Seasons are changing…

As we drive around Harare, I see the street vendors have started to sell blow-up rubber duck floaties for the pool and that can indicate only one thing… it’s becoming summer around here. Summer brings for us an eventual end to our time here. Rubber duck floaties become a sad reminder that our time here is almost done. Though I look forward to America and all the “luxuries” it affords us, I am sad to see our time here come to an end. It is, of course, the people we will miss most… Patience, Baba Office, Mickey, Angie and Lin... Ohh! How my heart aches at the thought of not seeing these people every day! In Sanyati, people come and go in your home constantly and though this was one of the hardest things to get used to I have to say that will be what I miss most… Watching as Chloe does “milk time” (not tea time, because the “tea is too hot”) with Patience and Baba Office, having the teams over for dessert night, sharing a dinner with Mickey and Angie and Lin, watching as Chloe gets a ride on Patience’s back, watching Paige and Kate play with their friends outside… ohhh! It will be hard to say goodbye. So hard to think about not seeing these wonderful people tomorrow, like usual… hard to know that we won’t be in the next planning session for ministry here. Life will go on here- it is just hard to know you won’t be a part of it. Patience says “Emotions just mean you’re alive” and by that definition- I am VERY alive lately! Haha! I know it’s time to go though… God has given me peace about it. It is time. The house we are staying in is our temporary home and that was always understood…at some point “temporary” means you need to move on to the next phase of life and that’s what we’ll do. I feel very blessed by God that I got to experience these last 6 months here and that my family as a whole got to do this adventure together. Living in the bush in Africa is hard, I won’t deny, but the lessons it taught me, the experiences I got to have made every moment without power and every gross spider worth it. I will miss you Sanyati. May God bless you and keep you. May He walk among you and shower you with love. I will cherish every moment, every memory… and until I see you again, in this world or the next, we will praise the Lord together for all He has done here. Amen.

Rashel, with love

The Ultimate Sundowner

It is hard to believe that our time in Sanyati is coming to a close.  Lately, the sunsets here have been remarkable.  I borrowed the title of this post from a billboard in Harare.  I forget what it was advertising but it shows the differences between British English and American English.  The sign said something about experiencing the ultimate sundowner.  When you first see the words it catches your attention because the advertisement is trying to entice you to go somewhere for a good experience.  For me as an American, downer does not bring to mind a positive image but you learn to not go on your first impression here in Africa.

The red sun setting over the thorn bushes and trees seems to foreshadow last moments we are experiencing.  Yesterday, I took the last team to the blacksmith.  We left as the sun set there.  We had the last “sale” where the local women have an opportunity to sell their goods to the teams coming through.  I have heard it also called the “Sanyati Baptist Hospital Gift Shop.”  Rashel and Paige had their last children’s Bible study.  We have taken down the last asbestos and put on the last roofing panels.  Two more days to work with the last team and then it is time to close everything up for the year.

I am currently listening to “Breathe You In” by Thousand Foot Krutch and tears are very close as they often are these days.  I am not sure how to return home and leave everything and everyone I have come to know behind.  Last year it was difficult to leave after 10 days.  I have no idea how to cope with it this time.

Breathe You In by Thousand Foot Crush
Click here to listen on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irmjX6uXvlA
Taking hold, breaking in
The pressures all need to circulate
Mesmerized and taken in
Moving slow, so it resonates
It's time to rest, not to sleep away
My thoughts alone, try to complicate
I'll do my best, to seek you out
And be myself, and not impersonate

[Chorus:]
I tried so hard to not walk away
And when things don't go my way
I'll still carry on and on just the same
I've always been strong
But can't make this happen
'Cause I need to breathe, I want to breathe you in
The fear of becoming
I'm so tired of running
'Cause I need to breathe, I want to breath you in
I want to breathe you in

I'm going in, so cover me
Your compass will, help me turn the page
The laughing stock, I'll never be
Because I won't let them take me

[Chorus]

Took awhile to see all the love that's around me
Through the highs and lows there's a truth that I've known
And it's you

I've always been strong
But can't make this happen
'Cause I need to breathe, I want to breathe you in
The fear of becoming
I'm so tired of running
‘Cause I need to breathe, I want to breathe you in
I want to breathe you in
I want to breathe you in
I want to breathe you in
I want to, I want to
I want to breathe you in
I want to breathe you in
I want to breathe; I want to, I want to
Wanna breathe
I want to breathe you in
I want to breathe you in
I wanna breathe
…

I close this post as I listen to my playlist almost in the same order as I left America.  Here are some of the titles:

Come and Listen – David Crowder Band
Lose My Soul – Tobymac
Hanging by a Moment – Lifehouse
Breathe You In – Thousand Foot Krutch
Your Name – Radial Angel
Revelation Song – Gateway Worship
When I Think about the Lord – Shane and Shane
Nothing but the Blood – Tree63
Mountain of God – Third Day
Lay ‘Em Down – Needtobreathe
Born Again – Newsboys
Lead Me to the Cross – Newsboys
Come Thou Fount – David Crowder Band
Mystery – Charlie Hall
I Refuse – Josh Wilson
You Hold Me Now – Hillsong United
Sweetly Broken – Jeremy Riddle
You Are God Alone – Phillips, Craig and Dean
At Your Name – Tim Hughes
Follow You – Brandon Heath
In the Hands of God – Newsboys
Blessings – Laura Story
You and Me – Lifehouse
Cry Out to Jesus – Third Day
Closer - Philmont
Rescue – Desperation Band
What I’ve Overcome – Fireflight
Always – Kristian Stanfill
The Difference - Philmont
Desperate – Fireflight
Crazy Love – Hawk Nelson
At Your Name – Phil Wickham
I Still Believe – James Clay

Wrote this about a week and a half before posting it…Ryan

Fear and finding out what faith is….

I have always been what polite society calls “a worrier”. I know it by its more truthful name… an addiction to fear. I have spent most of my life afraid. From bugs and snakes to my children dying or my husband leaving me, I’ve imagined the worst and stood paralyzed with fear that the “worst case scenario” would occur. Coming to Sanyati was hard for me. Not necessarily the “saying yes to God” part- I mean, who’s ever said no to God and won that argument- but the 9 months of build up till we left were excruciating. 9 months to worry and fret, 9 months to imagine if “horrible” happened there. Our first month settling in at Harare and Sanyati, I was so jumpy, my own shadow could have sent me up a tree. During that same time, I remember one night driving home with Ryan from Kadoma after a supply run, our girls sweetly sleeping in the back seat. We were talking about all the fear I was in. God has wired him differently- I am sure partly for my sanctification- and he struggles to understand or fathom how fear could run my life so much. As we drove home, he began to talk about how it is hard for him to understand my problem with fear because to him he just takes the problem or “what if” and accepts that it could happen and then tries to make wise choices based on all the possibilities. His words made my head spin and my heart ache. How could he accept the “what if”- esp. if the “what if” was horrible? How could he find peace in that moment of everything falling down? I knew God was at the center of that peace, but struggled with not being able to get there with Him.  I mean, how do you just turn off fear?  As I pondered our talk later that night, God began to click stuff together in my head. Often in my life I have found freedom after accepting reality...what if fear was the same way? What if I chased the fear down and refused to let it control me and instead controlled it. What if I accepted my responsibility in the situation and then literally let the rest be up to God and trust Him with it. I began to walk through several of the re-occurring fears in my head… for example: fear of snakes- First I have to do my part and use the wisdom He’s given me to be careful where I walk and pay attention to what’s around me, but after that… and this was huge… if it’s God’s will for me to get bit then I will. Reality is that if it’s going to happen I can’t stop it, but I know that God never does anything that isn’t for my good or His glory so in the end I can still trust Him with His decisions. I began to fully understand that God not only made all of creation, but He is also still in charge of it. NO PART of His creation is allowed to take 2 steps towards me without a nod from Him. That was comforting to me- that God is indeed sovereign over all He has made. It then occurred to me… and this was huge too… that if the horrible “what if” happened- God would still be there, not abandoning me at the first sign of trouble.  If all the worst case scenarios that swirl in my head actually came to fruition, I need not fear because God would still be there in the middle of it with me. Ahh, the peace that brought! God will NEVER leave me or forsake me! Around the same time, one of the team members was complimenting me on my faith to come out and serve in Sanyati. It touched my heart. As she spoke I began to see- that’s what faith is, doing the fearful… taking the first step into scary and realizing He’s on the other side too. It made me think of that Indiana Jones movie where he has to cross the chasm but there is no bridge. It wasn’t until he took the first step out that he realized that the bridge had been there all along. That’s what faith in God is to me- taking the first step out to realize that God has been there all the time and is still there supporting me.
Coming to Sanyati was scary for me, but learning that God completely has me has made it totally worth the cost. I don’t know that I could have learned all this in America. There seems to be such a false sense of security there. Self-reliance as "the American way" seems to deaden our senses to the reality that “horrible” could happen there too. It seems easier in some ways to trust God here in Africa… there is no sense of security here that a random bad day couldn’t kill. I pray all these lessons here are applied firmly by God to my heart…. that I never forget how reliant I am on God for EVERYTHING- from food, to electricity to the health of my daughters…that I never forget that God has me, in the good times and bad… that HE is in charge and in that I can rely and find rest. Wow, the sovereignty of God, the faithfulness of Him, and the faith that is required to follow Him.
Rashel

Fun Pics!!

We have a super surprise! We have been blessed to be able to put together a slide show of some of our pictures for everyone to see back home! We are hoping to do one for every month here. April and May’s videos are already up on YouTube. Hope you enjoy!!!

Here are the links:

April - http://youtu.be/9nOmis_J6yg

May - http://youtu.be/I82qq7jQiEc

Hoping to get June & July up soon! We’ll let you know! Thanks for walking this walk with us!

Rashel

Another reason to serve....

After Ryan and I were married, we moved to the Dallas area. We had met at church and were heavily involved with the college ministry there so I, very naively, assumed that getting involved in a church in Dallas would be simple. Little did I know that it would be a year of visiting different churches and, unfortunately, sleeping in before we found our church home. After we joined First Baptist Church of The Colony, we joined a Sunday School class and started attending regularly. About a year later, the youth pastor asked us to teach a 7th & 8th grade Sunday School class. We very nervously said yes. We soon became very involved in the youth department and loved serving there. After a while other people at the church began to ask us to serve in other areas of the church. We’ve done everything from Youth Ministry to Vacation Bible School… from World Changers to Celebrate Recovery... from Auto Mechanics Ministry to Rocket Car Challenge...  from teaching bible studies to one-on-one discipleship… from construction to crafts. We’ve done and been a part of a lot in the last 11 years at our church. We served because we knew God had given us certain skills and abilities and we wanted to use them for Him. We served because we felt God calling us to. We served because the blessing far outweighed the sacrifice. 
Until recently I thought all that service ended upon itself. There was a need, someone filled the need, case closed. I have come to see now that not only were we filling needs in that moment, but God was also training us for the work here. For example, I do a children’s bible study here every week. It is 100-125 kids crammed on my back porch AND every other week, we give them jump ropes for Jump Rope for Jesus club. That seems daunting, maybe even a little crazy, but the truth is it’s not that stressful at all. All that time spent doing VBS’s and working with the youth has made it easy… second-nature. Now, that’s not to say I wasn’t anxious at the first meeting… I mean, on some level, it is still 100 kids looking back at you, but after the initial nervousness passed it has been wonderful. God has blessed me to be able to serve Him in this way.
I have been blown away at how intricately He has trained us to be completely ready and able to do His will here. It is so amazing that our God is completely sovereign over EVERYTHING- even to the point of using small service tasks at church to be preparing us to serve in Africa 10 years later.  Amazing. The point of all this is this... please let my testimony encourage you to serve in your local church.  There are always a million reasons not to serve- too busy, too little money, too many other things going on in your life... all are valid- the list is endless. But there is something else that is endless… the ways that God can use your service. We all have abilities and skills that God has given us to use for Him, so if you are good with kids- go serve, if you are good at comforting a friend through a death in the family- go serve, if you are good at fixing cars- go serve, if you are good with teens- go serve, if you are a good writer- go serve, if you are good at evangelizing the lost- go serve…. Just GO. You never know what God has intended in your life in the future until you take the first step today. I have been amazed at how He has trained me so completely for this task here- not by my power, but by His. He does that in all of our lives. 

1 Corinthians 9:24-25
 “Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.”

1 Timothy 4:14a
“Do not neglect the spiritual gift within you, which was bestowed on you…”

Rashel


PS- In case you are wondering what Rocket Car Challenge is- go check out some cool videos and pics at www.StrapaRocketOnIt.com :)

Using the unlikely…

It seems, in God’s Word, that He often uses the unlikely to serve His purposes. It makes sense though- then the Glory isn’t shared… It’s God’s alone. Why would He send a stuttering man named Moses to speak to Pharaoh? Why would He send a young Jewish girl named Esther to marry the king? Why would He send a city girl named Rashel to rural Africa? Because anything that happens there, every day she survives or even flourishes (and I’ve had both)- it will be Him who did it, not her. Now am I comparing myself to these great people of the Bible? Hardly, I know way too much about myself for that. What I am saying is that as I look towards these last 2 months here and back at our last 4, I really have to take a minute to sit back and marvel at what God has done. What He’s taught me, what He’s shown me… I stand amazed.
I have moments of disbelief- I can’t believe I, Rashel Sifford, have lived in “the bush” in Africa for the last 4 months! It’s crazy to think about and so obviously God- God got me to say yes, God got me on the plane, God got me out to Sanyati… and God has had me every step of the way. He had me in the days without power, and then the days without power AND water. He had me when Katy had a shoulders-to-toes rash for no explainable reason on our 2nd day out in Sanyati. He had me when I was so ill from food poisoning that I was practically unconscious for 36 hours. But He has also had me when I was watching some of the most beautiful sunsets I’ve ever seen and when I marveled at the gorgeous flowers or the gigantic baobab trees. He had me when I watched on, with pride bursting, as Paige was being interviewed by a team member for his children’s department to see what a child can do in missions. He had me when He showed me what trust really is, what faith really is, taking off years of fearful living and breaking the chains of so much bondage. He had me. 
Its nice to receive compliments, but what is even more warming to the soul is when those compliments are said by people who REALLY know what it took to do it, what the sacrifices were, where the problems lied. The last team here was filled with people who have been in on this Makeover project since the beginning… people who come every year, people who have had a part in the planning and implementing of this makeover from the start. The whole time they were here Ryan and I received dozens of compliments on how well things are going, how well our family has adjusted, how much progress has been made on the hospital. Sometimes when you are working, even for the Lord, your head is down digging into the work and you forget to look up and see how things are going. That’s what that team did for me… lifted my head up to see. God has done some amazing things here both inside of me, in my family and in that hospital. God is good and He has me. 
Rashel

Going Home to Die

Even though it is my wife’s birthday and Independence Day back in the US, July 4th is not a holiday in Zimbabwe.  So for me it started like most other days.  I left to pick up Patience, her husband and a young man who attends Sanayti Baptist High School and possibly a few others who traveled our way. I arrived at the Gora village and I found out that I missed a text message.  The son of Patience’s cousin had just died and Patience asked if we could stop by the village to see her family.  

Along the way, I inquired what had happened.  The man was 28 years old.  Later on I found he had a wife carrying their first child.  He was in Sanyati Baptist Hospital for two weeks, discharged and referred on to Kadoma.  The family did not have the money so they took him home to die.  It broke my heart and I cried.  I tried not to show it.  I have mentioned this before.  Going home to die is very common here.  At first, I was just told about it.  It hit closer to home when it happened to families I knew.  This day it hit me personally.

We went to the meager home site.  It is like most others.  A few small huts built out of termite bricks.  This one also had a small rectangular house out of termite bricks with a thatch roof that had caved in.  When we arrived, we greeted the family in the “kitchen” hut.  In there was a mattress with the body on it.  The women of the family were next to him openly morning.  I could not help but cry as the women openly wept.   We prayed with the family.  They asked if I could transport his body to the hospital mortuary.  I have not moved a body before and I had to ask Patience what he died of.   I asked if would offend the family it I wore gloves as we loaded the body.  Then I helped hold up a blanket to shield the women from the body as a family member put the clothes on they wanted him to wear.  We wrapped him in blankets and loaded him into the back of the pickup.  Two or three women road in the back and sang songs.  I drove slowly the 6km to the hospital mortuary as we were not able to shut the tailgate.  As we approached the mission center, a combi bus had Psalm 23 written on the side.  I remembered what I could of the Psalm as I had memorized it when I was younger. The specific words escaped me but the meaning of the Lord being my shepherd comforted me.  I recalled the part of walking through the valley of the shadow of death and His rod and staff leading me.  

By the time we arrived at the hospital it was well past the 6:30am start time I had with the team.  The Lord was in charge because the night before I had given the keys to the container, with the tools and material in it, to one of the team members.  They had already started for the day.  I told them I was delayed and it would be a little longer before I would be back.

After a short wait for keys, we moved the body to the mortuary on an old gurney.  Our container is directly across from the mortuary.  Though I have seen many bodies carried both in and out, I have never actually been inside.  There were three cooler doors which reveal three selves each that slide out.  The first one we pulled out was rusted through and broken.  We pulled another one out that was not quite as rusted and place the body on it to slide his body in.

I drove the family back to their village and brought Patience back with me.  She had stayed so other family could ride with the body.  On the way back I found that the young man was not a believer.

I spent most of that morning working by myself as I had to deal with everything that happened.  The team was moving ahead well and I worked on removing the old roofing panels ahead of them.  It was good to have some time alone because I was able to compose myself by the time Rashel came by with Paige and Katy to visit the new and expecting mothers in the matumbas.  It was a tough day and I was physically and emotionally spent by the afternoon.  

Over the next couple of days I got to witness some of the culture as the family prepared for the funeral.  In some ways it is very similar back home but in others it is very different.  I saw many people come from far away.  They took buses as far as they would go and walked the rest of the way down the roads.  Some I even gave a ride.  There was always someone at the entrance to the village to direct those who were coming.  People who lived close brought extra kettles to cook, tarps and blankets to sleep on and big tubs to bathe in.  Many came and camped out at the village.  I saw them kill a goat, hang it from a small tree and butcher it.  They gathered and dug the grave themselves.