Shine_____Shine! You belong to us!

Friends and Family-- i just become more and more overwhelmed by all of your prayers covering our team over this trip as the days go on. Today, we've been back for two weeks and that is pushing the limit for timely blogging I know. There is just so much to tell you about the last week, not to mention all that I'm trying to process about what God is/was doing in my heart. Mind boggling really. I'm going to give it a good try though! I'm feeling pretty convicted about my level of openess as of late...so I'm gonna lay it out there as much as possible. Be warned.


The last blog I was coming off of my elephant high :). I know this may seem absurd to some of you, but I know that whole experience was from the Lord. A little kiss from above if you will. Precious. It really signified for me a long line of moments lately when the Hope of what God is doing in my life right now has completely covered the confusion. It has been a while since hope has outweighed confusion....I'm so thankful. I'm holding on to that. Ironically (or not), our shirts for the trip had Restored Hope on them along with my life scripture passage (Isaiah 58:9-12...check it out if you want your world rocked). I'm starting to get a clearer picture of what that is supposed to look like in my life-- Restoring the Hope of Jesus to the world-- and this trip played a huge role in that clarity. Beyond that (or before that?) though Jesus is taking me to the mats on some things...areas in my life that I've given up that Hope in exchange for something else, something I'm in more control of and requires less Trust. Pride and Trust is what is comes down to, and thier opposition. I've gotta admit too, it really hurts my pride to say that I've got a problem with it! ha. My pride does not want to admit any of this to myself, much less any of you. There in lies the need to do so I think.

These past two years between trips to Africa have been a struggle honestly. I've struggled with lies about who I am and who God has made me, and even with who God is in my life, how he speaks to me and works in my life. Lies that in order for lives to be changed I must work harder, do better, be more.(does this sound familar to anyone who knows me well?)Before this trip I could recognize the fruit of those lies--striving, anxiety, joylessness, mistrust, feeling emmense pressure from people--but I could not recognize the root. I saw over this last month how my inclination again became to do rather than pray, talk rather than listen, fix rather than trust--and thus, felt all that yuck again . These are all things that had subsided for me over the past few months of my new transistion-- and as a result I hadn't dealt with at all. Why I was suprised it all came rushing back in my face in Africa, I'm not sure. I felt unable in all ways to lead this trip well. (HARD for me to deal with and accept! Leading excellently is a part of who I am and something I value highly) But at the same time I felt God just calling me to More Trust over and over. I tried. I am trying. Still after being home, I will think of something that came up with team members or a situation with the kids and I just KNOW what Good Leader Julie would have done...should have done, but couldn't. Why is so hard for me to believe that the creator of the universe can move without and inspite of me? Yeesh Weaver. All I know how to do now is keep trusting and pouring out my heart to God about that--which is even difficult most times. Please hold me in your prayers about all of this. God isn't through with me yet on this I know. But I also feel so assured that there is purpose behind all of it. That this JUNK that I feel like I've dealt with before is centrally tied in to my calling...that this healing is vitally important.
You all have my permission to hold me accountable to work through this. And to remind me I said that...

Now, enough with me. Here is what happened the last week at GGA. It was a doozie.

Funerals and Urns
Sadly, Monday morning after we returned from our safari one of the GGA staff passed away unexpectedly. Peter had been with GGA and Heather and Patrick since the beginning and realy had no other family besides the GGA family due to some achohol problems he battled. He helped raise all the kids from the time they were babies and really sick and so it was devestating for everyone. Obviously, i didn't know Peter that well, but from my interactions with him over both trips he was such a kind and gentle man. Two of the volunteers, Julian and Charlie (who I wrote about earlier) were the ones to find him. It was such a heartbreaking situation, but I was broken for Charlie. I can't imagine dealing with that and having no hope of anything more than this life.

The funeral was on the Saturday before we left all day long. It was such an incredible holy event. (and really really long...even more so since I held a 3 year old the entire time...more on that to come) Beautiful words were spoken, beautiful music sung, and many many people stood to speak to what an blessing Peter had been to them. I had to pray at the funeral...when Heather asks, I can't say no. Talk about being nervous! I don't get nervous about praying...but I've never prayed at a funeral, much less for someone I don't know before! Andrew was asked to sing and he sang "Give me Jesus" which was beautiful and holy too. He got a lot of Gogo points for that one...they were YEBO!ing all over the place (which means yes).

All in all the funeral, plus graveside (where you wait until the casket has been covered by first logs, then a tarp, then the dirt filled in with shovels), and huge meal for all present lasted about 5 hours. During the service...almost three hours....I had Mballi on my lap and Andrew had Asanda. They are 3. I don't know if you've ever held a 3 year old on your lap through a 3 hour funeral...but it is challenging. I had to take Mballi out twice during the funeral because she was understandable acting up. I had to channell some Max Weaver (not that he had to ever take ME out of church ;)...and I think I did him proud.

After the graveside there is a ritual in zulu culture that you take part in on your way to the meal. There are two buckets of water: one dirty, and one clean. First you wash your hands in the dirty (I was told to signify both remembering your sin and that of the deceased) and then in the clean (to signify the good overcoming the bad or Christ's cleansing of us). All explanations I got for the ritual I thought were beautiful.

Funerals are not fun. But I was so thankful we were there. To be extra arms to hug kids and that kind of thing. My little Suziwe (girl on my face in my facebook picture) was so upset and crying so hard her nose started bleeding. Poor babies.

A funny funeral story...Myrtle (Heather's sister and manager of the orphanage) called me one day and asked if we could buy and urn for the funeral because the one that they had 'just wouldn't do'. So...of course I said yes! And i was trying to be a grown up about having to go with Charlie to pick out an urn for a man's funeral that I didn't know very well. Well, we had dinner with Heather and Patrick (or Heath and Pat as Katie liked to call them haha) that same night and Heather thanked me for offering to buy the urn. Sure no problem. Over the course of the meal she started telling us a story about how Peter always wanted to be cremated (is that spelled right?) but she didn't care because he was gone and didn't have a say anymore (ha!), but they kept having all this trouble with digging the grave. We all looked at each other and Donna said "Then why are we buying an urn!?" and Heather yells "WHAT URN!?!" Melissa goes "ughhh....this is awkward!" and we all were really uncomfortable. I finally said "the urn that myrtle asked us to buy" and Patrick says "a WATER urn". hahahhahah. We laughed so hard that Heather said she may wet herself. Thankfully I found out I was supposed to by a hot water urn and not an URN urn before Charlie and I went to the store. Yikes.

Beach Day
On Sunday we took all the kids to the beach and it may have been the biggest nightmare of my entire life :). Not only did one of the GGA vans get stolen, but we (the group volunteers who are not actually in charge of the kids and don't know all of their names) were the only ones with the kids on the bus and therefor the only ones with the kids when we arrived. As kids do, they all needed the restroom and we had to take them, but then had even less clue about where the 'real volunteers' were! It was a nightmare for a few hours...we got seperated, didn't know where all teh kids were, and when we finally found Charlie and the group all the volunteers besides him were just sitting around chilling. AGH. The youth minister in me was stressed out...and the 3rd grade teacher in Katy was stressed out and so we left to go shop. :) True Americans. The bus ride was fun though! Amahle (who I want to steal) sat with me as well as Chummy, Tombiso, and Longello (there were 3 seats) and asked me who my friend was that sang at the funeral. I said 'Andrew' and he proceeded to mock Andrew's western style of trained singing...it was hysterical and pretty accurate. On the way home all the boys were sleeping and drooling all over. me. Good times.

Those are the big things...I'm getting very tired of typing! A few other bullet point highlights:

* Seeing Thula Sizwe the musical about AIDS that the GGA choir performs again.
*Taking Awkward Family Photos on the set of Thula Sizwe
*Getting proposed to/love professed to 3 times by the end of that week
*Andrew and Melissa's awesome performance of Ain't No Mountain in the Doval
* Throwing away our nasty work shoes, gloves, and clothes on Tuesday because we though it was our last day of work due to a strike on Wednesday...the strike was a hoax.
* Visiting the valleys with Julian and Charlie-- seeing GGA's pre-school Crafcor which does and excellent job with very little, seeing the house my team built two years ago (IT IS SO CUTE! It made me tear up), and visiting a zulu 'public' school...way overcrowded and in disrepair.

The kids at the public school all greeted us by name and said "Shine Julie, Shine! You belong to us!" Afterall...we are all in this together.

I need a hug. Julie