{"id":1658,"date":"2017-06-18T03:41:26","date_gmt":"2017-06-18T07:41:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/francois-hattingh\/?p=1658"},"modified":"2017-06-18T03:49:40","modified_gmt":"2017-06-18T07:49:40","slug":"my-village-granny-and-gods-word","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/francois-hattingh\/2017\/06\/18\/my-village-granny-and-gods-word\/","title":{"rendered":"My village granny and God’s Word"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Early morning mist is rising from the earth after a cool night.\u00a0 The Mwinika \u201cwinter\u201d is on us, and despite the temperature never lowering even close to freezing, fevers, colds, runny noses, and coughing are rampant in our village.\u00a0 I am on my way to Granny\u2019s house to get her ready for the day.\u00a0 She has become progressively weaker in the last few years and especially in the last months.\u00a0 She can now hardly feed herself, cannot sit up on her own, cannot dress herself or do even the basics to keep herself comfortable.\u00a0 Her mind however is still sharp and occasionally the humour that so endeared her to me comes through with a girlish giggle.\u00a0 I love every moment with her, my village granny, friend, and sister in Christ.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I will never forget her first prayer. It was 5 months after we started teaching here for the first time.\u00a0 The Mwinika from several villages just heard for the first time that Christ died for their sins, but rose again and lives!\u00a0 Many accepted this with glad hearts, and some started to realize the many implications this had for them and their families.\u00a0 Granny walked to my house, cane in hand and nearly bent double from scoliosis.\u00a0 She sat down and after a few pleasantries (the Mwinika like to get to the point quickly!), she asked me what has been on her mind:\u00a0 if those who do not believe in Jesus as their Saviour go to the forever fire, what happened to all my children that have died and never heard?<\/p>\n

\"\"
Granny walking far to visit me in 2012<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I have struggled with this question myself, sitting among crying family and friends during funerals of friends who died, but never heard.\u00a0 God in his infinite wisdom and grace met me one day on my way to a friend\u2019s house that died mere hours before.\u00a0 Our language ability was still weak and most women here cannot speak any Portuguese.\u00a0 I tried, but failed to help her understand about the Son of God who came to save her, and she died an agonizing death without Christ.\u00a0 God met me then in a burned down field, the outer picture of the death of many without Him, and assured me that He is God, He is Love and Grace and knows every single person\u2019s heart.\u00a0 He knows who would accept Him and who wouldn\u2019t.\u00a0 I have to trust Him.\u00a0 And I do.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

How to explain this to a brand new Christian, a mother, and grandmother?\u00a0 I assured her that God is good and that He does not want even one to be lost; however, Christ is the only Way to Him.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s talk to God\u201d, I suggested.\u00a0 And there on the little step, sitting in front of my mud office, she started to talk to God, without preliminaries and straight from her heart.\u00a0 She told Him her name, and that she knows He knows her.\u00a0 He knows all her sins and all the wrong she has done in her life.\u00a0 She knows who He is, the almighty God, perfect and good.\u00a0 She knows that without\u00a0 Jesus, she has nothing to offer to redeem herself.\u00a0 She told God that she trusts Him.\u00a0 And then, with tears streaming down her face, she laid her children before Him.\u00a0 She knows that the dead cannot come back or hear us anymore, but asked God that those who had died somehow heard of Him before their end and that they are saved.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I sat amazed as I listened to her prayer.\u00a0 She knows more about God, who He is and who she is without Him than many who have been in church for years!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I arrive at Granny\u2019s house and called out, as the custom is, to ask permission to go in.\u00a0 As many mornings before, I cannot help but wonder if she is still with us.\u00a0 She loves the Lord, but is mostly abandoned by her family.\u00a0 Apart from my care, she would probably have died years ago.\u00a0 I am well aware that many in her family, unbelievers, are angry with me for \u201ckeeping her alive\u201d while in their culture she is now only a burden and should \u201cmove one\u201d.\u00a0 I hear her shaky and weak \u201ccome in\u201d and as I push open the simple door I see her dear, wrinkled face light up when she sees me.\u00a0 I enter the house of the poorest of the poor.\u00a0 She has virtually nothing.\u00a0 She lives in the front part of a mud hut with three rooms, floor and outer walls uneven and made of mud.\u00a0 In one corner is a bucket (the one I gave her) and a dipper.\u00a0 Two tiny tin plates and one spoon.\u00a0 A little bundle of clothes, a clay pot and a stained and threadbare straw mat.\u00a0 That is it.\u00a0 We gave her a mattress and it is on this, on the bare floor, that I find Granny just as I left her the night before.\u00a0 And so begins my morning routine of helping her up, washing and dressing her, feeding her, making her comfortable.\u00a0 The solar player* with the Bible reading in eMwinika is still clutched in her one hand and I take it with her permission to recharge before returning it later in the day.\u00a0 This is her highlight: listening to God\u2019s Word.\u00a0 The last thing I hear every evening as I push her door closed is her tiny voice repeating and anticipating the story she is listening to on this device.\u00a0 Like an old friend she converses with God\u2019s Word, agreeing and exclaiming: Oh yes! True!<\/p>\n

\"\"
Granny listening to God’s Word back in 2011<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

No matter what the language or the culture, God’s amazing Word speaks to every person, right where they are!\u00a0 Our first priority is still to get God’s Word in written form out to as many as possible, but the solar players have been a huge help in getting it out in the meantime to old and infirm, or have not had the opportunity to learn to read yet.\u00a0 Please pray with me for Granny, that her family will get involved in her care.\u00a0 And that the community will see Christ and thirst for His Word as Granny does!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

*If you want to get involved to get more of these solar players out into our community, let us know!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Early morning mist is rising from the earth after a cool night.\u00a0 The Mwinika \u201cwinter\u201d is on us, and despite the temperature never lowering even close to freezing, fevers, colds, runny noses, and coughing are rampant in our village.\u00a0 I am on my way to Granny\u2019s house to get her ready for the day.\u00a0 She […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":808,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[448],"class_list":{"0":"post-1658","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-ministry","7":"tag-ethnos360","8":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/francois-hattingh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/francois-hattingh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/francois-hattingh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/francois-hattingh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/808"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/francois-hattingh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/francois-hattingh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1658\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/francois-hattingh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/francois-hattingh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/francois-hattingh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}