WORDS: January 2010

So today I have come back from Liberia for a second time. 2 years ago I would have never guessed it, but what can I say? My life has become kinda ridiculous in a good way. I went to Africa this time with some of my favorite people in the whole world. It was an excellent trip. Today, I have just taken as much time as possible to rest before school starts up again on Tuesday. We all definately poured ourselves out and came back exhausted, but I like it that way. It will take me at least a few days to get acclimated to this time zone, this culture, and my "real life". Right now though, I've been home less then 24 hours. I've slept almost half that time, and I'm still partly in Africa. Give me a couple more days and I'll really be back.

Here's a story. God has grown my view of intercession.

I have had the incredible experience of going to Liberia two years in a row now. Last year Belynn, Stacey, Emily and I went with Orphan Relief and Rescue to one of the worst ophanages in Liberia. It really was horrendous. There was just an old woman taking care of nearly 60 kids. They slept side by side on dirty moldy mattresses. There was not a toy,or even a color in sight other then the bright green trees and the old charished American clothes that each child wore. They were children with parasites in their toes and almost no loving discipline or schooling. A child without an education has extremely limited potential in any place in the world. Liberia is no exception. We spent just a couple hours there giving them "new" clothes and playing and singing with them. After a brutal civil war, and being labeled one of the poorest counties in the world there are certain people that have no voice-- the orphans.

They had no voice and no hope. All we had done for them is give them new T-Shirts, and what does that really do? We did also pray for them, and that is what this story is about--the power of prayer. God communicates and moves mightily through prayer. He brings hope to the hopeless. I remember praying that God would be their Father, and their provider, and that he would give them an education.

Here we are in 2009 praying over the kids at this orphanage.

THIS IS MY GOD

"But you, O God, do see trouble and grief; you consider it to take it in hand. The victim commits himself to you; you are the helper of the fatherless... You hear, O LORD, the desire of the afflicted; you encourage them, and you listen to their cry, defending the fatherless and the oppressed, in order that man, who is of the earth, may terrify no more." Psalm 10:14,17-18

This year, while we were once again driving the streets outside of Monrovia, I kept my eyes open for the orphanage that we had gone to the year before. We drove past it a couple of times before I recognized it. The dingy grey cement walls had been painted bright white and red. There was a large logo painted on the front wall, and a new swing set was out in the front. Later when I talked with Andrew from Orphan Relief and Rescue, he told me that now a woman has come in there and started a school for the children. I hardly recognized it when I saw it because it had changed so much. God brought them hope.

It took me until the car ride back to the house to put two and two together, and realize what had happened. God answered my prayers! Last year that orphanage was so hopeless and so far gone that all we knew how to do was pray, and God responded. God gave me the gift of seeing that answered prayers with my own eyes.

While in Liberia, we ministered to the abused, the orphan and the poor, and we found that Jesus was there greeting us into his home with them.

Here's some video's from this year's trip: Enjoy!