I WILL ARISE (Part 2)

This is what Natalie had to write about us on her website: www.nataliespera.com on 20 August 2008.

Um this is me speechless….
August 20, 2008
“So someone please, for me, make yourself a tea (or coffee) and enjoy a story with me! It was last Saturday and HPC Swazi was having Servolution for the first time in our brief little history and I met several amazing people but these 2 in particular were REALLY amazing. Have you had those encounters? You know when you see someone from across the room and are like, I GOTTA MEET THEM, yeah>>>>> so that is how this was. Throughout the day I was just mesmerized by this couple. PRECIOUS and SOLOMON!”
“They had a glow about them. Like I could see the bit of Jesus creeping through their smiles, coming from the sweetness of their eyes. I was SO INTERESTED! I needed to meet them, to talk to them. I don’t know who participated in Servolution on that side, in America, but if it was like over here…. YOU WERE BUSY! So the day concluded and I had still not formerly met the two. But I did get this pic from behind… I love shots like this….”

“The next day was church and I was so excited to see them sitting in their chairs, all three this time… Solomon, Precious and their new baby Nanette. I think I scared them by the way I approached them…. ‘HEY, I AM NATALIE!!!!!!’ Eyes wide and JOY spilling out onto them I am sure of it. I had to contain myself. I was just like way TOO bubbly and well if you know me I am far from bubbly!!!!”
“So I didn’t say but the outreach we did was in a very very poor area of Mbabane. It is called Msunduza and it is THE GHETTO! Honestly guys I have been in Mbabane for 7 months and I have never even driven in that area until last Friday when we went to scope out where we would be outreaching. My heart jumped and flipped and sang the whole time we were there. I couldn’t get over it. Poverty to the 10th power, broken people, lots of trash and MAJOR opportunity to be a HEALING PLACE FOR A HURTING WORLD! So it just so happens that this couple lives in this area. So my wheels were turning…. I HAD TO GET BACK and SOON!”
So back to Sunday>>>>>>
“So I asked if it would be alright if Precious could come by the office so I could give her something. Of course they agreed and so here we are… TODAY….. the 19th of August 1 o’clock, 1:30 Swazi time Precious shows up. Nanette on her side and a stunning smile on her face. I was excited, I talked about basics that we could get for the GoGo (grandmother) in the community there that we served on Saturday. After that, I offered to bring her home with the grocery bag of chicken I got her to come visit me for. We were off and my heart was OVERFLOWING at this point.”
“Thoughts of the ghetto danced in my head. So I stopped by one of my FAVORITES, the fruit stand on the side of the road, and picked her up some bananas and oranges, spent 20 rand which is like 3 bucks and she got like 12 oranges and probably 15 bananas. I just wanted to bless her (not me, the LORD wanted to bless her),it was a small gesture but to her it was everything. I got back in the car and went on about how I LOVE fruit sooooo much and she was like, ‘I can’t remember the last time I had a fruit’. She went on to tell me that sometimes they don’t eat (Solomon and her) and then she shared that at times the only thing they have to feed the baby is water with sugar and salt. My heart broke. Thoughts of how I NEVER miss a meal, most of the time eating way more than even needed swarmed my mind. I felt ridiculous. She then started assuring me of how the Lord is making the baby fat even while just drinking water. I looked in the back seat at the plumpest cheeks I have seen in awhile and I knew it was the TRUTH…. the Lord is feeding your baby I said. My heart realized just how special EVERY PERSON’S life is to Him. How do I forget how He provides for me… continually… throughly, to the point of abundance He takes care of me.”
-SELAH-
“So we arrived to the what seemed to be the end of the road and I parked the car and we started up a hill on foot. I felt so ALIVE! I can’t explain it, where some would think this is the pits, I was fully engaged in her every word. Wanting to know the details… (that sounds like someone I know… the Lord… He cares about the details of our lives). We made it up to the top. Along the way she told me that the people there talk about her and Solomon, call them dogs and other mean things. My heart ached for her. I mean she is like a BEAUTIFUL woman and mother and nothing but goodness and then you have these people, this resistance, it’s SO THE ENEMY!!! I apologized to her for the pain she had to deal with and she goes on to tell me, ‘we go through these bad situations so that we will be stronger after they pass’… I want to cry now while I think back unto those words. I mean, ya’ll you can’t understand where I was walking… in the poorest of the poor and I hear this angel tell me that it is all worth it all and hope, hope and MORE hope! I was soaking it up.
We got to her homestead and I went in with her. One queen size bed. Dim, no electricity. A cabinet with rust all over it, a smell that wasn’t pleasant and Precious with Nanette and me. I sat on the only place besides the floor to sit, the bed, and I just turned it all off. The world outside the door. The neighbors talking, the kids crying the busyness of the day…. OFF……”
“We sat awhile. I just had question after question and she had answer after answer. She told me that her family was wealthy, still are and that she left it all to be with Solomon. She fell in love but has never known life as she does now, POOR. Cooking outside, living in a homestead… basically praying to keep alive. She told me how she was a model and how Solomon “saved” her from the life she was living with the alcohol and all the other harmful things she was involved with. He is a Pastor or was and is planning on becoming one again when the time is right. We had fun on that bed, in that room they call a home. I prayed for her and Solomon and we then spoke of the hope in their hearts for getting out of that place and into more suitable living. She told me about how the Lord is providing for them by finding HPC here and now Solomon working at Cup. AMEN to THAT!!!!”
“We started back to the car now. She brought me around back to see where they cook. A couple of pots, some broken up wood and that was about it…. ‘that’s the kitchen’…. she said. She told me she was not worried about the people talking about how they cook outside and live like dogs, she was so unmoved by the lies… her TRUST and HOPE was in someone far greater than those mere words. She pointed to this awful looking thing, that’s the bathroom, 4 wood poles and some plastic to make the walls was all I was looking at. She said she doesn’t use it unless she is REALLY pressed (don’t know if that is #2 or if it just means she has to pee pee REALLY bad). She went on and told me she usually pees in a bucket and well I didn’t get much more details than that.”
Our next stop was the GoGo’s house. On the way, she pointed out the creek where they get water from… yeah…. scary….. “you have to go during the day because they rape and kill young girls down there”. RRRRRiiiiiggghht…. I will remember that. WHAT? Not only is the water far from reasonable drinking water but you might die while going to fetch it…. I am like, this is your life…. this is what you wake up to daily? In awe and so overwhelmed with feelings of being more than blessed I listened. She said not too far after the creek comment, “I like living like this, it’s sortof exciting”… WHAT? I laughed, really. She was so serious and I knew it. “Adventure” I said. The weight lightened on my shoulders. She was secure in this, she was stronger than I and she used the word, “DETERMINED”. They were a living example of strength and hope to me. It is like you are on an adventure hey? Really, it sorted sounded fun and appealing when I started putting myself in her shoes. Yeah, having to wear heels to walk miles in because your only other pair of shoes, flats, are completely wiped. Praying to the Lord for 4 rand (less than a dollar) to take transport into town to meet this crazy American girl who wants to give you something???? And did I mention she had PEACE all over her and the assurance she had in Him and His plans for helping her…. to make a way to get out of the ghetto, to make a way so they could be pastor’s and lights in this dark world, so they could feed themselves regularly… yeah all of this does sound like a much needed adventure to be had!”
We arrived at GoGo’s. The playground where Cup’s newest carepoint will be is right across the road. Up the hill we went. She was sitting on a a grass mat of some sort and completely content in watching the world go on around her. We walked up to her. Me BIG SMILES! Precious told her that Zinty and I would be coming back on Saturday to give her some items and cook her lunch… I am contemplating washing her feet…. she was ELATED. There was 80 something years of smiling on her face and my heart was filled as Precious translated her gratitude.”
“The children were all around. Once again I found myself in a moment of pure bliss. I have such a great life. Listening to the struggles of Precious and hearing hope come from her made me wonder what I make all sorts of fuss about. I know the Lord is doing something NEW in my heart. I keep hearing about the number 8 and how it represents ‘NEW things’. On August (8th month) 8th, 2008 I feel like the Lord did indeed do a new thing in my life.”
“I left Mbabane to go to JoBurg for Passion. I left with close friends and came back with even closer ones. We had a celebration at that place. In my heart was the biggest one of all. The message is still fresh in my mind and soul. I have gleaned from it since and I feel that the Lord has just been pouring more and more into me as the days have passed on. It’s been two weeks and I am just seeing how much of life I want and finding out how it is NOT ABOUT ME AT ALL and everything to do WITH HIM. Making HIM KNOWN. That is seriously my heart’s cry at this point. Psalms 84… “I would rather be a gatekeeper in the house of the Lord rather…..”" That is where He had me this morning. You know? I don’t have this “vision” per say, not just yet anyway, BUT I do have this undying, consuming fire sort of PASSION for Him and ANYTHING that has to do with Him that is a lot like Jeremiah says, ‘fire within my bones and I am weary of holding it in’”’
“ YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN… I just know that this life is too short, like a passing wind… here and then not…it is all meaningless without Him oh …. it is all meaningless and all I want is to shout from the mountain tops that it is ALL BECAUSE OF HIM THAT ANYTHING MATTERS!!!!! Oh, I am so desperate for that, for Him to be known, for Natalie to be less and for Him to BE ALL….. Father help me. Show me the way, guide my feet, level the mountains and above all else bring your Kingdom here to earth…. Unto you be ALLLLLLLLLLLLL the GLORY!!!!”
“So that was a good 2 hours of my day and another 2 was writing all of this. I am so encouraged. I am so delighted you listened to their story, I have more to tell. I know that I must share what I have been given. I want to point people to Him… to give hope to the hopeless… to declare that indeed we have a living, real God, a father who is crazy about us and who wants to be our Dad, our Lover, our true love, our One and Only…. Do you feel me???”
Here is the Precious I spoke about and her beautiful baby Nanette!

And the precious GoGo… yes, I left a piece of my heart there with SaMaria… here’s to life and old people…