Tuesday, June 06, 2006

Update!
It has been way too long since my last update! I am sorry, and really appreciate your faithful thoughts and prayers despite my not-so-faithful updating. Above is a photo of last weeks CHE meeting as we broke up into small groups to discuss passages of scripture giving reasons why we should make God the first priority in our lives. I want to begin by giving praise to God for this year's group of CHE's and thanking you for all of your prayers. Things have been going so well and I see God working in and through the CHE volunteers. We will be having a graduation celebration in a couple of weeks (complete with certificates, official CHE badges, and new Bibles) to celebrate the CHE's and motivate them to continue making home visits and sharing the information they have learned. Last week was great as we discussed nutrition and the priority of our relationship with God. We learned that most of the CHE's diets consist of a loaf of white bread and butter each day. Sometimes a bowl of porridge is enjoyed in the morning or soup in the evening, but white bread with butter is the core of most meals. This is the case throughout Philippi as well. Unfortunately, most people rarely (if ever) get fruit, veggies or protein in their diets. We discussed affordable and easy ways to incorporate some of these foods on a daily basis.
I was personally convicted as we later discussed how our relationship with God should be our number one priority. The question was posed, "If we say that our relationship with God really is the most important thing in our lives, why don't our lives show it?" It was neat to be able to talk about how to show the degree to which we value our relationship with God through how we spend our time, money, and resources. Many people's lives were impacted through CHE last week (including mine). Please pray for us as we discuss two very important topics this week 1. Abstinence and 2. How to deal with anger in a healthy way. Abstinence is not very accepted in Philippi and youth are pressured by friends and family TO have pre-marital sex instead of to abstain from it. This is especially dangerous with the high prevalence of HIV/AIDS as having sex can be a literal death sentence). Please pray that fruitful discussion would be had and that the CHE's would be bold and courageous to share these difficult lessons with friends and family.
Lastly, I would like to update you on what is going on in Philippi in regards to the violence and strikes that were previously mentioned. Though the violent protests have subsided, the security guard strikes continue. We heard this morning that many security guards are in financial crisis and don't have enough money to feed their families because they have been out of work for so long. They can't go back to work because breaking the strike could mean death for them at the hands of fellow security guard strikers. So, the situation is quite bad for them now. Please pray that the conflict would be resolved quickly and peacefully and that the workers would not be exploited but rather get the wages that they deserve. Thank you for all of your prayers!

Love,
Jen

No comments: