Taking a "Chance"

We rip ourselves away from our own cultures, wriggle into a completely new culture, and somehow try to demonstrate the culture of the Kingdom. The culture we were all designed for.

It never fails that we also demonstrate some cultural faux pas along the way, as well as a few head-on, heart-wrenching collisions with humanity’s wounds and weapons.

It feels like we’re taking a chance with every new relationship we start, every new house we build, and every new direction we believe for. A vulnerable “chance” where we gather up all the affections, time and resources we thought we would lavish on our own extended families during summer nights at the pool or around Christmas trees. But we pour them out in hospitals, on construction sites, and over plates of food as we pass them out to runny-nosed angels who speak a different language.

There have been “chances” we’ve taken on people that didn’t work out how we thought they would.

…………

Almost two years ago, we started building Ruth’s house. We were so excited and so charged with what we knew God wanted to do in and through Ruth. Halfway into the construction, her abusive children’s father showed up and wreaked havoc. Our presence on Ruth’s property endangered Ruth, her children, and our construction crew. We were devastated when we had to stop building before we finished.

Ruth was crushed and angry. She stopped coming to church and would turn her back when she saw us. Rumors spun through the community about the father coming to steal the baby in the night, hurting the family, and taking the little food they had as he came in and out of jail. The church watched and checked on Ruth, but we had to keep a distance as to not bring more attention to her and invoke the wrath of a dangerous man.

It felt like a fail.

…………

A few months ago, we met Sifiso and Lizzy. They had three children, and their home had just burnt down. Everything was lost. You could see the powerful love in their family, even when they had nothing.

My leader, John the first day
we set foot on the property.

We have never built a home with a man still involved with his family. He had been out of work and was desperate to provide for his family. It was hard not to remember Ruth’s house, just a short walk away from this burn site.

It felt like a chance. A big chance – an identity transforming one – that left us not only creating Home amongst widows and orphans, but in father-headed families who needed to know too.

My leaders, John and Carla Shaw, felt God turning us to this family.  They saw something true and good shining through the despair in this family. We talked to Sifiso, the father, about Ten Thousand Homes’ values and work. Carla headed up construction. She told Sifiso that we’d love to build a home for his family, but he’d be required to help.

We would teach him, train him, and give him a new skill set. We would see his dignity being restored as he became a man who could provide for his family, contribute to something greater than himself, and feel a sense of purpose and hope that he’d lost some time ago… something he’d pass down to his children.

Sifiso and Lizzy began working
at the ground-breaking
 and never stopped!

We couldn’t have dreamt of how things would play out. Sifiso began working before our construction team could get to his house in the mornings, and worked after they left. He laughed; he played; he loved.

He ingested a Kingdom, Home-building kind of love. He became a bearer of Hope and Home – an ambassador for the Family of God. He became a part of Ten Thousand Homes. His family became ours.

The children immediately began giggling, glowing and bounding into the churchyard for every feeding and every gathering. Lizzy was on her hands and knees, waxing her new floor so it would shine just right, and then right beside us placing one tile at a time as we created a beautiful mosaic on her front porch together. We learned a new level of family together that shattered cultural differences.

Nomawhetu, Freedom and Palesia. World's most loving children.

…………

Almost four years ago, I rattled with fear on Pastor Steven Yoes’ office couch. I told him that I had heard God. I was going to Africa, and the church was supposed to come with me. I wasn’t asking for a check or for a nod of approval, I was asking for a commitment… a covenant… and asking them to take a “chance” on this word from God.

…………

On Friday afternoon, I thought about this handful of chances we’ve made over the years. I watched and remembered why God invites us to take a “chance”… to walk in faith even when there are bumps and bruises along the way.

On Friday afternoon, we stepped on holy ground. The Ten Thousand Homes staff, along with Pastor Steven Yoes and a team from Citymark Church gathered together in the place that was filled with ashes a few months ago, and commemorated the promise of Christ replacing our ashes with beauty.

We welcomed Sifiso and Lizzy into their new home.

So thankful for my team and for our generous friend and donor for this new home.
Carla is an incredible advocate for Family and Home,
and had an extraordinary relationship with this family. 

We sang, and we prayed. We celebrated and we body-rolled.

Soooo many dance parties to come in Lizzy'snew house.
She said, "Yes! Yes! Yes, Kacy. Morning, noon and night." 

We shared the gospel and we blessed a home.

 

We believe this family will change their entire community.
This home will be a place of hope. 

We listened to Sifiso and his extended family absorb and proclaim the Family of God. We sang for Lizzy’s 28^th birthday that day, and gave her the first birthday cake she’s ever had.

That wasn’t even the end of it… Because it was not just a house-building celebration. It was a Family celebration – commemorating the Family of God that leaves no need unmet and lacks nothing when the Body comes together.

Pastor Steven Yoes and Citymark Church, that church that had taken a “chance” on me and made an investment years ago, did what the Body does… reaches, heals, completes. From their hearts and their resources, and by the strength of God and the congregation who sent them, Citymark Church stocked this home with furniture, birthday gifts, and a new wardrobe for the family who lost everything.  

 

An indescribable moment - Sifiso using his new keys to open his new home,
 only to find it fully stocked with furniture and gifts

Thank you New Hope Church for providing new beds, linens and electricity!
The Body stretches far and wide.

They've been sleeping on the floor of a shack for below-freezing winter nights.
 Everything has changed now thanks to the Body of Christ.

Citymark Church's newest family

Thank you for taking that "chance", Pastor Steven
and for creating Family around the world.

As we celebrated, I walked up to Ruth who sang loud on the front row.

In February, Ruth started coming back to church and pulled me aside. She said God had lifted her depression, and she had been set free. Ruth harbored no more pain and bitterness, but was leaning into the power of God. Right before the fire at Sifiso and Lizzy’s house, the father of Ruth’s children was incarcerated for 25 years.

And we finished Ruth’s home.

So she had come everyday to Sifiso and Lizzy’s house to help build their home.

Ten Thousand Homes photo.
Click here to read Ruth's story.

As I approached her at the party, Ruth hugged me and held me close. She said, “Kacy, God provides everything we need. He has come here to wipe every tear away.”

I almost couldn’t breathe. And I couldn’t stop laughing and smiling.

All I could feel was a resounding Truth through my spirit, “Everything was worth it.”

Those chances weren’t really chances after all.

Those chances were faith. And I’m not the measurer of worthiness.

Jesus wasn’t taking a chance on me or on you as He struggled up Golgotha with a cross on his back.

He wasn’t trying to decide if we’d be worth it.

Because He is the worthy one.

And He died and rose again so every cut, scratch, wounded heart, burned body, broken spirit could be called worthy and could be called healed.

There are another handful of “chances” we’ve taken that still feel like dead-ends. But the Worthy One rolled the stone away from dead-ends and called them a new beginning.

Hope is in the hospital.
Hope is everywhere there's faith.

Nandi and her family are not at a dead-end.

Given’s broken body is not a dead-end.

Those abandoned children on the mountain are not at a dead-end.

The immeasurable amount of children and people without identity documents are not at a dead-end.

And you are not at a dead-end.

Let’s praise Him for that today.