"I'd buy 3 breads."

Her hands shook and her voice trembled when she told us she was afraid of the neighbor boys who would come over and shout threats at them through their security bars at night.

Her eyes hit the floor when she said they were hungry. There was just a little maize meal left in the house.

We met Neli and her family over two years ago. Five children on their own, starving, hopeless, living in deplorable circumstances, and whose bodies were battling incurable diseases with no nutrients or food to strengthen them or even hold down their medicine.

Neli, February 2012

Lethu, February 2012

Now there’s a home that is kept immaculately clean by those same five children. They’ve become a functioning family with a loyalty that orphans do not possess. Neli is 22 now, raising her three younger siblings and daughter with pride and joy, while she works her hardest to complete high school.

Visiting team member praying
and tutoring Mpendulo

We have birthday parties; we pray together; we do homework; and they show me their report cards. Because every family needs someone to check report cards.

We talk about what they want to be when they grow up, and what it takes to become that. Even 4-year old Lethu has aspiring, and always changing career goals!

This week, as Neli’s hands shook, voice trembled, and eyes clung to the floor…

And as her family giggled in the yard with my very own church family, who left the comfort of their daily lives to join me in mine and to sit in the dirt in Neli’s …

I asked her the hard questions that only investing years into becoming family would allow me to ask, especially in a culture entrenched with shame and dishonesty.

“Neli, if you had 20 Rand (about $2, USD), what would you buy?”

“I’d buy a bread.”

“But you don’t like bread.”

“But I’m hungry.”

My full stomach lurched.

“Ok, what if you had more than 20 Rand, what would you buy?”

“I’d buy 3 breads.”

My questions pried further and further, breaking every kind of culture rule there was. She kept answering without flinching, even while a white man, a father from my home church, stood with us.

We stood there with that father and talked, and I felt the Father saying, “I’m here. And the Kingdom culture is breaking in today. My Family has gathered.”

We discussed how to go beyond buying 3 breads, how to make wise shopping decisions based on nutrition and her family’s needs. We taught about perfect Love that casts our fear, and joined hands, white and black, in Jesus name to proclaim a hedge of protection over that household.

And then we opened our wallets and funded the feast.

Provision far beyond 3 breads.

Because that’s what happens when the Family gathers.

Water turns to wine.  Three breads and a fish become a buffet with leftovers baskets.

When the Father stands there with us when we talk with shaking hands and floor-locked eyes, even when we talk about empty stomachs while ours are still full, we learn to live off more than 3 breads.

We learn that our Daily Bread and our portion forever, brings fathers, mothers, friends and family from around the world, whose hands seem to be busy hanging doors, laying tiles, serving pap, and comforting children, but are actually busy laying out the banqueting table.

Because the Kingdom is coming and it’s so much more than 3 breads.

Thank you Citymark Church and each one of you who have come from all around the world,  for your hands and your feet and for preparing the way for the feast. 

If you want to come be a part too, click here!

A few preview photos of the feast... Neli's family making New Year's cards and dreaming of their future in January 2014:

Neli

Thuli

Pephile

Lethu

Mpendulo

When a Home-girl speaks...

We can build a house, but we can’t make it HOME.

Well, Carla can build a house. And Brett.

I cannot build a house.

I can help create colorful mosaics that proclaim God’s message of hope and family in those houses, but I cannot fill their residents with hope or adopt the orphaned into His Family.

"Mndeni" means Family. Lizzy and Sifiso's house.

We come with our hands and our feet, with our bricks and our tiles, and we do our part.

We pray that the Real Deal, the treasure Himself who abides within us is leaving a deposit in that house as we build.

We pray that while we work side-by-side with the ones the world pushes aside, a longing space and a meeting place is created within them.

We pray that as they dwell in that house, the One whose promises and love never fails will be invited to dwell in them.

We don’t always know, but we’ll always come in faith.  

Last year, before Sifiso and Lizzy’s house burnt down, Lizzy was being counseled by family and friends to pour herself and her spirit into witchcraft. Into the darkness that swirls and oppresses communities here. Into a lifetime of bearing fear that masks itself as power.

We kept coming. We kept praying. We kept building. We kept living like family long after that mosaic that said “Family” was completed. But we didn’t know.

Lizzy has blown us away with her overflowing compassion for her neighbors. Sifiso continually pours out thankfulness and a desire to give as he has been given to. Lizzy has been co-teaching our new Family Skills class with me. They are living out the life we’ve beckoned to live. But we didn’t know.

Mama Charity, who is preparing to move into her newly constructed home, has stood on the outskirts for years, only daring to gaze from afar at hope and home. Even on the verge of moving into her new, beautiful home and after receiving guidance and education on her identity in Christ, parenting, finances and nutrition, her and her children are living in sickness and in filth.

Lizzy teaching Mama Charity how she budgets her food money.

We held our last day of class in Lizzy’s always-sparkly-clean sitting room. Her hard work in the yard, her home, and her value for herself and her family is always apparent.

You can tell a lot about a person’s sense of HOME in Christ by the way they manage their home on earth. A temporary gift that is our honor and privilege to give sometimes discloses how a homeowner is stewarding an eternal gift that He gave everything for so we could receive.

It was obvious on that last day of class, that Lizzy was grounded in something although she’s been in a spiritual cyclone. The people around her are telling her to turn to witchcraft. The people who built her a house are proclaiming hope in the Way, the Truth and the Life. She’d been reading along in the Bible with us and sending her children to church…

We kept coming, but we did not know. 

But the stark contrast between Lizzy and Mama Charity could not be more obvious. Disheveled Mama Charity sat in silence, while poised Lizzy clearly had something to say.

The class topic was on managing your new home. So I took the backseat and then quickly began taking notes as Lizzy began speaking out her testimony.

After all this time, she had something to say.

“Even my heart, I think, is clean. My house burned, and my name, Lizzy, was more like Lonely. I was like an empty cup. Now my heart is full. I was wishing for my own salon since I was born, but thought my dreams would never come true. Now, this year, I think I will have a salon by the end of the year. I’m so happy. I’m going to teach Mama Charity about this. She can’t be scared. Because I love her; I’m here; I’ll help her.”

I thought my heart would burst.

Lizzy was coming with her hands, her feet, her voice, and her whole heart and she would keep coming. Mama Charity leaned in, head nodding and eyes bulging without her even realizing it. Sitting in a house like she was soon to own, listening to a woman who could understand her better than I could, something was starting to take root.

And then Lizzy looked at me, picked up her Bible, and let me know she wasn’t finished.

She was ready to speak because now it was time for me to know and for Mama Charity to know. It was time to speak out about her Home and let it go deeper in her, and pour out onto the mother beside her who needed it so desperately.

“To be at church is to have God inside your heart. It’s not about going to church with your Bible in your hand. It has to be in your heart. People can talk, but Jesus loves me and I love him.”

People can talk.

But Lizzy finally spoke.

Maybe it’s time for us to speak about our Home too.

It changes everything. 

When Babies Fly

Another Friday morning driving through bumpy, muddy, red roads.

Another Friday morning waiting in home affairs.

Another Friday morning thinking I have at least a small grasp on the realities, the brokenness, and the places of hope-in-the-making around me.

Another Friday morning realizing all of those things I thought were not like I thought at all.

Another Friday morning threatening to make me feel unraveled, wondering what right I had even to step foot on this foreign soil and try to be a part of something when it seems I don’t understand anything.

A thousand moments of eternal value and heart battles were intermingling. In the midst of it all, I bounced a baby on my knee.

 I bounced her while I waited with expectant excitement about a door opening for a family. And while a shame-smothered mother’s deception was revealed by her friends, displacing my hopeful anticipation.

I bounced her while I spoke to these friends about God’s grace, while we while we wondered how to love like Him.

I bounced her still while that deceiving mother confessed, apologized and hung her head. And while I asked her to look in my eyes, quoted His Word that demolishes the power of the chains that bind, and while I told her I will always forgive her.

Between the bounces, I marveled at that baby

Pokasi is one of Esther’s twins. The “little one”.

Two weeks ago, when Pokasi’s mother and baby brother went into the hospital for improper care, malnutrition and starvation, this teensy little twin was left naked and unprovided for with her chubby-cheeked sister in the loving arms of their neighbor, Lizzy. (For more of that story, click here.)

At 19 months, Pokasi was barely sitting up on her own. She was not crawling, much less walking. She wasn’t speaking and hardly had enough nutrition to hold her head up, much less develop properly or enjoy life. After just two weeks with good care, abundant cooing and loving, and living within the safety and security of a home and family, Pokasi is a miracle in the making!

I bounced and beheld in amazement on that Friday morning while she belly-laughed, played, interacted, and stayed active longer than she ever has before. Although she prefers the hip chauffeur service, she can crawl easily, and is now pulling herself up and taking careful, wobbly steps while holding on to something to guide her.

I couldn’t believe it when her five tiny fingers wrapped around mine in the aisle of the home affairs waiting area, and she began taking steps… reaching and resting between the knees of other people waiting. Every stranger-knee she landed on, reached for those filling-out cheeks, eyed her with adoration, and some even picked her up to steal a few bounces for themselves.

Pokasi’s favorite mode of transit, however, is not being carried, crawling, or walking. It’s flying.

It doesn’t matter if she’s in the middle of the most frustrated cry, when that baby goes airborne, she forgets her tears and her laughter flows.

And you better believe that I was that American lady in home affairs who was flying a baby and disturbing the stagnant silence with her baby belly-laughs.

Come on… It’s the best.

In the middle of all the stories waiting in those chairs around me, even on the two rows we occupied, that flying baby reminded me of the day that’s coming.

The joy that makes you forget the tears. The safety in going up higher, not relying on your own power to move, and only being able to rely on the bigger hands to hold you.

I was with one orphaned mother who learned to lie, hide, and give herself away first. One who first learned not to trust any one particular person or parent because they’re not going to stay. And one who first learned to rely on withcraft, ancestral spirits and darkness to access power and healing.

Between this group of mothers, we are caring for 12 children.

Twelve children with the chance to learn how to fly first.

What if they learned to fly in freedom and family before they even encountered the world's trappings or the orphaned spirit? 

The author of our faith rewrites and redeems what we learned first to what will last forever. He’s doing that in these mothers who filled my car and traveled the bumpy roads to home affairs on Friday morning.

Watching the freedom flickers in the eyes of the baby that flies in contrast to the dimming eyes of her mother, I can’t help but think of the TTH shirt: To change a nation, love the children.

Carla wearing the TTH shirt while holding Esther's twins.
Shameless plug: Click HERE to buy this shirt! 

I have to believe in something greater for these babies who are learning to fly first – before they walk, before they talk, before they set their not-yet-blistered feet on those bumpy red roads.

Will the future look different if these children learn to fly in the arms of adoration first?

Can flying babies break off chains that hold us on the ground and bear a future with less shame, less sickness, less poverty, less oppression?

Can these mothers learn how to fly so they can teach their children?

*****Update: That same afternoon, we took the twins to the hospital to see their mom. She wasn't there! Esther and the baby had been discharged, and she had no phone or way to communicate. We searched taxis, paths and houses until we found her. Friday afternoon, Esther's family was reunited. PRAY, PRAY, PRAY because the story has only begun and we have a long way to go! Pray for God's favor as we plan to meet with social workers and seek His greatest good for Esther, Wandile, Millicent, Pokasi and Mangaliso.

Friday afternoon

Eyes on the prize

The word I keep using to describe the last three weeks is “fast”. I'm talking whiplash, whirlwind fast.

Last week I pledged to my team that my prayer for the week was that my affections for Jesus and for others would be apparent at all times. I just remembered that prayer last night. (Which is typically a bad sign.) The nicest way I could grade myself on how I did would be: CRASH AND BURN.

This morning, I brought my anxious thoughts, my over-stimulated, crossed-eyes, and my self-written report card to Him.

There were so many fruit-bearing, hope-proclaiming, thanks-giving kilometers logged on my giant red Condor last week. Yet I didn’t spend my affections the way I spent my gas money. I didn’t pour out my love the way I poured out my every thought and every minute into “the work”.

But how does it all get donnnne, Goooddddddd!?!

All the love. All the people. And all the things and passions You’ve put in my heart to spread it all around. I failed. And I’m sorry.

Right then and there, my betraying mind started racing back over the events and tasks of the past week. Dwelling, reviewing, and making another mental list for next week. The very thing I was committing not do was happening right there mid-prayer-sentence. Oh sheesh. 

As I snapped my attentions back to my Maker, in His gentleness and patience, He reminded me of something that I’d seen over and over again as I raced through the week:The eyes that flickered and sparkled. And, even more memorable, the ones that did not.

Ruth guarded her secrets from the gate of her newly built home, granting us a weary smile as we handed her a bag of clothes for her sons. The house we’d built and always been welcomed into is currently a fortress of pain, caught in a discouraging cycle of brokenness. The eyes that, 6-months ago, had been sparkling and shouting about freedom are now dimmed by bondage.

Ruth's son, Menzi in 2010, when he was living in a dilapidated shack with his mother, who was bearing the burdens of hopelessness and depression.

Caught a little glimpse of the sparkle in Ruth's eyes shining in Menzi in August 2013, when his mom was walking in freedom and joy. 

Five months ago, I wrote a story about the sparkle of hope reaching Esther’s eyes.

One week ago, I wrote about Esther edging her way into an environment of inspiration and hope.

While I was writing that very story, Esther was dropping off her malnourished 19-month old twins at Lizzy’s house - wearing only diapers and with a bottle half-filled with dirty water. She said she was taking her youngest baby to the clinic, and she never came back. Esther and her 7-month old son were taken by ambulance to the local hospital because the baby was dying from starvation and not being treated for HIV.

Esther's twins waiting for HIV testing on the hospital floor.

I have a thing with baby toes. Look how TINY these 19-month toes are!

After one week in the hospital, baby Mangaliso (whose name means Awesome, by the way) is able to cry again, hold his head up, stay alert, and even flash a gummy smile at us every once in a while. He’s got a ways to go, but there’s already amazing improvement!

Mangaliso in September 2013 - 3 months old

Mangaliso after one week in the hospital - Jan 2014. Seven months old.

In this government hospital, mothers are allowed to lodge in the hospital while their infants are being nursed back to health. So Esther is able to eat and be near her baby, although that means she’s left her other two babies in Lizzy’s care and her already-prodigal 10-year old son to his own devices.

Esther feeding Mangaliso his vitamins.

The first time two times we visited Esther this week, her eyes dared a single flicker of excitement and gratitude. I soaked up that temporary spark because it was obvious she was still physically, mentally and emotionally incapable of caring for, responding to, or even recognizing her children’s need. The next time I visited, I rejoiced over Mangaliso’s progress, yet Esther’s head stayed down and her face deadpan. Nothing… nothing was in her eyes.

Esther’s 19-month old, 16-pound twins are improving INCREDIBLY in the loving care of Sifiso and Lizzy and their children. They are clean, well fed and being cooed over constantly. The “big one”, Millicent is walking, talking and laughing. The little one, Pokasi’s distended stomach is improving, cheeks are filling out, starting to crawl, and occasionally releases a smile and giggle.

But their eyes are still dull.

Without hope, without encountering Love that doesn’t waver, eyes stay empty.

Eyes that only see today and don’t know about tomorrow’s promise are desolate and dark.

Eyes show the condition of the heart. They are the measurement of hope.

“The eye is the lamp of the body...” –Matthew 6:22a

In all of the empty eyes I encountered this week, especially in the ones that I had seen full before, I did not lose hope.

I could feel from the depths of my heart that I was being invited into another week of a greater, perfectly authored, and immeasurably higher story. The one that ends with tearless, bright and shiny eyes that never get extinguished.

“Therefore we do not lost heart… we are being renewed day by day… So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” 2 Corinthians 4:16-18

There’s a day coming when there will be no more todays.

The light of our eyes will not be overcome by what’s before us.

There will only be forever’s Eternal Light, glory, and dance parties.

“Never again will they hunger;

never again will they thirst.

The sun will not beat upon them, nor any scorching heat.

For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd;

He will lead them to springs of living water.

And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

Revelation 7:16-17

If I fix my eyes on that, on what I can’t see today, I can keep going.

If I see the end of the story instead of the end of the week, I can breathe in His peace and out His promises.

I can let Love take the lead instead of my lists.

I can keep inching into shutdown homes and holding screaming babies as they get tested for HIV.

I can keep celebrating tiny miracles and expecting sparkles to return to empty eyes.

“…let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross…” Hebrews 12:1b-2a

The Author of the story, the One who wrote the happily ever after we were created for, nudges me even now and reminds of that report card I wrote for myself this morning. That same One who hung on a cross to redeem my every shortcoming says I don’t get to write my report card.

He already died and rose again. He already overcame death, anxiety, physical and mental limitations, broken love, selfishness, longings, starvation, sickness, darkness, and every other perishing thing.

I could never measure up, so He did for me.

He did it for Ruth, for Esther, and for all the others who haven’t yet grasped the joy set before them. He did it for you too. And He invites us to be Light-eyed, loved, known, cherished, and provided-for characters in a story full of humps and bumps that set the perfect cadence for the very greatest ending.