Scarlet Letters

We have a ladies' bible study every Thursday afternoon. There is an average of eight of us who get together. We usually start the time off by chatting about our last few days, getting our tea and enjoying each other's company. We usually start the study about forty-five minutes late because...well you know how us women love to talk. :)

Currently we're doing a Beth Moore study called, Believing God. It's REALLY good and has on more than one occasion been right on for more than one person.

Today Beth talked about "REPROACH". The Greek word for it is "Herpah" which also means: disgrace, shame, guilt, scorn, stigma and finger-pointing. Just to name a few. The basis behind the lesson today was how we walk around thinking that we are being judged for whatever our "sin" was; how we can view ourselves as the victim, by using the guilt we feel for whatever we have done.

Her lesson today took us to Joshua 4:19-5:12. The basis of it was the newer generation, the generation who weren't born in Egypt but in the desert, to bring circumcision back to these "newer generations" Circumcision, to the Israelites, was the sign of their covenant with God. God had told Joshua to do the circumcisions and he did.

In Joshua 5:9, God says to Joshua, "Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you." He had taken away the guilt, the shame the Israelites were carrying due to their time in Egypt and all that they had done from that time to the present.

With that, they called the town/village that the circumcision took place, Gilgal, which means "circle". It represents that God brought the Israel nation full circle and broke the old cycle...of shame, of stigma, etc.

Beth touched on some of our today's culture's "reproach". In her demonstration, she had 11 women come up to the stage, had each one put the jacket on that was laying in front of them and one by one, she had them turn around to show the letter that was on the back of their particular jacket (similar to the "scarlet letter").

Here were the ones that she touched on:

D - Divorced (finger-pointing, judgement)

S - Shame (molestation, rape, any type of abuse)

C - Crazy (people thinking your crazy)

B - Bankruptcy (guilt in having to file for it

F - Fired (shame of getting fired)

TP - Terrible Parent (kids are different than others so it's felt that they were a terrible parent)

POM - Pregnant Outside Marriage

H - Harlot

DWI - Driving While Intoxicated

U - Unmarried/Unwanted

R - Reproach

We wear these letters, whether its one of the above, another one that's not listed above, a few of the above, or all of the above, on our backs, guilt ridden for whatever we did or think we did.

As Beth said, sure we can pretend that the above thing never happened but what we do is we wear the "scarlet letter" inside out, so no one can see it but it's still there; it's just on the inside of us now. And how do we know it's still there? When someone brings something familiar to our situation up and it hits us, like a ton of bricks and breaks us.

For example, as most of you know, I was sexually assaulted when I was younger. I can hear the story of a woman being raped, being sexually abused, and I can ache for her. I can remember what it was like going through the pain, the emotions but it doesn't break me. I don't crush as if it just happened to me all over again. I don't let the shame of what happened have control over me; I am not a victim of it anymore. I allowed God to heal that in me. I can share what happened to me in a positive way; I can be there for young ladies who have had it happened; I can pray for them when they don't know what to pray; I can love on them when they feel they aren't worthy of love. I can be what I needed someone to be for me when I was going through it.

However, there is one thing in my life that I have held on to; that I unfortunately have played the victim with. I know it's been there; I hate it being there and I want it gone. I can't change the past; I can't change them. But I can chose to say, "Lord, I forgive them. I forgive the past and the pain that was caused." I can make it right through God; that's it.

Why do we hold on to things? Why do we weigh ourselves down with unnecessary things? Why do we continual say to Jesus, "Yeah I know you died on the cross for all of this stuff, this sin, this shame. But you know what, I think I'm going to hold on to it, just a little bit longer. Thanks!" Why do we think that what Jesus did on the cross for us was not enough?

In Ephesians 4: 22-23 it says, "You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness."

We need to change our way of thinking, bring a new attitude to our minds. Rather than leaving the "scarlet letter" on our backs or turning them inside out so that we hide from the world but suffocate from the inside out, let us cut them completely away from us. Let us take the scissors and cut the letter right off of our bodies; let us cry out to Jesus for healing, for our new self to be revealed and be who we were created to be, free from shame and guilt and live in righteousness and holiness.

Sometimes to get to the place of righteousness and holiness, our "sin" needs to be dealt with, the layers peeled away and we are wounded by what we see and the depth of our hurts and pains. But Beth gave a wonderful quote in the lesson: "Often a wounding precedes our full reception of God's promise, but healing always follows."

I want the healing; I want to see and be a part of and receive God's promises. I want to give the reproach back to where it belongs - on the cross. Let's do it together.

A Day Of Rest

Since we're always busy throughout the week, we (as in Todd, Daniel, Jared, Sean and me) thoroughly enjoy our Sundays. It's a day where we can sit at home, catch up on tv shows, play games, stay in our pajamas, play guitar...the list is endless.

Today we woke up to no electricity. This is fairly common, especially on Sundays to not have power for most of the day. The power company usually picks a Sunday to do any maintenance on the lines or whatever needs to be done. However, they are supposed to notify the city, via notice in the newspaper, of an all day power outage. Yes, they usually, okay sometimes, do but they will normally put it in the paper on the day that the power outage has occurred.

Todd, Daniel, Sean and I (Jared was away for the morning) pulled out the good ole Settlers game (Cities and Knights version) and set it up on the table outside on the gazebo. We played three straight games; enjoyed each other's company, with the gorgeous weather and singing birds surrounding us.

What a great way to spend a Sunday, our day of rest.

Naomi

Back in 2008, Anne, an intern and myself (Meredith) went to do an assessment on a family down in the Shimo slums. During the assessment, I noticed this beautiful little girl standing by herself with only a t-shirt on. She was about one years old.

Anne, the intern and I went over to the little girl and I immediately picked her up. She was very tiny. Her grandmother came around the corner and introduced the little girl to us. Her name was Naomi. The mother to Naomi was gone looking for work and the father was lying in their house; the grandmother said he was sick.

We went into the house to visit the father and he was lying on the dirt floor, covered with some dirty old blankets, not able to move or speak. The grandmother to Naomi said that the father had cerebral malaria.

Cerebral malaria is the most serious case of malaria as it affects the brain and is normally fatal within a few days of infection. Therefore if treatment is not taken immediately for it, which in this case with the father, probably not, death is usually the outcome. (check out: http://www.buzzle.com/articles/cerebral-malaria-symptoms-and-treatment.html)

However, the father also looked like he had AIDS; his symptoms similar to that at the end stages of the disease. I suggested to our intern that we pray for him. The word comfort had come to my mind so we prayed that he would be comforted and comfortable.

Afterwards, we brought Naomi back to the TI compound to give her a bath, some clothes and some food. She sucked back the milk as if she hadn't drank anything in weeks. She wanted one banana after another and a few slices of bread. She was hungry.

We brought her back to her home with a bag of maize (corn) and some milk and lots of fruit.

Last year, the grandmother showed up at our gate saying the father had died and the mother had run off, marrying another man and abandoning her children. This left the grandmother, somewhere around 70 years old, to now raise her little grandchildren. We did the assessment on the family and put them into our sponsorship program. In January of this year, the first to be sponsored in the family of children was Naomi, by some friends of Sean and mine from Canada.

Today, Anne and I went to deliver the food, the fourth month of being under the sponsorship program, to the family. It was the first time I had seen the family since they were sponsored, receiving food. They were so excited. The children, including Naomi looked happy. The grandmother was rejoicing, praising God, for now she could feed the children in her home.

It's not much, what we give right now, with having only one child in a house of six, sponsored but it's enough to give them a meal a day at least.

This is what makes it worth it all, to see the worry and fear be swept away from a grandmother's face; to see the joy of the children's face knowing that they won't be going to bed hungry again. It makes my heart so incredibly happy.

Thanking God,

Meredith

Rachel

Today Anne and I (Meredith) went to a tiny village called Kolongolo. This village is near the boarder of Pokot, Kenya.

We went to delivery our monthly food donation to a family that is in our sponsorship program. The children, aged 12 and 10 are being raised by their grandmother. On the insanely bumpy road to get deep into the bush of Kolongolo, Anne, our social worker, leaned over to me and said, "I hope we have time to see Rachel. I've been thinking about her all morning." I nodded in agreement.

When we reached our destination and got out of our vehicle, Anne looked over at something and gasped. There under a tree to get shelter from the sun was Rachel and her grandmother. We walked over to them and greeted the grandmother and Rachel. Anne and I were immediately concerned about the state that Rachel was in.

She was weak; her eyes sunken in and her body looked like a skeleton with only a layer of skin on it. Anne and I looked at each other with sadness in our eyes; so many similarities to malnutrition and the worst of the worst, AIDS.

I suggested we bring Rachel to the hospital, that way we could test her for HIV and if positive, get her on the necessary medications right away. If it was malnutrition, we could start getting the necessary assistance and dietary needs going.

After making the delivery, we got Rachel back in to town and straight to the hospital. Thank God that the test results came back negative for HIV; however to be on the safe side, they decided to have her blood sent to another hospital for further, extensive testing. It was advised that she see a child specialist...I assume that would be like a pediatrician.

Hopefully, we'll be able to get more information once her tests are back and know the way forward.

So pray for this sweet little girl, please.

Grace & Peace,

Meredith

Coming Together

Sean and I decided that we wanted to put together our blogs. We will continue to have our separate blogs: www.meredithlopez.blogspot.com and www.sean-underafricanskies.blogspot.com for our own personal use. However, this blog is for both our stories, updates. I am the one who does most of the writing/updating between the two of us but I hope to encourage Sean to write down his experiences, thoughts and any other interesting stuff he has...which is usually does.

So enjoy our blog, our thoughts, our life. We do!

Grace & Peace,

Meredith