Extravagant God

Our God is Extravagant! ex·trav·a·gant - adj. 1. Given to lavish or imprudent expenditure: extravagant members of the imperial court. 2. Exceeding reasonable bounds: extravagant demands. See Synonyms at excessive. 3. Extremely abundant; profuse: extravagant vegetation. 4. Unreasonably high; exorbitant: extravagant fees. In our society we have buzz words like productivity, cost effective and basicaly just an idea of getting more for giving less. In this last three months the Lord showed me just more and more that His ways is not our ways. We plan our trip... but He determines where we are to go. This is the case with Valya. Previous camps we had in excess of 240 children and made a small impact on a whole bunch of children. This year the He had a different plan. One eleven year old girl! In our western minds we think that the “one girl” can be reached by people who are already working there... the Lord has given lots of money for us to be able to be there... so we must reach the multitudes!!! But no. The Lord loves Valya so much that he would take two people out of their work and send them to the other side of the world just so that Valya can hear about Him, and experience His love and acceptance. His Love is amazing, isn't it? And He is Extravagant in showing it! We also ministered to other children, but it was so clear that the whole reason for being there was Valya. The camp was for 2 weeks with village children. And later we took 9 children from the shelter for the weekend. It's sad to see that because of the crisis more people lose their jobs and start drinking so much that social services have to take their children to the shelters. We had a nice talk with the director of the shelter. She is one of very few directors in Russia who really cares about the chilren. She always sends children to our camps and says we've got good influence on them. On my flight back the airline company lost my bag. They promised to deliver it the next day... It is now two weeks later and I've not received anything from them. Please pray that there will not be problems with this. That I'll either get my bag, or be prayed out in full. This is the first time in more that forty flights that anything like this has happened. Where to from here... Before we left South Africa we made contact with a group who is working with children. They started a “Place of Safety” - uThando leNkosi. A house where a number of children can be taken in if the need arise. When we came back we had an interview with them and it was decided that we would be their new house parents. We are very excited about this! At the moment there are no children in the house, but we are sure there will soon be. Next time I'll tell more about the house and all the workings. Please keep us in your prayers! I will still carry on with tour guiding and building a business in tourism. Please pray for that as well! Thank you for all your prayers, donations and messages of support, not just on this last trip, but over all the years! Your help has made it all possible!