Last week our team was able to take a well deserved break and a few of my teammates and I decided to go down and visit our friends in j-bay and PE. It was so good to see them and hear what God has been doing in their lives! God is definitely moving in the through them. We were also able to go and see some of our friends in the township that we use to visit as well. Hester is doing well some of her relatives died and it was sad to hear but her health is as good as ever and she seems to be doing very good. Thelma is also doing so well, I thank God for Thelma! when we first met her she believed in God but wasn't really involved with Him. But when we visited her last week she is now so in love with Christ! She told me that she is always praying to God and reading her bible and she isn't as scared as she use to be. She is also very involved in a church called Ithemba and she goes there every Sunday both in the morning and evening and she is also apart of a cell group there. It was so encouraging to see her and see how well she is doing.
Another amazing place to visit again was the ocean! The Indian ocean is absolutely gorgeous! The Aqua-Marine colors of the water mixed with the almost white sand was refreshing to see again and just another splendor that God has created for his children. There are also a lot of sea shells on the shores, some of them are pure white, others have a bit of color on them, others are brown and still decomposing. Seeing the ocean, the waves coming in and out on the shore and the sea shells being formed into something beautiful reminded me of my fathers endless grace he has given to me. The power of the waves coming in running over the shells on the shore wiping them clean of the decomposed rot and taking the rot into the current to be lost into the deep dwellings of the ocean. So last week was really sweet, just to see good friends and also see how our ladies were doing with life. Thank you again so much for your prayers and support and I will be talking to you soon.
I would like you to know that we have paid off my debt to Adventures in Missions! Thank you so very much for Allowing God to use you in this way and thank you so much for your prayers as well. God has been so faithful in this matter and I thank Him so very much for providing everything I need every single day of my life. But there are other teammates who are struggling to raise the money needed to pay off AIM. If you would be interested in helping part of my new family pay off their debt as well please e-mail me or comment me back. Thank you so much again for all that you have done both financially and spiritually
I started helping teach bible class today and it was so good! The kids were so cute and very well behaved. Christine, the lady I'm doing this ministry with, taught and all the kids were ready to answer questions, and very fluent in English. The craft went really smooth and all of them got excited about doing the craft. We also helped with their reading which included us going with them individually and letting them read to us and helping them sound out the words. I have to admit it was a little tedious at times but well worth it. Next wednesday I'll be teaching the story so if you could pray that it all goes well that would be great! Thank you so much:)
Hello Swazi
So I've said my goodbyes to many loved ones both in ministry and to many dear friends and leaders in our team and have moved on into Swaziland, the last kingdom. We've been here for little over a three weeks now and we are starting to settle into our different ministry sites. The country is beautiful! It's very mountainous and very green! Our house is beautiful and rather large. Plus, we have four mango trees in our front yard! Its really fun to climb up and pick a mango whenever I want to J This last week we checked out the different ministry sights. The biggest ministry opportunity here is the care points which are preschools and after school programs for children both in the city and in the rural areas. Its very difficult to make an orphanage in Swazi because if the children are taken off of their property in Swazi and relocated to a different building then they loose the family property and when they turn 18 or so and can't stay in the orphanage any longer then they have nothing. So they formed these care points to make sure they are taken care of and fed and hear about Jesus. We've been going to one specific care point this last week quite often (partially because its really close to our house) . This care point takes care of children in a squatter camp that is close to the dumb. The children have been really sweet and it already seems that each member in our team has a buddy there. We were also able to do two different bible studies with the kids and we went to a night service to the church that is close to the care point.
Another ministry opportunity is the hospital, there we would go around to the different wards, which include: HIV ward, TB Ward, children's ward, and so on. We would just go and council people and just love on them the way Jesus would and pray for them. We first went to go to the children's ward almost two week and it was hard to see some children have malnutrition and others suffering from fevers and probably HIV. One of our team mates came across a girl that was walking with her mother one day and they were struck by lightning and her mother was killed and she has serious burns all over her body. The girl is now orphaned along with her sister but still she was smiling and so happy to see us. I was also able to go into the woman's ward and I visited with a sweet gogo (grandma) that had a minor stroke and you couldn't really understand anything she was saying but still she smiled when I looked her way and it was such a pleasure to just sit with her and pretend I knew what she was talking about so she didn't feel too out of the loop. I have a feeling though that the children's ward and the somewhat the womens ward are the easier places to be and the TB ward and the HIV ward is way more intense. I can't imagine going in there and trying to give hope to adults who feel like they are in a hopeless situation, how do you even go about that? But its still something that really interests me.
Yet another opportunity is the hope house. This is where the old and terminally ill go to. Each patient has their own little house where there are two beds a bathroom and a little kitchen and someone from their family member is suppose to take care of them, hence the other bed. Unfortunately a lot of the patients don't have anyone to take care of them and end up having to hire someone or someone gets to live with them for free if they take care of them at least I think that's how it works, please don't quote me on that one. We also visited this center last week and it was a good experience and I visited an old German man that had been living and teaching in swazi for thirty years. It was really sad to visit him because one he didn't believe in God and believed that He was unnecessary and two he felt his life was over that all he can do is sit in bed and watch the day go by. I suppose that's how you feel when you get old and don't believe in God; there is no purpose and no hope in life if you don't believe in our savior.
I do have one ministry for sure which is teaching a bible class at a primary school for second graders every Monday and Wednesday morning. A lot of these children are actually Muslim so there is a big need to hear about Jesus. I'll also be teaching them a craft, songs and I'll be helping them with their reading. So I'm really excited about this and it should defiantly be a great learning experience. Another opportunity is also visiting this center that the catholic church runs here. The church provides schooling and money to teach people how to run their own business and so they have a building center that baby businesses start in and then once they get their feet on the ground they will slowly move out of the center. There are a lot of women working their and its a good place for discipleship so thats another ministry opportunity that I'm really interested in.
So yeah I think thats all I have for now thank you so much for your prayers and support through out this adventure! I hope ya'll have an amazing week and God bless
Hello everyone! I had a big blog to post about Swazi and all that is going on but unfortunatly this computer will not let me paste it onto this site:( Sad day I know. So until I can post a blog I just want to let you know that our team made it safely to Swaziland and that we are learning about the different ministry sites and trying them out and praying about where God wants us to be at. I have one ministry already which is teaching a bible class for grade two every monday and wednesday morning. I'll also be helping the children with their reading and teaching them a craft that goes along with the story. If you could pray that I will find my afternoon ministry and that God will make it clear on where I should go for that, that would be amazing! Thank you so much for your prayers I'm so sorry that this is so short and doesn't have much informations but hopefully I will be getting a bigger one out next saturday or sooner. Thank you so much and God Bless!
I'm so sorry for keeping everyone in the dark for so long, its probably been over a month since I last blogged. yikes! I'm truly sorry. Well first semester for FYM is over and I'm saying goodbye to J-Bay, most of my ministry team, and the township I have come to love. I do regret not telling you much about the families that our ministry team had visited because they were truly beautiful people; God did so much in them and through them this last spring (or fall for you). But I suppose I could sum up some of the people that we visited.
Too Big of a Heart
The first day that our ministry team went into the township our leader took us to Hester, a big woman with a huge heart both figuratively and literally. She suffers from a very large heart that presses against her lung and gives her a lot of pain. Despite Hester's health conditions she helps take care of the AIDs patients around the township. Every Wednesday morning she gets up and walks all over the township to visit the sick and give them food parcels. I would also go so far to say that she is the Grandma of Jeffrey's Bay because every time she has extra bread or has made a large amount of food she has children and youth coming to her house and asking for bread or cake and she can never resist giving out this food. So as God pressed on Hester's heart to help her community God pressed on our ministries heart to help Mama Africa. And God showed up! One day we prayed for her when she was having pains in her chest and 1 2 3 the pain was gone! Not only that but also Hester had a son that was taken from her at birth and she has been searching for Him since then, and he was taken in the 70's and guess what? He was found! God is sooooo good. Our team was so honored to be apart of this miracle! We were also able to help take care of her garden and plant new vegetables in her garden. Not only did we get to be God's hands and feet towards Hester but she was also God's hands and feet towards us. Hester taught us how to make Vetkoek, which is a deep fried bread and we just found rest in her house. We will miss you mama Africa!
Gloria
One day , we were wondering around the township and we came across this house that we thought was another ladies house that we had visited before, but it ends up that we had never visited her house before. Fortunately God had His hand in this, another lady named Gloria came up to us and told us she was struggling to feed her baby, because she wasn't lactating anymore. So we went to see the baby and the child was 7 months old but she still looked like a new born baby! It pained us to see her dressed in layers of clothing so she didn't look like she was as small as she was. She had horrible bed head and later we found out that her diaper rash was even worse. Well we didn't know what to do or say so we prayed for the baby and told her we would see what we could do. Later that day we found out that the team that was in J-Bay last year met Gloria when Angel (that's the baby's name) was only a few months old and they had found Gloria drunk with Angel, not knowing how to take care of her at all. So after one of the leaders learned that we had found Gloria we were able to take the leaders to her house and show the baby to them. They then got a hold of a social worker that runs an orphanage and took her to meet Gloria and talk to her about Angel. Gloria agreed that she couldn't take care of Angel anymore and allowed the social worker to take Angel. Thank the Lord that we were able to get Angel out of that situation! How could a mother take care of her child in such a way? Gloria gets money from the government for her children and instead of spending it on the children she spends it on herself? Most likely for drugs and alcohol. This made me so angry and mad, how could she do something like that? But then God softened my heart towards Gloria. Gloria was in more need of help then Angel was, granted Angel was on the verge of malnutrition but Gloria was the cause of it Angel's situation was a cry for help. So our team started visiting her ever so often making sure she was doing alright. At first I think she was really hesitant and didn't trust us at all but as we continued to come and play with her older child Blessings she started softening up to us. Finally God moved and we saw Gloria at church, I was taken off guard at first and had to give her a good stare to make sure it was her but sure enough it was. She went up to get prayer for Angel and then she later asked me to pray for her to stop drinking! Woot! That was an exciting day and after that whenever we visited her she was so open and the last day we went to her house we brought her a bible in her own language and we read like five chapters out of Matthew. Unfortunately I feel like we left our relationship too early and that we were finally getting somewhere with her. But I'm very confident that the team staying in Jeffreys Bay will continue to visit her and watch out for her but please pray for her and that she will make wise decisions and be able to truly have a close relationship with God and fight her love for the drink.
Thelma
Whenever a white missionary walks into a township in Africa most likely there will be cute little black children following you wherever you go. And that's how we met Thelma. One day we were walking around trying to find a house that we could go visit on a regular basis and these kids had been following us everywhere, at one point they left us and we were wondering around for a while and then we saw them again at this house and our team got the bright idea to knock on that house's door. So we did and we met this amazing woman named Thelma. She was so sweet, loved to socialize and spoke really good English. The first day we met her she was talking about how she had wanted to start reading her bible again and praying. Thelma also worked for a crazy professor that sold pigeon vitamins, or something to do with pigeons. Later we went to visit her at work and the professor invited us into his home it was really weird but interesting because he believed in all of this eastern religion which is rather unusual for South Africa because its one of the most evangelized countries in Africa. Anyways Thelma was working at this place and she mixed chemicals that were very questionable and she didn't wear gloves or a mask and it didn't seem healthy at all and I so wanted her to get out of there. So we prayed for Thelma many times and when we were just starting to say goodbye, we go to Thelma's house and find out that she went to this bible study or something similar to that and got right with God and she said she was just praying all the time and reading her bible and she didn't want to work at the professors house anymore because the chemicals weren't good for her and just everything seemed to be falling into place for her so amazing! But oh how I will miss our talks with Thelma.
Khulisa
So last year our ministry leader helped start a feeding center for a lady named Noma. Noma feeds I think 14 children every morning before school, these children come from two different families, one of them was an orphaned family from Lesotho and the other family was just really poor. So Noma wanted to start a bible study for the children that she was feeding. Unfortunately we didn't decide to take on this challenge until later in the semester so we didn't get to spend much time with the children there but we did get in some good hugs, laughs, bible stories, crafts and games. If I were to regret one thing from our ministry time it would probably be not starting the bible study sooner then we did but hopefully someone from the J-Bay team will continue the bible study and invest in the children's lives.
In honesty I don't feel like our team did much except pray and walk into people's houses. No it was God that did all the work He provided so much and He blessed our ministry in more ways then we could have managed. So all glory to God and thank you father for bringing these people into my life I will miss them and they will always have a special place in my heart.
Just to let you know I wrote this a week ago so everthing that I talk about happened a week ago:)
I'm sure ya'll are wondering how ministry is going and really what I do for ministry here. Well I think its about time I tell you! I am with a group of four people from our group, their names are Nicole, Jess, and Davie, and everyday we meet together at 1:00 and pray about where God wants us and just his guidance through out the time in the township. We pray for around a half an hour and then we walk into the township and continue to ask God where we should go. We also have families that we visit weekly now and we're building relationships with them and really understanding the people we visit is the best way to know what we're doing so the next couple of blogs will be about the families that we visit.
Please just imagine with me: You're 71 years old, you still are totally functional and capable of getting most things for your self. Then all of a sudden a stroke hits you and you are incapable of doing anything by yourself. There are no depends or bed pans to ketch your waste just the bed. So you lie in bed day in and day out in your own waste. This was how we found Evelyn the third week we were in Jeffreys Bay. When we went to her room for the first time, the room smelt of urine and she was so bundled up in blankets we could hardly see her face. But she was so overjoyed for us coming and visiting her; even though we couldn't understand her very well, the happiness in her eyes and tears of joy spoke for themselves. She broke our hearts and there was no way we were not going to continue to see her and pray for her. And that's what we did, we would go to her house and pray and sit with her; sometimes we could understand her and other times we couldn't at all. We were also getting to know the rest of her family as well, we would hang out with the kids and watch tv with them and every time we would leave we would pray for Evelyn. We thought she was getting better, one day it seemed like she could totally communicate with us and us communicate to her. Unfortunately that was only one day. I guess we should have expected it sooner then it actually happened because she was sleeping whenever we came by and she said herself that no one could help her now. But still this last Thursday came as a total surprise. When we walked into the house we found ourselves meeting one of her sisters and when we looked into her bedroom the bed was stripped and there was no one there. Evelyn had died last Saturday. It was a shock at first because we weren't expecting to walk into this but I guess God had other plans. Evelyn has been through so much and has had so many struggles, it was time for Evelyn to go home. She now can walk and run and praise God the way she is suppose to. There is no more pain and sorrow for her, just pure joy and peace. And although Evelyn is gone we are just beginning our ministry in that house hold, I believe Evelyn lasted as long as she did so we could be introduced to the rest of her family. When we found out that Evelyn had died we also were introduced to her three sisters that were still alive. They are the sweetest people ever! They all live somewhere else and so they had just gotten into town and trying to clean up the place for the funeral. The three sisters names are Nelly, Violet and I think Cynthia or something similar to that (I know I'm so bad with names). So once we were introduced we asked if we could help them in anyway possible. They told us that there was still a lot of family coming and they didn't have enough money to feed them and buy food for the funeral. So we walk down to U save (grocery store) and bought them some food. When we came back they were so grateful of the food they started crying for joy. Nelly told us that she has never had a white person help her in anyway! How amazing is that! I feel so honored that God would use our group to show that we really are equal. Then we also helped build a little shack for them to store things and when they cooked outside they could get out of the wind and rain. Oh and one of the most amazing things about this was that our team had been praying for more ways to be intentional in telling people about God and being an example and for healing for Evelyn and just for brokenness and I believe God answered all of those prayers! We were able to show Jesus to them by providing for them and giving God the glory. God is so good and its still hitting me hard how much God has a hand in everything we do. Sometimes I just forget but when things like this happen it just makes me in awe of him. So yeah we went to the funeral today and it was really interesting. The whole sermon was in Xhosa so we didn't understand it but they sing so beautiful here and that was enjoying. They also had food after the funeral and I had goat for the first time I thought it tasted good but couldn't get over the texture of itJ But anyways God has his hand in the relation here so I would much appreciate all of your prayers as we continue to minister and show Jesus to this family. Thank you so much for all of your prayers and I hope this gives you a little insight into my life right now. Be blessed!
PS I'm sorry I don't have any pictures up something is wrong with the server or something. I'll try to get some up later have an amazing day!
Never in my life would I have thought that I would be visiting a prison in South Africa! Well last week our team came together with two different organizations to promote Beat the Drum in summerset east. Summerset east is a small town near a rather large mountain just three hours away from J Bay; it's, for the most part a farming community. Beat the Drum is an HIV/AIDs awareness program with a focus on abstinence. Its mostly for jr high and high school ages and basically we go into a school show a movie called "Beat the Drum" and then the team spends a whole week going over curriculum. We went to around four schools and we had two community outreaches. From what I hear the schools were a great success and at the end of the week a lot of the students came to the Lord and got tested for HIV/AIDs. But, I wasn't apart of a school, I was apart of the summerset community outreach.
Like I said before never would I have imagined myself in a prison in South Africa but there I was Monday morning walking into a prison. Luckily it wasn't at all like what I imagined, there was no strip search or these tough gangster men whistling at us five girls. In fact it was really low key and chill. We went in, left our bags in an office, which was then locked, and walked into this semi-small hall where a group of prisoners were watching the beat the drum movie. Once they were finished our teammate Doleigh went up and God spoke through him, he is such a man of God, and at the end over forty prisoners gave their life to God. It was so amazing to be apart of!
The rest of the week we went to different farming communities and showed the movie and gave a call to abstinence (for some this was a call to get married instead of "shacking up") and a call to accept Jesus into your heart. Every farm we went to more then one person stood up for both calls; it was amazing and I feel extremely blessed to be apart of this team but I'm not going to lie it was hard at times. Sometimes I felt like I wasn't really doing anything because I didn't speak to the crowd at all and most of the time everything that was being said was in Afrikaans, plus I was sick for most of it. I just didn't feel like I was doing anything but at the same time I knew I was doing something because I was praying and being a support system to those who were talking. Well, I guess I shouldn't say I felt helpless because we did get to hang out with some children for awhile because they were too young to watch the movie. That was really fun! We were at a small primary school on a farm and we played games with them and we told them a story and just loved on them. So many of these children had already been exposed to drugs, alcohol and sex. One of the girls had been raped and she was still in grade two or three; she was so sweet, it broke my heart to hear that something like that had already happened to her.
Over all God had his hand on Beat the Drum and it was great to get to know some of the people in summerset east and from the other organizations that were helping with Beat the Drum.
First off I just want to apologize to all of my friends and family and supporters that I have left in the dark this past month! I've been having a hard time sitting down and actually writing a good blog but no excuses for my irresponsibilityJ So I'm just going to dive in.
The first week that I was gone I was at training camp which was held in Gainesville, Georgia. Training camp was great, right away I felt right at home with my teammates. We did a ton of team building projects, like standing on a tarp and turning it over onto its other side without getting off the tarp (we did it!). Worship was amazing and just getting real and getting rid of the things that would hold us back from our ministry on the field was great. So yeah that basically sums up training camp.
The beginning of the second week was pretty much traveling. We left Georgia on Monday morning and arrived in Jefferys Bay Tuesday night. So Wednesday was just getting over jet lag and getting to know the place. For the first three months we will be staying at this camp site (like camp crestview but not camp crestview) its called UCSA; I don't know what that means but its really nice I'll have to give you a tour sometime. On Thursday we went on a scavenger hunt and to get to know the place even better which was really fun and exciting. J- Bay is a surfers town pretty much, it reminds me of a southern Californian beach town, at least the town does. But, as we walked further to our right we found ourselves in the township. The township at first isn't that bad, a lot of people have these smaller houses that the government has given them for free, they're reasonably nice and, for the most part, the people take care of them. But if you look beyond the nicer houses you can see that so many other people are living in shacks I can't help but think that, like most governments, they are just covering up the poverty, but I don't want to get political. So I guess that's my first impression of J-Bay.
The next day, Friday, our team had to leave UCSA because there was a camp coming in so we went to the bush. The bush is their forest (Its like Australia) basically, anyways the trip there was kind of fun we had to drive (did I mention that they drive on the wrong side of the road) across these rough hills and cross a very small river, it was fun. Anyways we get to "the bush" which is another camp site and this camp is roughing it. For example, we got to cook all of our food over an open fire and stay in these little shack kind of things for the night, so we froze at night because its still spring here so its pretty cold and if we wanted warm water we had to build a fire in this fire place thing. We had some good bonding time here and just getting to know each other even better and I went repelling off a cliff which was pretty fun actually I was really surprised with myself I didn't get scared at all.
So that was our first week in J-Bay, I know that I haven't discussed anything about our ministries but that's the next week and another blog so I hope everyone is doing well and having a good fall. I love you all.
"God I'm scared, I don't know what to do with these children, please help me!" This was just one thought going through my head as our team drove to the handicapped orphanage that we were helping at last summer in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. I had never cared for handicapped children before and I wasn't really sure what to expect. Thankfully, when we arrived at our destination we were greeted with curiosity and smiling faces. One little girl even came up to me and grabbed onto my leg, I quickly picked her up and walked to the back of their house where the rest of the children were. When I came to the back of the house I was baffled and a little in shock at how many handicapped children and adults (around 90) there were. As I walked around the beds and strollers and wheelchairs that were laid out for the children to lay on I felt overwhelmed at how many different kind of disabilities I saw. Some children had minor physical disabilities (I don't think any disability is minor but for lack of a better word) like only having one arm or another child wasn't born with fingers except for a thumb and a pinky finger. Others had disabilities that could have easily been "fixed" in the United States like hydrocephalus, which is fluid built up in the brain or glaucoma. Almost all of them were severely handicapped such as blindness, mental disorders that did not allow them to function in the "real world" and cerebral-palsy. All of them are so dependent, and as our group started to love on the children, feed them, hold them, we saw and felt something amazing. These children loved unconditionally and they had joy, you saw it in their eyes and in their smiles; they are all beautiful. I was amazed, through their pain and suffering that they were going through they still smiled. These children are completely in God's hands they are totally dependent on Him and the people that God has put in their life to help them.
I believe in total dependence in God. He gives you love so you can love others. He gives you joy, and the strength to persevere. He comforts you when everything seems to be falling a part. He rejoices with you when everything is coming together. He is our rock and our fortress. He desires us to depend on Him, He wants to fulfill our needs. He takes care of every little detail if we allow Him to. How amazing is that! Don't get me wrong it can be very hard to depend solely on God for all your needs, I struggle with this day to day, but how amazing would our lives be if we would just lay in his hands and allow Him to takes us places we never could have imagined going to, and meeting people we would never have met.
community. Beat the Drum is an HIV/AIDs awareness program with a focus on abstinence. Its mostly for jr high and high school ages and basically we go into a school show a movie called "Beat the Drum" and then the team spends a whole week going over curriculum. We went to around four schools and we had two community outreaches. From what I hear the schools were a great success and at the end of the week a lot of the students came to the Lord and got tested for HIV/AIDs. But, I wasn't apart of a school, I was apart of the summerset community outreach. 
erson stood up for both calls; it was amazing and I feel extremely blessed to be apart of this team but I'm not going to lie it was hard at times. Sometimes I felt like I wasn't really doing anything because I didn't speak to the crowd at all and most of the time everything that was being said was in Afrikaans, plus I was sick for most of it. I just didn't feel like I was doing anything but at the same time I knew I was doing something because I was praying and being a support system to those who were talking. Well, I guess I shouldn't say I felt helpless because we did get to hang out with some children for awhile because they were too young to watch the movie. That was really fun! We were at a small primary school on a farm and we played games with them and we told them a story and just loved on them. So many of these children had already been exposed to drugs, alcohol and sex. One of the girls had been raped and she was still in grade two or three; she was so sweet, it broke my heart to hear that something like that had already happened to her. 
elp but think that, like most governments, they are just covering up the poverty, but I don't want to get political. So I guess that's my first impression of J-Bay.
grabbed onto my leg, I quickly picked her up and walked to the back of their house where the rest of the children were. When I came to the back of the house I was baffled and a little in shock at how many handicapped children and adults (around 90) there were. As I walked around the beds and strollers and wheelchairs that were laid out for the children to lay on I felt overwhelmed at how many different kind of disabilities I saw. Some children had minor physical disabilities (I don't think any disability is minor but for lack of a better word) like only having one arm or another child wasn't born with fingers except for a thumb and a pinky finger. Others had disabilities that could have easily been "fixed" in the United States like hydrocephalus, which is fluid built up in the brain or glaucoma. Almost all of them were severely handicapped such as blindness, mental disorders that did not allow them to function in the "real world" and cerebral-palsy. All of them are so dependent, and as our group started to love on the children, feed them, hold them, we saw and felt something amazing. These children loved unconditionally and they had joy, you saw it in their eyes and in their smiles; they are all beautiful. I was amazed, through their pain and suffering that they were going through they still smiled. These children are completely in God's hands they are totally dependent on Him and the people that God has put in their life to help them. 