Her cough echoed against the tin walls. She had a dead surrendered look in her eyes, staring off in to the not-so-far distance. I could almost see the reel of life playing out in front of her: mother dead, father left, 2 kids to care for that aren’t hers to care for, but they are. Sick, deathly sick. No food, no income, not wanted by anyone.

As she opened up to share her story with us, her eyes began to quiver, and soon her hand was shaking, wiping the tears from her face. Her story was just as I thought. I wish it hadn’t been. I wish that Gertrude had a different story.

Her wails to God still echo in my mind.

I had never been in the presence of such honesty, such genuine humanity, grief and pain, dependence and faith mixed together. That day I felt God’s heart break.

The last time I visited Gertrude, she was staying with her sick Grandmother. Adolescent girls and babies floated in and out of the dark hall through our meeting. Distressed, she and her grandmother cried out together to their God, first using words, then just sobs and wails. There was an eerie stillness in the air as they tried to compose themselves before we left.

Gertrude died a year later in the same week as her grandmother. Together they left Gertrude’s 2 brothers, 14 and 17, and 16 year old sister with a baby of her own, a handful of young cousins, 5 children under the age 2 and a deathly ill aunt—the only adult left in Gertrude’s grandmother’s house.

I believe that God’s heart was in pain as She watched Her child suffer. I believe that there was a sweet reunion the day that Gertrude passed in to the next life. I believe that even through the pain there was purpose in Gertrude’s short life. I believe God has a redemptive plan for this earth and that it begins with you and me. She made us in Her image, creators, like Her. She desires for us to make this world a more loving, more compassionate place for saints like Gertrude, and for people like you and me who easily loose their way and quickly default to our selfish ways. I have to believe for my friends, I believe for Gertrude.

Video with Gertrude

Song for Gertrude

Lynn with Joas & Luisa during filming of the show in Mozambique.

Canadian friends: Living Truth will be debuting these 2 shows featuring Hands at Work in Africa this weekend and next. They were shot while Lynn was with them in Mozambique and Zimbabwe.

Catch the show: check this flyer for channels and times or go to livingtruth.ca

Lynn was interviewed and could very possibly appear in one of them!

Little did I know how hard this request to stand still, stand still and just receive, would be.

He told us that no matter what we must accept what they were going to give to us. We must accept it so that they can receive their blessing.

An amazing 3 days lead up to this point. A group of Canadians, mostly newly graduated doctors—some of the most highly educated people in the world—together with a group of volunteers from a slum in Zambia—some too poor to pay the $6 a year to send their child to primary school. Two groups thrown together by God, serving each other, learning from each other, freely giving and freely receiving.

You can use music when you are lonley,
where we come from ...

(he continues) ... but most of all, we use music to defuse tension,
where we come from.

Zimbabwean Jazz artist, Oliver Tuku, performs a poetic song that highlighting the loving and peaceful stance of Zimbabweans even in a tense political climate. Lynn took me on my 29th birthday. :)

We wrote an update letter for all our supporters (that's you because you're reading this now!). It'll be up on the front page of our website for a little while.

Lynn is in Zimbabwe and Mozambique right now with a tv crew. We are very honored to have Living Truth choose us again for their annual charity. They received an unprecedented response last year to their tv shows on Hands at Work.

A very small privileged audience (just me) was following Lynn along in a series of text messages and I decided it was selfish to keep it to myself so I’ve posted an edited version (minus the cute names and personal stuff) on Lynn's blog.

And finally, I added our Cape Town photos. It is just as beautiful as everyone says it is!

The best part: "Shine Shine" limousine below the knuckles that read "H O P E".

Also available in wrap skirts, table cloths, hand bags, head wraps, pillow cases...

And on the wall next to this display you'll see clocks with the faces of: Marilyn Monroe, Nelson Mandela, Bob Marley, and ...Obama, of course.

Eventually the rain slowed and we were, once again, able to see our neighbor’s home after they cut the neglected “lawn” between us. And yet we still found ourselves learning to live in harmony with God’s creation here:

We usually have quite a number of little geckos living with us, but this week I walked in to find a lizard (bigger and much more ferocious-looking) sitting on our laundry bag. I let him be (mostly because I was a little scared of him). The following couple of nights he woke us up scurrying here or there. So after a little search party today we finally chased him out, back in to the jungle again.

We also had a few furry visitors come by this week while we weren’t home. We arrived home to the evidence: a trail of orange peels, a few knocked over items that had been sitting on our window sill, and an opening in the screen just big enough for a monkey’s arm to reach in and to the box of oranges that was so absent-mindedly left in their plain view.

We’ve had a special couple of weeks with my mom and dad, who stepped foot on African soil for the first time. Their visit made me feel more at peace about being here then I have ever felt before and still more homesick than ever too.

The last leg of our journey back to South Africa Lynn and I were hoping to get a little extra shut-eye since we were to arrive after 2 days travel late at night to then have to rent a car and drive to our campus, which was another 4 and a half hours away, in order to make it to an early morning meeting the next day. To our surprise we were once again placed in a nearly empty section of the plane. I stretched out over 4 seats and dozed in and out for almost the entire 10 hour flight. Lynn took half a sleeping pill and did the same.