Tuesday-- Cranborne Community Church

January 11, 2011

Today it rained!! All. Day. Long. And we were without electricity all. day. long. But it was a great day regardless. We went to a church today called the Cranborne Community Church where we met Pastor Yamakaw and his wife Pervencia. We listened to all that they do in the church of around 500 they serve and in their surrounding community. It was really inspiring. They talked about the compassion ministries they are involved with.

One of the things they do is support about 400 widows. There, when a woman loses her husband, she is in danger because the bread winner is not there to support her. She loses everything. So, they run a project to help teach the widows skills they can use to support themselves like: plaiting hair, planting peanuts, making peanut butter to sell and sewing school uniforms. The pastor's wife, , had an amazing vision to actually open a school to teach the widows to counsel so that they could support eachother and the community as well!

Also, their church supports an orphanage which we visited. The pastor and his wife have also taken in 6 young adults in their own home where they teach boys to raise poultry for eggs & food and teach the girls similar skills that they teach the widows.

Both the pastor and his wife had such beautiful hearts. When they talked it was so easy to see their hearts overflowing with such sincere love (as did all of the orphanage caretakers & women running the feeding stations yesterday). It was amazing to me to think about this couple really giving all they have for the people they serve. They did not hold back anything at all and, to me, portrayed a very real portrait of what we should all look like serving and being followers of Christ to those around us.

It is very evident that God is doing AMAZING things here. And he doesn't need any outsiders to help. The people in their very own communities are taking the responsibility as their own and doing daily what they need to to support and love eachother. It is absolutely beautiful and I wish I could take this humble and passionate couple to the states to teach us a bit more about how to take care of others!!

Tomorrow we leave for Karanda. I am both nervous and very excited. We shall see what happens.

Britt