Hey ya'll!

I hope you all are doing well! God has been doing wonderful things here in South Africa so I want to share a brief recap of last weekend and a little personal testimony.

This past weekend our team helped host an event for the Tim Tebow Foundations to thank them for funding a special needs kids classroom at Impact Africa's christian schools. It was a crazy and fun event! We had craft rooms, a petting zoo, bouncy houses, basically everything under the sun! But the highlight of the event for me was getting to hold two babies that both ended up falling asleep while I held them. This stuck out to me because just a few days later, we were talking as a team about the effects of holding and caring for babies, and the long term effects it can have on them when they are loved from a young age. These quiet moments of caring for little ones may not be the dramatic times when we see someone give their life to Jesus, but they matter. Each small act of faithfulness can create ripple effects beyond what we’ll ever see. We can trust that God is at work in every faithful moment we place in His hands.

In addition to this, I wanted to share a personal testimony of the work God is doing in me from last week. Testimony means "to do again", so I want to use this to share revelations of Gods love for your encouragement. We had a worship night during the week with our squad and the interns we are with at Impact Africa. This time for me was extremely impactful, I knew I was holding on to things, anxiously worrying about my life and the future. During that time I just felt how heavy I was carrying these worries and lies with me constantly. Then as I worshipped, Christ just met me there in all my honesty and asked me to surrender those things to him. When I did so, he began to fill me with truths of His plan for my life. His love came to fill the parts of me that were weary from worry. He brought me to the throne room of worship at his throne in Revelation 19 and 20. Then he brought me to Revelations 20: 6-10 where it talks about the marriage supper of the lamb. And I realized in a way that struck my heart deeper than before that God asks us to be his bride. Similar (but not the same) to a man proposing to a woman, so our God asks us to be His bride. But we are like Hosea’s bride who is stained and sinful, and keeps returning to other men, but still our God asks us to come to the wedding where He will vow to never leave us or forsake us when we choose Him!

Revelations 19:7-8 says, “Let us rejoice and exalt and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready; it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.”

We are Hosea's wife who was stained by sin and just keeps returning to that sin, but God rich in mercy meets us there and still chose to make us his bride. And He promises to those who put their faith in Him, that He will redeem our lives and make us perfect in Him. He tells us this through the image of us being clothed in righteousness, that we will walk in newness of life in Him. Our righteous deeds do not save us, because that could only ever be done by our sinless Jesus. But instead our "fine linen of righteous deeds" is the proof of the gift that Christ has made us new in Him! And He did this all so we could have a relationship with Him!

So then we stand clothed in white at His righteous throne, but then what? God chooses to then take our hand and walk with us again through the Garden of Eden for the rest of eternity. Christ walked carrying the cross, soaked in blood, wearing a crown of thorns, pierced for our transgressions, so we could have the peace to walk hand in hand with our God clothed in white and given a new body for eternity.

My encouragement to everyone back at home is to live and rest in the joy of Gods love. Look back at the seasons of your life that are filled with pain and heartache, seasons you don’t want to return to, and look for Gods love in it. You’ll find it I promise, and you’ll see how he blessed and sustained you in those seasons. And when you look to the future, don’t look in anxiety, clothe yourself like the women in Proverbs 31:25, "Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she laughs at the time to come." This is one of my mom's favorite verses, and she loves the end of the verse specifically because the woman laughs without fear of what is coming. During our worship night, 1 Corinthians 2:9 also came up, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”. We can "laugh at the time to come" because we know that God has good things prepared for us! I want to finish with this John 14:27, ""Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid". Our God has beautiful and wonderful things prepared for all who place their faith in Him. Because of that, we have no reason to be anxious and we are assured of this by the greatest proof of His love, that one day He will clothe us in righteousness and welcome us to dwell with Him forever.

I have been sharing a lot of things God is doing in my life, so I hope to share more ministry moments in the weeks to come. I hope this meets your hearts with encouragement and peace, and thank you all so much for your prayers!

Love,

Abigail