"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