Gerhard doing training and development

Over the past year, I (Gerhard) have had such a hunger and desire in me to grow in my own personal development, knowledge, understanding and skill of being a better leader. I am constantly reading, listening, talking and studying about leadership and how to grow and develop healthy teams. Partly the reason for this is is that I have observed that as John Maxwell says, “Everything rises and falls on leadership” and the impact that both good and bad leaders make on society and people’s lives.

Along with this, I have observed the difference it makes when people work in an environment where there is a strong, healthy team environment and the benefits that go along with that. I feel very much called to teach, train and lead in these two areas.

Over the past few months, I have had the privilege to utilise some of my skills and knowledge in training and equipping teams and groups of people in these two areas. It has been such a joy! I really feel like I come alive when I can talk to a group of people and discuss with them what they can do to improve their own personal leadership and grow their team environment.

As a result, God has been opening doors for me to do training and development across different parts of Iris, such as with our leadership team, the next layer of leaders in our organisation, our school’s principal and teachers and our house parents. I have thoroughly enjoyed it. Along with this, God has been organically opening some doors to do similar stuff in other organisations.

Above all else, I also know that even if you have the best strategies, and you don’t know Jesus and make Him number one priority, that there will always be an empty void. I am reminded of this and make it my aim to start the sessions with seeking God first and reminding people what type of an amazing God we serve. I am very grateful to the Lord for giving me these opportunities and have great intention to be faithful with it.

Sorry, not many photos :) I always seem to forget to take some!

Sleepover Fun

Once a month we have a sleepover at our house for mine or Gerhard's Small Group (discipleship group). It is a lot of fun and the kids love it! We really have a heart for these kids and love having them come to our house for Small Group time (weekly), sleepovers (monthly) and other fun trips and activities, like swimming, ice creams, horse riding etc. Our kids really relate to these kids and they are really looked after by our Small group kids.

During a sleepover, we make them dinner and desert and then we watch a movie together on the projector (in French with English subtitles, for us!) and then we make them beds on mattresses on the lounge floor. In the morning, we cook them breakfast and they get to play before heading back to their house. Its always a lot of noise, and activity, and last time the power went out for most of the night, so we lit the candles and finished watching the movie (Prince Caspian) by crowding around the laptop (good thing, the battery was charged!).

All our Iris kids (153 of them) are in a Small Group led by a missionary or leader, and it is in these small groups, that we get to get to know a smaller group of kids more personally as well as to disciple them and celebrate their birthdays.

Lately, I have been talking about hearing God's voice with my Small Group, and we have been practicing hearing God's voice. All my girls have been growing in hearing God's voice, and feeling His presence. Hallelujah!

Hearing the Voice of God

This morning in Iris Church I had the opportunity to talk on something that God has been talking to me about recently - Hearing God's Voice. Many people believe that God loves them, in the sense that God loves the world sense, but don't really know HOW much He loves them, until they hear Him talking to them. There is a war to keep us deaf, but the irony is that there is no such thing as spiritual deafness!

Every morning as part of our Family Bible Time, we spend 5-10 minutes where we all go off to different parts of the garden or house and ask God what He wants to say to us today. There is no such thing as a Junior Holy Spirit! Immanuel (4), Mary-Beth (6), Tabitha (8) all regularly hear God speaking to them and we have given them special books to record God's words to them.

My Iris Discipleship Group

For the last few months, I have been teaching my Iris Small Group (discipleship group) on hearing God's voice, and every week when we meet together we go and practice trying to hear God's voice. They have all been hearing God's voice. It is so encouraging for them and for me. There are only 2 truths. #1 God ALWAYS speaks! #2 Our ears work just fine!

If you would like to learn more about how to teach your children (or adults) how to hear God's voice, I would encourage you to buy Lisa Max's book "Conversations With Our Creator". It is simple, easy to read and easy to teach from. It is $5 US and downloadable in a digital format. http://classroom.letthechildrenfly.com/product/conversations-with-our-creator/

A New School for our Iris Kids

In August, we rented out a new space as a school for our kids. This is the first time they have had a building for a school. Previously, we have schooled them in whatever space was available, eg. a guard's hut for a preschool class and the Boy's House lounge, which had 3 classrooms in it, with curtains separating the classes. This was far from ideal.
                                  
                                  
                    Above photos: Old classrooms in lounge and room in Boys House.

The new space as a huge 3 story building, with plenty of rooms for our 2 preschool classes, 6 primary school classes, a staffroom, and a storage room. It has a huge yard too, so lots of room for the kids to run around and play.

It was great timing getting the new land and building in August, as we had a visiting team of young people who cleaned and tidied up the whole space for us. It was such a mess when we got it. There was junk metal everywhere, rubbish everywhere, overgrown grass and weeds, old peeling paint etc. It really was in a terrible state!

                                  Photos above: The school and yard when we got it.

Under Gerhard's direction, the place was transformed to an amazing facility with new paint on the walls, murals on outside and inside walls, a junior playground, a senior playground and a treehut. School started back in September, and all the teachers, staff and children were so impressed!

Photo above: School assembly on the first day back

Since then, Gerhard and fellow team member Michiel, have continued to transform the Iris School property. They have added a basketball court/soccer field, a bike track, foursquare, hopscotch, a water run, musical sound wall and other bits and pieces.

Photos above: Preschool kids enjoying new musical sound wall and Gerhard coaching the principal in how to coach the preschool teacher. Photo right: Preschool class

The children love the school, especially the outside space. Which is great, because we love these children and want them to have the funnest, most stimulating, exciting learning place that they can. Our appreciation goes to our Iris leaders for renting this space for our Sekoly (school), and to everyone who has helped or contributed to our fantastic learning space for our amazing kids.

A Day in My Life as a Missionary Mum

Street Evangelism

Evangelising

As one of the school holiday activities for the Iris kids, Gerhard has been doing street evangelism every Friday morning. The last 2 times, he has taken along Tabitha and Mary-Beth, as well as some of the Iris kids. They have had the opportunity to share their testimonies with the locals in our village and to pray for the sick. One time they prayed for someone, who reported that they were healed. Another time they prayed for a homeless young mum who had a toddler and a newborn baby. She had nothing and lived on the street (in winter). It is a great opportunity to grow their compassion, faith and courage in sharing about God and praying for strangers.

Praying

Rubbish Dump Outreach

My Iris Small Group of girls blew me away on Thursday...

Our Iris kids are on the long school holidays and Gerhard came up with the idea that every small group should serve our local community in some way over their break. My (Rebekah's) Small Group came up with the idea of ministering at the local rubbish dump.

Tabitha and Hoby with the rest of our team already on rice fields

So on Thursday, we walked across the rice fields to Golana, our neighbouring rubbish dump community. There are about 250 families that live in and work in the rubbish in extremely poor dirty conditions. Children in dirty ragged clothing without shoes, babies tied on the backs of girls as young as 5, the stench of rotting rubbish, houses made out of cardboard and scraps of corrugated iron and roofs held down by rocks and tires are just some of the sights that I take in.

We made our way to the school building that Iris has recently made. This coming school year will be the first year that Golana will have a school. It is a single simple room, with a blackboard at each end and benches around the edges.

About 40 children and a few mamas follow us like the pied piper into the school. Tabitha is the first to preach. She talks about God and how much she loves Him. As her Mum, I am so proud of her. Then 3 of my Small Group girls get up one by one and talk about God and read from their Bibles. Afterwards, we ask if anyone would like prayer, and some children and one mum ask for healing. We all surround them and pray for them.

Sydia sharing God's Word

Then the moment came which really melted my heart. My Iris girls had voluntarily decided to bring clothes and toys to give to the poor. I was so humbled, with how generous they were. They didn't just bring one thing each, they had brought lots to give away. Wow. I was speechless.

Hoby on the left, Tabitha standing next to the girl wearing the headband that Tabitha had given her.

Then, while we were waiting for the school key to be returned, Hoby, one of my Small Group girls, all her own without prompting, puts her arm around a girl from Golana, and starts sharing about Jesus with her. Yeah!!! Go Hoby! I can picture her as a preacher/evangelist.

Listening to the Word of God

Sometimes, you give out, and sometimes you receive. Today was one of those days that I received more that I gave.

"For out of the mouths of little children and infants, You have built a fortress against your opponents to silence the enemy and the avenger." Psalm 8:2

Delphine's Family

Shortly after we returned to Madagascar, Iris found one of our boy's family. He had run away and the courts require us to make every effort to find their family. His mum was very sick, malnourished and extremely underweight. She has Diabetes Type 1 and only weighed 29 kilos when Iris found her. She had no job, no husband and not enough food for her and her three children still living with her. Iris has a Kids Community Programme, where we support families who are too poor to provide for their children, by supporting the families with rice and other food, school and medical fees, while training the parents or helping them to start businesses, so that in time, they can be weaned off the programme. Our family has paid her rent for the next year, as she is too sick to get a job at this stage. She is living with three of her children (the forth is at Iris) in our village, about 5mins from us. We have been able to visit her and take her some girls clothes for her girl, and give the boys, who are at the local community school, some picture books in Malagasy. Tabitha and Mary-Beth wanted to give her six year old girl one of their dolls, a pencil case and some stickers. These will be the only toys she has. We also took her a set of pots and fry pans. As much as Delphine and her children were touched by our gifts, we also were blessed by being in the position to be able to give and the joy and the humility that that brings. We were very emotional and humbled to see their humble abode and how little they have, but what joy they still have. It reminds me of the verse "Blessed are the poor...".

Wearing their new clothes

Lunch Time Feeding Programme

Every Thursday Gerhard does lunch time feeding programme at Iris and he has been taking one of our kids with him each time. Lunch time feeding programme is where a lot of poor kids in the community come to hear the Gospel and are fed a big lunch. Iris does this three times a week. For a lot of these children, this will be their only meal each day. Tabitha, Mary-Beth and Immanuel have been really brave and been able to share their testimony, talk about Jesus and what He has done for us, and have been able to pray for the kids. Mary-Beth prayed for two boys who were sick, and one boy got healed instantly (her first miracle!). The community kids have really appreciated hearing from kids their age and even gave Tabitha a standing ovation when she finished. We aim to involve our kids in our ministry as much as possible, and it touches our heart to see them growing spiritually and more in love with Jesus, as well as in character.

Our First Malagasy Wedding

On Saturday we went to our first Malagasy wedding. Our oldest Iris boy Lalaina got married. It was such a lovely wedding! On Friday, I helped decorate the venue. Sky blue was the chosen colour, and everything was decorated in this colour. Big, bold and beautiful describe the decorations! Lots of sparkle, ribbons and balloons. On Saturday, we got dressed up and we walked to the venue. The bride was in a beautiful sparkly white wedding dress, and Lalaina looked dashing too! Caroline married them in a beautiful ceremony with all the older Iris kids in attendance too. Then we had an appetiser (which we mistook for lunch!). Next came some wedding games. Lalaina had to guess who was the bride by the sound of her voice, then he was blindfolded and had to guess who was his bride, by touching faces. Malagasy like to have fun at their weddings! Next came the bride and groom's first dance, followed by the traditional Malagasy wedding dance, then the floor was opened up to whoever wanted to dance. Gerhard took our kids dancing. and I got to gaze at our gorgeous sleeping princess baby.

Lunch was served up, lots of vary (rice), chicken and pork with a tomato salad, followed by a delicious desert of fruit salad, yoghurt and ice cream. By this time we were voky be (very full)! After lunch, the microphone was opened up to whoever wanted to use it, be it a song, dance, poem or speech to the married couple.

2 of our Iris girls singing to the Bridal couple

After 4 hours, our kids were ready to head home, so we left the wedding and decided we didn't need any dinner! We heard that the wedding continued for another few hours!