Our Daughter of Faith

About March last year our youngest daughter Naomi left home...after months of praying and discussions she decided that God was leading her to join YWAM in Hawaii on their 'PhotogenX' course. A total of 6 months; now its Dec and she is still not home.

Naomi has a passion to see people come to meet Jesus and she has a passion to see those marginalised within societies set free both from their lifestyles or environment and their spiritual bondage.

What is this course; read the following:

PhotogenX Around the World is for you if you like to travel, if you have a desire to learn about photography and the Bible and if you want to learn how to combat injustice around the world. Through this course you will learning photography and have opportunity to shoot around the world in the Americas, Africa, Europe and Asia. The place will be as diverse as Hawaii, the Amazon, Sahara and the Himalayans. You will get to study the Bible on the back of a camel or on a boat through the Middle East and Turkey. You will study world culture not out of books but in the nations themselves. You will use your camera to combat injustice and oppression.

So our Naomi set off to Hawaii and started this course. She bedded down with a bunch of young people from different nationalities and they became a team; learning the finer points of photography and what trusting God really means.

Naomi: "so I've registered and everything. I've been sweet all day really calm. but its almost overwhelming just with the Americans-they're lovely but I feel like an alien! I don't know though.”

She was learning a lot about herself and God:

"I'm so tired today we had a really good night of testimonies last night. God just really showed me how much i judge ppl and really broke that from me. was good. also i felt him implant some of the love he has for ppl into me and he's revealing more of how he loves me too. so all in all it was a good night."
"things are going awesome here i will update my blog......its cool how God can be so intense, subtle, crazy and beautiful all at once."

Then she went on field assignment to Panama stayed there about three months.

"I'm actually really excited about what we are going to do, Monday we are going to stay a night with a tribe. or a village?....we also are going to get involved with the sex trafficking here in panama and also with the orphanage....its so sad to hear whats going on ...so much molestation of the children and people not caring at all what happens with them ....its SO sad so..it will be awesome to see what we can do to bring change."

"List of surprises in Panama:

bats

scorpions

larger than life cockroach

larger than face hairy gross spider

killer bee's

earthquake

storms

..."Jesus never talked to a prostitute because he didn't see a prostitute. He just saw a child of God he was madly in love with"

When I read this it hit me straight in the heart. Revelation. THIS is how God looks at his sons and daughters, this is how I need to...how WE NEED to see our brothers and sisters and to love them."

She found the time in Panama very intense and challenging for her; relating with the team, the sadness in the lives of the local people and constant heat.

But she made it through and they then flew onto South Africa. By this time Naomi had wrestled with the option of continuing on the course and doing the extended 18 month 'Track" course. Now at this stage we were hopping that she would come on home and especially be here for Christmas. She had basically run out of money; wasn't God telling her to call it a day! Well Naomi didn't see it so black and white. She waited and waited, struggling to know God's will in this situation...just the other day a person in Japan held a concert and raised $4000 which the team gave to Naomi so she could continue on the 'Track".

South Africa held new challenges for Naomi.

"I miss you guys a lot...been a bit emotional lately but apart from that i love south africa. its really weird though sometimes I'm perplexed by how this wealth and art and beauty can co-exist with this crippling poverty. but its always been this way. ill ask God how what why."

"Its been such an interesting time of stretching my faith and really trying to decipher what he has been teaching me. I just think i confused it but yea...I'm sick right now ha ha just with a blocked nose but getting better so DON'T WORRY"

"We have started up a prayer meeting for Capricorn the community of people that are living in really bad conditions of poverty they are only a 15min walk away."

"i had my second time at the high school(as i mentioned in my newsletter) it was so fun and i feel like that's maybe somewhere where God wants me to be. we are only there for a month but i really feel like this is a good opportunity to equip and bring awareness to the need in these teenagers own country and show them that they themselves can do something. and they are all so awesome."

"What I have come to realize is that these people don’t need our 'service', us helping them, they need us to serve them. To be their servants. Not to come as the rich to the poor, or to cure them of all there diseases, they need us to come on the level of humanity, a common ground."

Naomi has befriended a young High School girl in the local school where they have been helping. This girl has been a refugee and endured many hardships as she tried to reach a country of saftey, eventually making it to South Africa. Hopefully Naomi can make a difference to this girl by being her friend.

We are so proud of what Naomi has become, how God has worked on her 'inside' and opened her up to what he sees in the hurting places of this world. She will make a difference because God will use her to express his love to those she meets.

Please pray for Naomi and the team as they have Christmas away from family and friends and move onto other countries. Pray for their relationships as a team; their financial needs (they still need finances to keep going next year); their witness for Christ, might they be authentic in the way they live their faith and share their lives with those marginalised people. Might they bring glory to God in what they do.