THANK YOU!!!

On behalf of Kingstar Schools, and Sophia's Journey. Thank you all so much for your prayers and support. God has blessed Kigamboni with a beautiful kingstar schools primary building! 

They Still have some work to do. Like play equipment and painting the outside of the building, but the students finished the last three weeks of the semester in the new building! They are so happy to be in the new school, and I am so thankful for Sophia's Journey supporters! 

These are pictures from June! 

 

 

And these are photos from Graduation in November! 

And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all 

things at all times, having all that you need, you will 

abound in every good work! 2 Corinthians 9:8

Thank you lord!! 

God always knows what we need!

God never stops amazing me! and the story I have for you tonight... I would have NEVER seen coming! 

So today I found out the hard way how sharp my apple cutter really is. I sliced a pretty good size chunk off of the side of my thumb, that continued to bleed for several hours, until my parents and I decided to make a trip to the ER, hoping they would have a way to get my blood to clot! After a couple of hours in the waiting room I finally made my way to the back, Dr. glued my finger and I was all ready to go home. I know I know, "Is she seriously blogging about her ER experience?" But just give me a second God is about to show up!!! 

So my discharge nurse comes back in and starts going over the things I need to do. "Don't get it wet, don't do this don't do that.." Then I jump in and begin asking questions that I have about the protection of it while in Africa in 3 weeks. My nurse's whole manner changed, and with tears in her eyes began to tell me about her experience in Ethiopia in the past. Sitting on the side of the bed with me, exchanging contact information she then says "You don't know how bad I needed you tonight." 

I honestly know those words all to well. I like to call those state of minds "just one of those nights" When everything inside of you just aches to be back where your heart is, to be back with those people and back to where God is working moving and breathing! That state of mind for me is some of the hardest moments for me, and I can tell you from experience, only GOD can pull you out of that place! 

But see that Is what I love the most about our relationship with God! HE ALWAYS KNOWS what we need and he will do some of the coolest things to give us what he need. He will allow things to happen, put people on our path, to warm our hearts and show us how much he loves us and that he is still in control! 

Although I would have rather meet Melissa any other way then going through that pain, I am so blessed that God used me in that ER room to be the light in her night! and I am so thankful that God continues to put me in situations where he is able to show me that this path he has me on is full of exciting twist and turns and that It is going to be a fun ride, and I am going to meet some pretty amazing people along the way!! 

So take a second to remember GOD KNOW WHAT WE NEED!  No matter what you are going through in this very moment ! GOD has something in the future for you that is going to blow your mind! He loves you so much and is ready to romance you through this struggle, you just have to trust him! :D 

Good night All 

Love you! 

Clay Can't Mold Its Self Into Something Beautiful

God has been showing me something lately that I think is time I share!
It all started when I "Lost" My "Best Friend" a few weeks ago. After a small argument of Facebook I was deleted from his friends list, and we haven't spoken since. Before when I have "lost" friends I would sit and sulk for days, cry and think back through everything trying to find what I did wrong, all while doing and saying anything in my power to get them back. I have never been good with change, and or losing people out of my life!
But this time... I simply took it to the lord, laid it at his feet, and he showed me this.
God uses different people, at different times in your life as tools to make you into who he wants you to be.
When you are doing pottery, you don't just use your hands the whole time. Sometime you use some tool to add the designs and detail that you want. Well the friends, loved ones, and really any relationship you find your self in, those people God uses as the tools in your life to create your beauty. Each of them, God brings into your life for a certain purpose. Some tools he uses everyday, and some are only for a short period of time. BUT that does not mean when God is done using them for that purpose at that time, that he will not use them again. You do not lose them like I used to think but instead they just get set to the side until God is ready to use them in your life again!
Clay can not mold itself, it needs someone to take control and create what it is supposed to be. GOD is the potter and the people he brings in and out of your life are the tools to help make you beautiful!
Love and be thankful for those people, because they truly are the ones that have made you to who you are!
I know I do!

Education is the key to life

"We give them God, for a better eternity and English for a better future"

I can't even begin to count how many times I have heard, "Reba, why are you helping them when their are poor, and poverty here in America" or "Why are they so behind, they have access to the same things we do" or the one that kills me the most, "Reba, it's there fault they are in poverty." (Yes I have heard that many times) To be completely honest, in the beginning of this journey... I asked myself the same questions. BUT God has recently answered these questions, and I am now here to do the same, and show you the IMPORTANCE of the sponsorship needed for Kingstar school!

I want you to think really hard about this question, "what is the one thing in this world that it is impossible to go your life without?"
While most of you probably thought food, water, or maybe even a material thing.... Your wrong!"
Okay, maybe water is the number one thing besides air. There is something that you have to have in order to get food..." That is an education, in order for that food to be grown/Made/cooked how ever you want to look at it, someone had to learn and then teach someone else that process.

In America, we have lost the importants of education because it is a natural thing. It is extremely rare for an American to not spend years 3-18 in some type of education system! Public school, Primary School, Home School. An American child/Teen spends at least 13 years in some type of school. That is just what happens, no questions about it. Why? Because we know(subconsciously) that if we do not go through school, we will not EVER be able to be successful in life.
In Africa, it is not the same case. For years Africans have lived "normal"(in there culture) without attending any type of education what's so ever. And in earlier times, this might have been okay. But this is the 21st Centerury, and lets face it.... Education is what makes the world go round!!
Although some of these African parents realize the importance of education, there is also issue number two... They just can not afford it. Some of these parents make barley enough money to put food on the table, much less be able to pay the school fees that are required at ANY school in Africa.
Again you ask, we'll why can't they afford it? Because maybe they have not had any education, therefore they do not have a job, or anyway to send there child to a school.... Thus adding another generation into this devistating cycle, that unless fixed will continue on for years to come.

In life, American children, African children, Japanese children, British children ALL children MUST learn how to read, they must learn how to write, add, subtract, multiply, divid. If they do not know how to do this, then there is NO way to live a successful life! This statement is true for any country,race or culture! Education is the key to life.

So Reba, why are you helping them when their are poor, and poverty here in America" Because Americans are given the ability to go to school for free. Yes I understand that there are MANY American families who unable to buy school supplies,clothes,food. Just like Africans, But a child in America will NEVER be turned away from receiving an education, education is free! 

This is why finding sponsors for these kids is so Important. There are tons of kids sitting in Kigamboni Tanzania Africa right now who are not in school, they are sitting some where not in a class room, and right now they have no hope at ever getting out the cycle of poverty. 
Deuteronomy 24:19-22 
When you harvest your grain and forget a sheaf back in the field, don’t go back and get it; leave it for the foreigner, the orphan, and the widow so that God, your God, will bless you in all your work. When you shake the olives off your trees, don’t go back over the branches and strip them bare—what’s left is for the foreigner, the orphan, and the widow. And when you cut the grapes in your vineyard, don’t take every last grape—leave a few for the foreigner, the orphan, and the widow. Don’t ever forget that you were a slave in Egypt. I command you: Do what I’m telling you.

If you go back and read my blog titled "YoU own nothing" it talks about how God is the owner of everything, he gives you the clothes you wear,  the job you have, and the money you make! It is HIS!!
Now I want to ask you a question..  Do you really think that it makes God happy to see his beloved children suffering, hungry and living life without any hope of success? Because God is the creator of all things! And he LOVES ALL of his creations!

I ask that you will take this time to pray about your leftovers, and ask God what he wants you to do with them.

If I had a teleport!

If I had a teleport... I would not be sitting in my bed right now, I would be standing here

 At the morning assembly of the first day of the last semester of 2013 of Kingstar School!! 

Laying in my bed tonight I received a photo of Seba, one of my students, my little brother, my sweet boy! 

Immediately a smile comes across my face! 

I asked, "did he know you we're taking his picture for me?" My friend says "yes!!! I told him teacher Reba needs your photo, and he asked me if you were inside or if you would be at school today, and I told him no, she is at her home!" After already feeling my heart break he sends "Seba misses teacher Reba" 

Yep, my heart now lays here shattered into a million pieces!! And by looking at this photo my biggest fear is coming true!! He has grown soooo much! Seriously it's only been 54 days since I left... He is going to be HUGE by time I get there in November!! Ha If I had a teleport, I would have at that moment jumped out of bed and been at his side in minutes!! 

I then began to left up all my students in prayer, and I ask that if you are reading this I ask you to do the same thing!!
Following my prayer time I  called my dear friend, teacher Terry! She didn't make it any easier, she just told me that she wishes I was there with her! :( ME TOO!!
With tears streaming down my face I hung up, with a heavy heart I lay here. BUT although I do not have a teleport to rush to my babies! I do have hope and thankfulness!
I mean it could be worst... I could have never meet these sweet kids, I could have never been blessed to have this connection to people 10000 miles away from me!! So although I lay her with a heavy heart, it is heavy because of the most amazing blessings God could have EVER given me!!

80 more days. And I will be back at that place, back where my heart is! But until then, I must remember why God has me here in Gun Barrel City Texas.. Living at home, going to school to get my teaching degree, so that one day, I will be standing in that place! Getting ready to teach those kids!! And THAT is the ONLY reason I am okay with not having a teleport!! :) hahaha

Gods plans for our live are RIDICULOUS!! if you just submit EVERYTHING to him, give it all back to him! He will one day give you back MORE then you could ever imagine!!

YoU Own Nothing!

Tonight Im reading Job 1. I have read this book many times and it is one of my favorite stories in the bible! I remember the first time I read it, thinking " wow! I want to be JUST like Job! So faithful and trusting in God that even when he allows the hardest challenges to face me, and I lose everything.. I will be so in love with him that I am able to still praise him!" I knew at the time, I was no where near that. And even now to this day, I am still not like job. I mean come on guys! He lost EVERYTHING all of his flock, all of his Harvest, all of his children! Everything that mattered to him in life... It was gone! But instead of sobbing and saying why me why me, he fell on his face and praised God! 

We truly become blessed when we realize we own NOTHING we have NOTHING, it is really all Gods! Everything you have, car, house, food, job, Family, bed, phone, computer, eyes, hands, seriously EVERYTHING belongs to God! He had given this two you! There is not one thing that is or has been made, that is not from God! 

And as it says at the end of Verse 21 "The Lord gave and The Lord has taken away" The Lord gives and The Lord takes away! He is in control! And when he takes it away, you have to remember that it is him who gave it to you in the first place, so praise him for the time and the blessing it was on your life! :D 

Be like Job! 

I know it's hard, just recently I have had to deal with this all myself. I went from Talking to Max everyday, to only getting to talk to him on Saturdays(so I thought) Really I don't know when we will get to talk, he is so busy working and studying for school that he really never has time to talk.. At first I was heart broken! Honestly mad, because this is not what I expected our relationship to be like! BUT then, I realized, how lucky and blessed I am to even have him in the first place. I mean think about it, the number of Africans that go to college is very small! But he is now in that number! And his dreams are so big! But not too big for our God, and he trust and believes that he will help him reach his dreams! With realizing that, on the days I don't get to talk to him, I am able to joyfully stop and praise God for even bringing Max into my life as my best friend!! 

So the next time you feel like you are losing or have lost something, think of Job and how he reacted! Then do the same! 

 Bwana Asifiwe

Praise The Lord! 

He never gives up on us!

Do you ever picture your life as an actual race? Watching yourself run up hills, rush through valleys, fall down, want to give up? 

The race of life is not easy, at all! But we as Christian are promised a partner to help us run. Our Partner is strong, he has ran this same race before and he has conquered it, he has defeated it! This partner is God! But we also have an enemy who is constantly throwing rocks at our feet, making us trip and stumble! 

Today if I could sit and watch how I ran today, I would be pretty embraced. Starting out good, a steady pace. But when I began to speed up the enemy began to throw rocks at my feet. He threw sorrow, and fear. And I quickly fell to the ground crying in pain, feeling unable to breath my partner ran up beside me, took my hand and helped me back on my feet. He spoke words of encouragement and strength. I stood up, taller then before and began to run again, with a look of praise across my face. But of course my enemy could not allow that. So he through the rock of insecurity, and this time I nose dived into the ground. I did not want to get up, I just laid there in despair. But my partner again, he ran up beside and pulled me to my feet, discouraged I fell back to the ground, and I knew my enemy thought he had me! But my partner would not give up. He told me I could do it and all I had to do was trust him. Unwillingly I stood to my feet and began to run again. Time passed and my enemy continued to throw stone and each time I would fall and just like before my partner rushed to my side for comfort and strength! But then my enemy knew he could make me fall and not stand again. So he began to throw more stones of impatience and insecurity. I began to fall but this time my partner caught me early, he grabbed me and said "no Reba your fine! Do you not see that I have a plan for you, and while these rocks and falls are painful, these struggles seem not worth the pain, I have a reason for the struggles! I allow them to hit you to make you stronger!" I stood back up right and smiled in victory as I began to run to the finish line of today! 

You see, no matter how many times I fell, how many times I just wanted to give up. My partner never let me! He never gave up on Me and continued to love and give me the strength I needed! 

Remember this Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. (Hebrews 12:1 NLT)