London!

Sorry it has taken me so long to update me blog but I think it is about time!

I have now left Africa after the most amazing 8 months of my life. I have finished a very successful and inspiring time in Cape Town. This last season has been a great time of joy, challenge and growth. My relationship with God has been tried and stretched and He has proved himself faithful, truly a rock and a saviour and His plan is greater and better than our dreams can produce. The last 8 months (how they have flown by!) have been surreal, Cape Town has felt like a home, I worked long hours, gaining responsibility and competence in a job that challenged and stimulated me but at the same time, it felt like an extended holiday. During 8 months, I only spent a few evenings at home, spending every spare moment not at work, seeing and exploring the vibrant, charming and cosmopolitan city I now call home. My time in Cape Town has been a joyful and prosperous season in my life. I have had an incredible job, which has laid foundations which will be useful throughout my professional life, I have met a great many wonderful people and made friends that will stay travel and work with me for the rest of my life and I have loved deeply.

The Cape Town refugee centre seeks to assist refugees from all walks of live and situations in three areas: education, business grants and skills training, and psycho-social intervention including food, rent and counselling. The organisation in UNHCR funded and after an initial assessment will assist a refugee personally or refer them on to a partner organisation that they feel has better resources for their needs. It is a wonderful, lively and slightly chaotic organisation, full or characters that provide much amusement and has a real family vibe amongst staff which is sweet respite to the challenges of dealing with very vulnerable and often destitute people on a daily basis. They operate with limited resources but offer as much assistance as is possible.
I used this as a time of gaining a context and real life experience for the work I hoped to be doing in the future. I was learning about the plight and challenges facing refugees not only giving me a complex political background to the on the ground situations in the conflict zones in Africa but it also gave me a comprehensive knowledge of the problems facing South Africa as it tries to host the huge influx of refugees and integrate them into the local community.
The self reliance department seeks to enable refugees and asylum seekers to become self reliant through small business grants and skills training and the evaluation of foreign qualifications. This allows them to become fully integrated in the community and form fully self sufficient lives in their adopted country. South africa is unique in that it allows refugees freedom of movement and work throughout the country, thus creating an entirely different dynamic and set of issues than refugees in an other African country who live in camps.

'In every season, all of my life, you are still God, I have a reason to sing, I have a reason to worship'. God has taught me so much in this time. It has been one of the most challenging but exciting times of my life. He has taught me to fully rely on him, He has shown me time and time again that his grace and faithfulness is endless and consistent. He has put me in positions where I have no strength, He allowed me to get exhausted and weary of battling so that all I had left in me was to throw myself fully at his mercy and he showered me with blessing and joy beyond my imagination. The peace of the spirit passes all understanding. Through every heartache, stress and worry, I had a peace that encompassed my mind so that I could worship and find solace in God's love on every journey to home affairs and house move and unhappy encounter. In everything, I have learnt to put aside my petty desires and concerns and allow myself to be guided by His higher purpose and concerns.
He has been interested by every aspect of my life, from romantic entanglements to job prospects. Whatever the problem, He has walked me through it with the patience and love that only a true and loving father can show to His child. He reminded me that he never gives us more than we can handle and his plan is greater and more infinite than we can imagine. He will never close a door and not open another better one. He will never put us in a situation of peril and leave us. Not my will but your will be done my father. During the many frustrations, he showed me that I need not battle because all things work together for the good of those who love him. All I must do is walk in his light, in obedience and listening to His voice and he will put in place what I need. After never receiving my visa, I was incredibly concerned about the problems I may encounter when leaving South Africa, I sat for hours that morning praying and reading through Romans and was reminded in Romans 8 that those that live with the Holy Spirit in them have peace and live. I thanked God for His peace and meditated on his love for me until I felt His peace envelop me and I walked through the airport safe in the knowledge that He that is in me is greater than He that is in the world. As I walked to customs, I prayed for my customs officer and thanked God that He was softening his heart as I approached. The customs officer was polite and merely raised an eyebrow when seeing my visa-less passport. I stood calm and peaceful and even asked about coming back in as I walked away feeling elated that once again God had gone before me.

After an amazing trip travelling round Zimbabwe, Mozambique and botswana, I returned to South Africa for 3 weeks and then headed back to the UK to spend a week in Ireland with my dad before starting my new internship in London with a trip to Edinburgh which was stunning and such a great way of starting a job and I felt God saying that he is bringing me into a time of change and beauty in my life which I saw all around me back in my home culture in the scenery of the Scottish mountains.

I am now back in London and remembering how I came to be here and once again it is a story of God's grace and plan in my life. I laugh now at how I fought but in the end His plan is perfect and will always prevail when we submit to His will. I may have wanted to be in Africa but more than that I wanted to follow him because he will give me a life far greater than I could possibly imagine. When I discovered that I would not be able to get my visa renewed and would therefore have to leave SA before my placement was complete, I was broken hearted, I fought with Home Affairs and tried every avenue but they are so strict nowadays! I felt so strongly that I was meant to be in Africa and started looking at other options in Southern Africa. I had fallen so deeply in love with this continent that I would do almost anything to stay, I had a few job possibilities in Botswana, Namibia and Swaziland but unfortunately all of them came to nothing. God seemed to be shutting doors everywhere and opening no more. I was desperate to stay and was seeking God and in my time of desperation I could not hear his voice or feel his presence, it was as if he had left me to work it out myself.

During this time, I went to spend a weekend at a very good friend's house. When discussing this, I cried that I would have to go back to England if nothing happened soon. He replied, 'Maybe thats what God is trying to tell you'. The thought stirred something in me but I pushed it back- I 'knew' my calling was for Africa and this was where I was 'meant' to be. He also told me that although God may be taking me out of Africa now, it didn't mean he wouldn't bring me back and maybe the next thing I needed to learn in order to serve Africa better must be taught to me in England (wise man!). I decided that I would half heartedly look into work in London incase God didn't come through for me at the last minute so I sent an email to the head of a bible society, a fantastic man I really admire and had met once. I thought he would be too busy to reply even if he remembered meeting me! Instead, he replied a day later saying that he was sorry for my problems but I was an answer to his prayers as they really needed help with the work they were doing with SUSA- a christian organisation which encourages and equips Christians to go into politics. I would be working along side MPs and be based in Westminster. It was the experience in Politics I had always dreamed of; I would be working with Christian politics who I would learn from; who would teach me how to keep my faith in a world which does not acknowledge our imperative need for God when making government's decisions. God was speaking to me the whole time but I had only be listening out for an answer that I wanted to hear.

Anyway, before this becomes a thesis and you all fall asleep- God is faithful. He has shown me this in every situation in my life. I have now taken to thanking God for his provision for me before it even happens because I know it will come! I watched Amazing Grace this morning (awesome film!) and I was struck by John Newton's words, 'I know too things- I am a great sinner and God is a great saviour'. That is my foundation and although I may not have all the answers I know these two things to be true.

Jeremiah 17 vs. 7 & 8 says 'But blessed are those who trust in the Lord and have made the Lord their hope and confidence. They are like trees planted along a riverbank, with roots that reach deep into the water. Such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought. Their leaves stay green and they go right on producing delicious fruit'. I was also reminded of Jeremiah 1 vs 4 'The Lord gave me a message; he said “I knew you before I formed you in your mothers womb. Before you were born I set you apart and appointed you as my spokesman to the world”. We need Christians to enter politics and be salt and light. Let us not hide our lights under a bushel but change the world for God. Let us not sit back and watch as our politicians make decisions that do not reflect His glory; let us stand and declare his greatness across parliament and the nations. God is moving...