn to him. It just reminds me of how Jesus was with the
children when he walked on the Earth. He is very intelligent, also.
Every time we go to the mall, he HAS TO buy at least one book. If I
ever have a question about anything, he is the person I come to. Not
because he is our “team leader,” but because he knows his stuff.
If I have a question about something in the bible, he will know. If I
have a question about gardening, he knows. If I have a question about
cars (I wouldn’t understand the answer anyway), he knows. That is
just Myles for you.

 

 

Garrett Berkeley

His name sounds a lot like Carrot
Broccoli, but his real name is Garrett. He is from Minnesota and is
proud of it (I just found out tonight that almost ALL Minnesotans are
proud of their state). He is very gifted in music. He has lead
worship at IHOP (International House of Prayer, in Kansas City) and
has led worship on many different occasions and helped start a
church. He has such a passion for Jesus. I know that all Christ
followers do, but I’ve never met someone who strives for it as much
as he does. He says he wants to be “Jesus with skin on.” We have
the Holy Spirit in us, which means we have Jesus in us if we let Him.
He wants that to happen. He wants to be Jesus more than anything. He
is so connected with the Spirit, it is inspiring. He is so willing to
be used by God…in ways that I am afraid of, mostly spiritually. He
has helped me a lot on my journey to gaining confidence. He helped
pinpoint what areas I could use improvement on and helped to
encourage me. He really is helping me to find my identity in Christ.
He has such great leadership skills, and can come up with a way to
make everyone happy when it seems it would be impossible. He can
always make me laugh, even when it is stupid, despite the fact that I
laugh at just about anything and everything. He is just the goofiest
person, he would make you laugh too!

 

Lets start off with this…Jenny is
from Alaska! We like to tease her about being Alaskan, having a polar
bear, living in an igloo, and being an Eskimo version of a hillbilly.
Jenny is the link between the genders in my team. She links Clair and
I to Garrett and Myles. I don’t even know what that means, really,
but she does it. She has such a heart for all things of God. While we
were in Mozambique she and I were discussing some events in Exodus,
and different parts of scripture, and halfway through the
conversation, she expressed how excited she was being able to talk
about truth like that way. After the conversation, I took a nap and
she took my bible. When I woke up, she was in tears while reading my
bible because of how beautiful God’s truth is. She loves it and
constantly seeks it. She initiated a nightly prayer time with Claire
and I, which started a lot of things going which was great. She has
such joy. If there is ever a rain storm, you don’t even have to look
outside to know that Jenny is out there dancing in it. She isn’t
afraid to climb the mountain in our back yard in Nelspruit with the
boys, and is the only reason we eat healthy. She is always
conversating with people, and just being a light.

Blair is one of our leaders that we got
to spend 2 and a half months with in Mexico and South Africa. I’m
overwhelmed with even where to start. He is just amazing! He has such
an inspirational story, and the Lord uses him in so many ways. He has
an intense and almost intimidating vibe to him, but he is not like
that. He is intense because he is constantly thinking about how he
can “go harder” for God. He has been a vital part of our team in
pursuing God’s plans. He has been with us from the beginning, that is
back in August for training camp, so we have been able to get to know
him very well, and him know us very well. God uses him as a way to
communicate to His children. He speaks life that is straight from
God. When we are praying as a team for someone, he prays something
that pierces the heart because he is so in tune with God’s Spirit. He
was on the First Year Missionary program with AIM last year and grew
tremendously. He spent his training period in South Africa, and his
outreach period in Swaziland. He used to be the drummer for Becoming
the Martyr (a metal band in Canada), but left
the band because of Jesus. It’s all because of Jesus.

 

We call her Becks. I’m going to bring
you back to training camp. I was sitting in front of a mirror,
weeping and petrified, because God was shaking my world and showing
me true freedom. I thought I had been freed from my past sins, but I
had not. Becks came up to me and gave me a permanent marker, instead
of an erasable marker, to write all the things I am free from on this
mirror. I had never talked to her about this. God told her. I am sure
that doesn’t make much sense, but it was an intimate moment between
the two of us. I have come to love her so much, and I really miss her
so much right now. God called her to work with college aged people
wanting to go into missions, and it is so obvious! She has such a
passion for my age group and it just radiates from her. She loves
living in community and has a heart for Muslim people. The last night
she was with us in South Africa, we were sitting around a campfire.
And there was, what looked like, lightning going on. We couldn’t see
the bolts, we could just see the flashes. She said, “God is taking
pictures of what community looks like,” or she said it somewhat
close to that. She has interceded for me, and for other people on my
team, and for people with the Novas Project as a whole. She loves
God’s people so much, and the only thing she loves more than that is
God Himself.

 My hosts! Kent and Shay are from
Florida, and Terry is from Ohio. Kent and Shay run the Betor House,
originally. The owners of the house chose them to run it. Terry
started staying with them last year, while she was still a
participant on AIM’s World Race. God had planned for her to stay in
Nelspruit and work with Kent and Shay at the Betor House. They are
all lovely people. Kent is a big guy, but has an even bigger heart.
When you are around him, he will erase your bad mood and make you
just smile. If he doesn’t do something specific to make you smile,
just his laugh and the way he talks will make you smile. He says his
gift is mercy, and his love language is touch. He is so merciful and
it takes something big to make him upset. He loves hugs and
just being close to people. Shay is an awesome woman. She is honest, is hilarious, and has a one-of-a-kind personality. I don’t really know how to explain her,
because she is so unique.  Terry is awesome. We have connected  and I’m
able to look up to her. She has such a distinct laugh that you can
identify from across the room. When she speaks, it is with Christ’s
authority. When she loves, it is with God’s love. When she listens,
it is with God’s ears. She is absolutely consumed. Their ministry is
marketplace ministry. Have you ever noticed that almost all of the
miracles performed in the New Testament were performed not in the
church, but in the marketplace? Think about why their ministry, other
than running the missionary house, would be marketplace ministry.

 

Frank and Cindy

Frank and Cindie are a couple that live
in White River, next to us at the orphanage. They run the baby house,
and live with Welcome. Welcome is a 15-18 month AIDS, TB, and
malnourished baby. They just spent 2 months in Pemba, Mozambique, at
Iris Ministries’ Missions School. Now they are back in South Africa
and are helping my team a lot. I am at their house pretty much
everyday. Sometimes I am there to play with Welcome, sometimes I need
to borrow a knife (since we don’t have one) or just to talk. I always
take something away from talking with them. Sometimes it is about
taking care of babies, or it’s about support raising, or about
spiritual health of missionaries or just about anything! They are
great people and are teaching me a lot. They don’t get annoyed that
we come to their house asking to borrow something just about every
day either. That says something!

 

When you meet Tiesa, all you can think
about is love. What love means, how she loves other people, how she
loves God, how she loves to serve, and what you need to change about
how you love. Ever since she found Jesus she has been radical. She is
so radical for Jesus, and she doesn’t have to think about doing it!
Her love for Him is so deep that she can’t help but be radical for
Him. Her wedding day is a perfect example. She and her husband went
out into the streets of Mozambique and invited the poor to come to
the wedding. They had 1,500 poor people at the wedding ceremony, and
3,000 poor people at their wedding feast. At their reception they
preached the gospel and healed whoever needed to be healed. That day
300 people found Christ. Who does that? I have never heard of anyone
doing that, but that really puts things into perspective for me! She
spent 5 years in upper Mozambique working with an untouched tribe,
and did amazing things. Iris Ministries sent her and her husband,
Gene, to start the Michael’s Children Village in White River/Back
Door, South Africa. It has been running just since July, which is
hard to believe, because they are striving. Tiesa is an example of
how you should be living for Jesus.