"Indeed, it would be perfectly fair for God not to save any
human beings who sinned and rebelled against him…" (Wayne Grudem, Christian Beliefs)

As I was listening to Chris Tomlin's version of Amazing Grace I realized how often I
forget about God's amazing grace. I get
so caught up in what is going on with me that I dismiss the greatness of His
grace. The truth of the above statement by
Wayne Grudem in his book Christian
Beliefs blew me away. Nothing about
me, nothing I do, and nothing I can do would even come close to being enough
for God to save me. If it weren't for
His amazing grace I would be bound for eternal separation from Him. The enormity of God's grace is something that
I will never completely understand and need to remind myself of daily. Grace was once explained to me as getting
something I don't deserve. When I think
about all the things I don't deserve that God has given me freely I am so
humbled. How is it that I can
continually keep asking Him for things when He has given me so much more than I
deserve. Right now a huge picture of His
grace poured out on me is the fact that I am in Africa
and am able to spend my days with God's people here and to wake up each morning
to an African sunrise. We went to
Mamelodi for the last time yesterday and it was bittersweet. We have spent four weeks ministering to the
children and yesterday we celebrated our last day with a party for Jesus. We sang a few songs with the children, which
I think they know better than we do now, we encouraged them with scripture, and
then just had fun with them. We made
balloon animals, painted faces, and played music. It was so much fun to see these children
enjoying the few things we had for them.
I have been so blessed with my time in this township working with these
children and was sad to leave. I know
God is doing great things there and will continue to do so, even if I am not
there to see it happen. A group of the
boys in the after school program performed a dance for us before we left. Today they are performing this same dance at
the American Embassy here! Below I tried to
post a short video of the dance, but the internet is "Africa slow" today. I have also only been able to upload one picture from the party.  Please continue to pray for the workers and
children at Berakah in Mamelodi. God's
grace really is amazing!

"for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and
are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ
Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by
faith." (Romans 3:23-25)