Back in January, as with the start of every year, we heard the Hands Watchword for 2017. This is a guiding scripture for us as Hands for the year. For 2017, the scripture is from John 14:6 Jesus answered, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No-one comes to the Father except through me.” For many people, as we reflected on this word, we talked about how it was a well-known verse but how it was still challenging to see it with fresh eyes. As I reflected on this verse for myself, I saw it broken down into 3 parts where God can work in my life this year. First is the way. I realised the need to seek God more in my decisions, my actions and for guidance very single day. Second is the truth. For truth, there are certain truths throughout the bible that I would like to dig into this year and settle into my heart and mind. For life, I have always found that the days I ask the Holy Spirit to guide me are the days which are full of life. So I want to see that God filled life and spirit more in my life this year.
A big focus for my time in the past few weeks has been the year-end financial close out but last week we made the last big push and now are basically finished which is a big weight off our shoulders as the finance team.
For Morgan, a lot of her focus was year-end narrative reports but those all went out to our partners at end of January and so she can now focus on 2018 and the goals and plans for the communications team.
During the lent season, as Hands, we participate in 40 days of prayer. This is where we and others across the globe join together to focus our prayer on the most vulnerable across Africa. If you would like to join with us, please visit the Hands at Work website.
Finn is growing fast and is crawling a lot! He is even close to walking now. He can stand by himself for a few seconds.
Last Friday, as a Hands family, we travelled to Share community for our monthly community prayer. We spend time every month as a whole Hands family in one of our communities encouraging and praying with Care Workers and getting to know children by name. The previous two days, Morgan had spent time with our first team of the year, from UK, in this same community. Finn travelled with me (and everyone else) to Share community where we spent time worshipping with the Care Workers. It is always a lot of fun singing and dancing with these ladies, they have so much joy despite having so little. In the afternoon, we split up into a few different groups and went on Holy Home Visits. The family Morgan, Finn and I visited were a family of five, four children and the mother. They had lost their father three years ago. The two youngest kids are receiving 3 Essential Services (food, health and education) from the CBO (community based organisation). The second eldest son was who we found at the home when we arrived. His name in English means Truth. When we talked more with him, we learnt that he is not receiving the 3 Essential Services because after school, he tries to find small community jobs (piece work) to earn a little bit of money to support the rest of the family. Sometimes this means very long days for Truth but he is sacrificing of himself for the rest of his family. A lot of the work he finds in the community is car mechanics which he learnt from his father. I told him that my dad is also a mechanic but I know very little about mechanics which he found funny. He is studying business and economics in his final years at school and hopes to become an engineer one day. Even from the short time we got to spend with Truth, you can tell he loves his family and will do anything for them. It is great to see a male role model like this in our communities as it has the potential to affect many other young boys’ lives where there are very few fathers around.
Thank you all for your continued support and prayers!
- T
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