Saturday News from South Africa

We made our way over to the feeding center in Dwaleni (this happens once a week on Thursday). As we drew closer to the fence leading to the center children began running towards us latching on and clinging "their" mother. One girl, Angel, latched on intertwining her fingers in mine and encircling her other arm around my arm. Another girl, C-lay-lee, told her "No! This is MY mother" and I reached for her and embraced her. The crowd of children here was overwhelming. So different from Mbonsweni yesterday. There were so many more and you could sense that they earned and needed love and attention to a higher degree. Many of them looked thinner and weaker. Our team was led to the kitchen and I had to part with my girls for a time. WOW! I just said "my girls", that's what I refer to my daughters as. God gave me Angel and C-la-lee for that day and I poured into them, loved on them as best I could. Just as I'm commited to pour into my own daughters. Well, we made our way to the kitchen. I looked at the pots before us and I looked at the massive lines of children gathering outside. This food was meant to serve the entire crowd and in some, probably, most cases meant to last until the program next Thursday. I was beginning to feel a weight start to push on me. Each of us aligned ourselves with a pot and made a train down the steps to the children. We decided we needed to pray over the plates as we took them and passed them. We began by speaking a word over each one. Then, we turned it into the fruits of the spirit. Each of us spoke one fruit and by the time the plate was placed in the child's hand, it had received all the fruits of the spirit. This continued and as the food in the pots began to lessen, I looked outside and saw that the lines of children were only growing. Along with praying my fruit, I surrounded it with deeper prayer of my pot. I was in charge of the meat. I say meat, but here it is only the bone. They suck the marrow out of the bone and that is their "meat". Knowing this was the only type of "protein" most of these children would receive weighed extremely heavily on me. I began to pray from the depth of my soul that God would multiply the food in the pots. That He would extend it to the very last child. The weight grew heavier, I began to run out of bones and the biggest kids were at the back of the line. I continued to pray with every part of myself. As I began serving only broth I prayed it would stick to their bones like protein, that it would satisfy their every need and continued to pray exponential growth of the contents of the pot. The weight grew. Renate fell to her seat behind her spinach pot... It was empty. The tears began to flow. Krista spoke "the children in this line don't like spinach." The Holy Spirit speaks through her and I believed it. But the meat was needed all the more. I then heard "There are 13 children left. The weight was almost unbearable, there was hardly anything left in the pot. Drew stepped over and lifted one side of the pot and felt like God added to the pot, but I continued to pray from the very depths of my soul. The countdown began and the weight was overwhelming. I heard "3...(pray)...2...(pray, pray)...1." THANK YOU GOD! Thank You Father! The pot is now empty after serving the very last plate. Our Ultimate Provider! The weight was lifted, but I was overcome with emotion. Emotion of relief, of praise, of thankfulness...just consumed in the glory of the Lord. ---Meagan