Letter from George

We will never understand God or His love if we do not love our neighbour actively, and we will never love our neighbour actively and regardless unless we understand the love of God. We do not have the capacity to love our neighbour with our own love. We can have sympathy and even try to care but we cannot love without God. God is love. The first sign of dead religion is running from this love (to practise it) and replace it with rules and commands. This also will never work and is done out of guilt. The only love that will last is love from God. With that love we can love our enemies and we can love when it is not appreciated.

Henri Nouwen wrote in Open Hands, “It is hard to bear with people who stand still along the way, lose heart, and seek their happiness in little pleasures which they cling to... You feel sad about all that self-indulgence and self satisfaction, for you know with an indestructible certainty that something greater is coming...” Luke 9:25 says, “What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self?” C S Lewis said (my own words) “men and women who really changed the world are people who thought about the next world the most. People who think about this world and its pleasures spend their time to be as happy as they can in this world.”

John Piper asked this question, ”If you could have heaven with no sickness, and with all your friends, and all the food you like, and all the leisure activities, and all the physical pleasures, and no human conflict, could you be satisfied with heaven, if Christ was not there?” What a tough question for many!! Paul writes, “The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.”

Love only starts when you discover and acknowledge who you are and where Christ met you – in your condition. I studied theology and listened to many wise people on grace and yet I had no clue because I never saw myself. When I met Niki I saw myself and asked God why me? Why her? That is grace!! Out of that understanding we are compelled to love. Not commanded, not out of guilt but out of a deep sense of gratitude. What kind of God will do that – Phil 2? David Livingstone once said, “People said I made sacrifices in Africa... they must not talk like that I never made a sacrifice. We ought not to talk of sacrifice when we remember the great sacrifice which He made who left His Father’s throne on high to give Himself for us.”

Now Hands is saying our testimony is that we defy the rules of culture and perception. We believe Africa need outsiders and outsiders need Africa. We believe submitting to each other and servanthood and giving up rights and the “us and them” attitude. Although many bad things were written about Christians (and rightly so) we believe there were amazing communities living out the Mount Sermon principles. Radical love! Are we there? Are we sinless? No but we believe! We aspire and dream if not us then the next generation. We refuse to let the stinking world and materialism and peer pressures tell us what is important! We believe in the parable of the man who found the great treasure and sold EVERYTHING to buy that field. We challenge and defy the world telling us to gather and out of security to give a little! We rather face uncertainty and criticism with those that we serve. We chose Christ unashamedly and in a world where it is so unpopular to trust Him we will should it out... mostly by what we do... but we will shout it out!
-George Snyman

The Spirit of a Champion

Osborne Mwape is 11 years old and lives with his grandmother, Bana Kulu, in a community in Kabwe Zambia. His parents were HIV positive until they passed away in 2003. His mother died from Tuberculosis. She was not a believer but did give her life to the Lord on her death bed. The suffering and hardships Osborne endures are great. The hut that he and his granny share, burned down recently, and they had to use plastic and grass as a means of shelter during the cold and rainy winter season. Food is also scarce and Osborne sometimes misses school to look after the house while his grandmother goes out to look for a job or food.

Hands at Work representative Floyd Mwila, a home based care manager in Kabwe oversees, New Life Christian community school which Osborne attends. The establishment of the school was partly due to a request by Osborne whose wish was to get some education to prepare him for the future. The school not only provides education but also helps to support and encourage Osborne, giving hope for his young dreams to be realized.

Osborne has the spirit of a champion; even at school, he is known as an encourager of the other young boys. His energy and willingness to participate, far surpasses his small size, be it in sport, school clean-up chores or any other school activities. Osborne is in grade 4 and is achieving good marks; he is positive and his little spirit is on fire!

40 Days of Prayer for Orphan Care

My friend recently read Richard Rohr (a Franciscan monk) describe prayer like this: "Prayer is indeed the way to make contact with God/Ultimate Reality, but it is not an attempt to change God’s mind about us or about events. Such attempts are what the secularists make fun of—and rightly so. It is primarily about changing our mind so that things like infinity, mystery, and forgiveness can resound within us. The small mind cannot see Great Things because the two are on two different frequencies, or channels, as it were. The Big Mind can know big things, but we must change channels. "



Today, as Hands at Work, we are starting 40 days of prayer for orphan care. I would like to invite all of you to join us. Please spend some time over the next 40 days and join us in prayer and meditation for orphans and that people will join the cause of caring for them. If you would like to join us, please click this link and look for the prayer guide link at the bottom of the page.

Home is where the Heart is.

They say home is where the heart is.

I've been home for exactly a month now. I must admit, at first it was incredibly difficult. I came home to rest and be with family and to just wait. No thinking allowed. But as soon as I got on the plane, my mind raced and continued to race for two weeks.

I struggled to just be.

I couldn't stop thinking about going back to Africa and began planning for when I would go back, which was against what I had told myself. I wanted to come home and be at home and not think or make decisions.

There was one moment when it all changed. I was driving up north to Goodsoil, where my mom's side of the family is. I was driving my brother, who was ... under the weather. This was New Years Day. He was KO'd in the passengers seat and I looked over at him and just felt so happy to be home and be with him and be with the rest of my family. I'm so blessed to come home everyday to an incredible sister (who is the best mom in the world, by the way), a considerate brother-in-law, and two CRAZY cute and funny nieces that crack me up ALL the time.

I've started teaching, too. Well, I'm subbing. Teachers call me when they're sick. It's been a huge challenge. The students are usually big disasters for a sub. But even in this moment I definitely don't want to even think of being a full-time teacher.

And for some reason teaching has caused me to be unsettled again. Today I found myself thinking about getting another part-time job. I loved the idea of working at the library, serving coffee.. something mindless and different. Perhaps it's just a way for me to cope.

It's been strange because I recognize SO many things I can be involved in here. Young adults Bible Study (which I love), Outreach with my church (which is new and just opened up with my friend's father leading it. I'm meeting with him next week to dream and brainstorm), working with churches on reserves and getting my feet back into the Aboriginal community.

And today I found my mind wandering again to Africa. I was reading the stories and posts on the Hands website (www.handsatwork.org) and was getting hot feet (opposite of cold feet?). I was reading one of George's postings titled "Prisoners of Hope" and felt greatly encouraged by a prayer of St. Francis he included:

“May God bless you with discomfort
at easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships
So that you may live deep within your heart.

May God bless you with anger
At injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people,
so that you may work for justice, freedom, and peace.

May God bless you with tears
To shed for those who suffer pain, rejection, hunger, and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and to turn their pain into joy.

And may God bless you with enough foolishness
To believe that you can make a difference in the world,
So that you can do what others claim cannot be done
To bring justice and kindness to all our children and the poor.”

Eaten alive

So, as I sit here and think of a title to this blog, I am being eaten alive by invisible mosquitoes.

This past week I've spent more time in the communities. I focused mostly on the community schools, assessing the teachers and even doing teaching. It was the best! I don't remember if I wrote about this already. But it was the best. I love teaching. Love Love Love Love.

On Saturday I did a workshop for the teachers. Can you imagine? This little girl in Nigeria teaching teachers how to teach. The workshop included topics such as Assessment, Classroom Management (including intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation and positive vs. negative reinforcement), Learning Styles, Curriculum Development (short term to long term planning), Taxonomy of Learning (focusing mostly on Cognitive Domain), ... weeeeeeeeeeee.

My highlight has still been spending time in Badia with Pastor Chris and Faith. It's a community lined with brothels. There is a deeply ingrained culture of sex, drugs, and alcohol. And it's a dark community with major strongholds. On Tuesday we had a meeting with women from two of the brothels. We introduced ourselves and were asking how we could support them in caring for their children. After we felt like we spoke enough, we asked how many of them are caring for children, and emphasized either their own or a relative's. No one, not one of the women admitted to having children. The sad part is that most of them do have children. They can't admit to it because it's bad for business. So they hide their children in the deep dark corner of their shack somewhere within the slum. There is a free government school in the area but they won't even dare send their children because then people, even worse the government, will know. These community is so heavy on my heart. But Chris and Faith are doing incredible work. Some of the women came to us afterward in secret saying they have children and want help. We have hope that the women will begin to trust us and see that we don't want to condemn them or steal their children, but we want to love them. There are incredible visions of a care centre there, where children can come, where mothers can come to receive counseling, to just rest, to receive extra lessons, ... it's going to be awesome.

On a completely opposite note, yesterday Lize and I took a day out and went to the beach. The thought of Nigerian beaches is really not a pretty thought... but we were pleasantly surprised when we got to the beautiful white sand and crystal blue waters. That was cut short, though, due to the awful pestering of local people. "Come this way Owebo", "Buy this Owebo", ... all we wanted was peace. So we called a guy we had met recently from South Africa who's living in Nigeria and he picked us up in his sweet ride and took us to the Yacht Club. Yep, you heard it. The YACHT CLUB. It was surreal. We rode on a boat and hung out on the Yacht Club's personal beach.

Nigeria has been an interesting experience. I've loved every second of being in the communities and helping to build the model, supporting and encouraging our people on the ground. There are a lot of things in Nigeria I won't miss. But there are a lot of things I will. This place is just so bizarre that in between fits of anger erupts fits of giggles. This place is just so bizarre.

A few things about Nig

-Nig=Nigeria

-On Eid festival they slaughter goats seriouly everywhere

-The traffic is unreal. Basically everyone has right of way no matter where you're coming from or where you're going. You just have to put your hand out to stop the car and point to where you want to go. Our driver tried it while merging onto a road but the car wouldn't give. They exchanged many aggressive words and our driver finished by screaming at him, "It's because you're with another man's wife! It's because you're with another man's wife!"

-I visited two churches today, each of them a kilometer long. YOu can't even believe it. They hold over a million people and Rex says it's full, sometimes over-full.

-They love the prosperity gospel. Basically to be rich is blessed and poverty is from some "ancestral demonic pollution". We are to inherit the riches of this world and so we must eagerly pray for them... this book I have even instructs us to put our right hand on our head and shout, "Let wealth change hands in my life, in the name of Jesus!" or "O Lord, make a hole in the roof for me for my prosperity!" or "In Jesus' name I command wealth to come to me now!" or "In Jesus' name, I command you devil to loose the wealth of this earth!" I'm ashamed that my Jesus is attached to that crap.

-Nigerian dance parties are sweet

-I realized I've been here only a few days and I'm going through major culture shock. I've been in South Africa for a year and have been dreading re-entry into Canada. It's going to be a huge struggle, but little did I know Nigeria would be like entering North America but much worse. Nigeria wants to be like America. Everything I hate about North America, Nigeria has amplified. Eish.

-It's so freaking hot here. I sweat like mad. My skin is always so shiny. I never thought that much water could come out of my pores. I drink so much water, like over 2L a day but pee very little. It all comes out my pores. It's kind of sweet actually. The other day I was laying on my bed and Lize asked if I was crying. I just told her my eyeballs were sweating. Pretty sure they are.

-The communities here all have completely different stories. Yesterday I wrote about Ilaje (the slum on and off water), Ago-Okoto (the community with 419, or fraudsters) and today I visited a community lined with brothels. Most of the children are children of prositutes. It was a very difficult place to be.

-The internet is very fast and accessible (hency all my blogs and facebooking these days) and CNN seems to always be playing. I feel very up-to-date on Obama's appearance at the Copenhagen Conference and the surprise guests breaching White House security at his fancy supper.

-Lynn discovered his favourite church title thus far: "The Everlasting Settled Down Gospel Ministries Incorporated"

-I'm preaching on Sunday. I have no idea what to preach on and am quite nervous. Lynn says all I have to do is shout "Blessings! Power! Breakthrough!" and I'll be okay.

Much love from Nig!

Beware of 419

I got into Nigeria early ... man I don't even know what day it is. We got in early Wednesday morning. The first thing I noticed was the smell. That and everyone was wearing pajamas. The men's outfits are too sweet. They basically look like pajamas. One big pajama party. The smell is dependant on where you are. I've never smelled so many strange smells. It varies from rotten sewer to oil/stale toilet.

We visited Ilaje Wed afternoon. Ilaje means "Land of Witches". It's one of the biggest slums in Lagos. Lagos is a city of 13.5 million, the biggest city in Africa, and one of the biggest cities in the world. In fact, Nigeria populates 1/4 of Africa's population. Ilaje. I've never been in a slum before so I really had no idea what to expect. Walking through was difficult. It's basically walking on layers upon layers of garbage. The ground was very unsteady and almost squishy. And it was dry. Between the homes and "streets" are streams of human waste and just dirty dirty water. The water is black and it smells awful. Crossing over these streams one could almost vomit. I asked Lynn if he'd rather get hit by a car or fall into one of these streams. His answer wasn't easy. It depended on whether he got it in his mouth.. he chose the car. The most fascinating part of Ilaje is the separation of the community into off-shore and on-shore. Ilaje is right on the ocean and people actually live on the water. It's like venice, but a lot less glamorous. People travel through the streets with little boats. The biggest challenge is when the heavy rains come. The entire community floods, up to 3 feet in people's homes. Imagine what it means sanitation-wise for those little black streams and all that garbage when it floods. The entire community is extremely vulnerable. Children don't go to school and Malaria is very high.

There are a couple schools we've started up and I'm really looking forward to spending more time in these schools and working with the teachers.

I visited another community called Ago-Okota today. This. Place. Was. Fascinating. I walked in and couldn't imagine why we would even be working there. The houses were HUGE and the cars were very fancy. As we began walking the community I started learning about the 419. Section 419 in Nigerian law is dealing with fraud. Ago-Okota is entire community of these fraudsters. Everyone knows them as 419. They do major internet fraud all over the world. No giving out e-mail addresses I guess. But they make big money and build large houses in this area. They often watch a house and when the person goes out for the day, they'll take over the house. They will have already put ads in the paper and they'll show the house. Buyers will have to give down payments and then the 419ers take the money and go. All around Lagos and especially in Ago-Okota you'll see "House not for sale. Beware of 419" everywhere!

We began walking through to visit the children. I thought South Africa was a place of contrasts... this place is worse. There will be a big mansion with a tall secure wall. Against that wall will be a slummy shack with 4 or so rooms with 4 families. Often too there are big mansions the 419 start building but don't finish. Families squat in these unfinished buildings and pay rent. They're horrible conditions and definitely not safe.

The children are extremely vulnerable. Phillip is an incredible man overseeing the CBO in Ago-Okota. He says that children are in danger of being recruited by the 419 at young ages. They take the children in, train them, and send them with big guns to houses to collect money. It's a brutal situation. And these kids aren't going to school, are living in desperate situations and are surrounded by mansions and high-class cars. It sounds like a good thing to get into.

We met a family of 5. The parents are Alex and Gladys. We met them in their room in an unfinished mansion. When I say unfinished, I mean it's just a concrete structure with no doors and no windows. They used to live in a small house but riots broke out in the area three years ago. The 419 were trying to overtake the area. People were shot and killed, people were thrown in the canal. They had to escape so fled to this structure in Ago-Okota. They are beautiful people and are trying their hardest to get by. It's a difficult area to live in.

Tomorrow we go to another community called Badia. It's another large slum.

One of the hardest parts about being here is seeing what the Church is doing. Nigeria is home of the mega-church. I've never seen churches to this magnitude. There are many and they are large. Prosperity gospel is everywhere. To be rich is to be blessed. I just can't believe that. When I walk these communities and see the beauty of these children, cursed is definitely not what they are. They are in a situation they cannot control, but can be changed.

Please pray for us as we try to interpret and process this all. It's entirely different from South Africa (and many other countries we work in).

Much love.