First I just want to say I hope you all are doing well! I want to thank you for your support and taking time to read this post. This is my longest update so far but without question, the most important post yet.
This post today has come with much prayer and thought as to whether or not to write it. After talking about it with some other people within All Nations and really processing it, there is no other way to go about this than to share because I need as much prayer as possible.
Wednesday afternoon I was heading into Masihpumelele to meet with a friend named Siba. Siba has been someone who has helped us out with translating for kids club and just been great to have around some of the younger kids. After I was done spending time with Siba I walked past one of the shops some of my Somalian friends own. I spent some time speaking with them about a number of things. I left there place around 5:30.
To help you better understand Masi, there is about 35,000 people who live in one square mile - which is a crazy amount considering I can only think of one place that is above two stories. There is one entrance and one exit to Masi so the main road is always busy. There always a lot of people walking around Masi, people selling fruit off blankets on the sidewalk, and children always running around, not to mention the dogs and chickens everywhere! About a quarter mile into Masi there is a place where a number of boys gather from about 14 to younger 20’s. These guys have been called the naughty boys by some of the locals, and All Nations uses it regularly. As I was walking out of Masi and past the naughty boys corner on the opposite side of the road I could see one of the naughty boys get up and run out in front of me a little ways with another boy who got up slowly and started walking behind me. By the Holy Spirit I knew the situation wasn’t right. I switched sides of the road to only soon watch the other boy cross to my side again. We did this a few times until we got all the way out to the main road. I began to turn right out of Masi but saw that he was following me closely and there wasn’t many people in that direction so I quickly changed directions once again to the normal direction I normally walk out of Masi Towards where I park my scooter in the Foodzone parking lot. Still this guy followed me closely behind until I finally turned around and said firmly Can I help you? He pretended like he couldn’t here me and walked closer. At that point I was grabbed from behind from his friend and the other guy sprinted towards me. Both guys put a hand in each of my pockets, one grabbing my phone and the other grabbing a hold of my wallet (which only contained 50 rand – less than 7 dollars.) As they were trying to pull there closed fists with my belongings in there hands, I hit the guy from behind with my scooter helmet and tried pushing their hands away from my pockets. As I was screaming out for help two cars came from behind me and started honking there horns without cease. As we continued to wrestle nearly to the ground they some reason stopped and ran away back into Masi. By God’s grace I was unharmed and my possessions were safe. Around 50 people witnessed this from the street, the bus stop twenty feet from me, and the people walking on the side walk, yet these guys still attempted to rob me. But the Lord was faithful with his protection!
After I shared this story with my parents, my mom asked what time this happened and my initial thought was isn’t that kind of irrelevant? But when I told her what time it happened she told me she felt sick and worried for me around 9:30am central time. That was just close to the exact minute of when I stepped foot into Masi.
Also, I received this from one of my most faithful and encouraging supporters this morning in an email. “before we went to bed that night, we prayed together for YOU...and the specific words were...may your angels give Jay protection at all times! When I heard the story from your mom yesterday...and how you felt there were angels protecting you...I just knew that God had answered our prayers.
I share this story with you for two reasons – First to say those who have been praying so faithfully, thank you. Your prayers are felt here and tangibly experience like Thursday.
Secondly – Please pray for these naughty boys.
My friend Sbu is a local and has lived in Masi for some time now. He has built relationship with some of these boys and even done a little ministry with them. One of them even prayed to accept Christ at one point, but they have fallen back into their ways again. So yesterday Sbu and I walked up to the boys together and he made small talk just to show I as with him. I recognized the boy who mugged me just 20 hours ago. He wouldn’t make eye contact with me as he grinned and look at his friends. You could tell in his mind he was thinking what in the world was going on? As Sbu and I walked away we walked a ways and turned around. When we walked back they were scattered. Sbu and I talked for a while and see this as an incredible opportunity to minister to these men! One of my favorite quotes is by Jackie Pullinger – If you want revival, start in the gutters. If we truly want a revival to sweep across Masi and not just a few people, these are the men to do it. If transformation occurs within them, the sky is their limit as there level of influence is huge.
As I came back later into Masi to have a bible study with Sipho and some other boys our paths crossed again. His friends saw me coming sooner and they scattered, while he didn’t’ see me till I walked right past him, within feet. I believe this is chapter 1 of many with these boys. I don’t know what “ministry” looks like with these boys but God does. I just need to trust what God wants to write in the next chapter of this! Who am I to doubt what our God can do?
There are two types of people in this world – those who read about history, and those who write it. Please join me actively in humble and expectant prayer as God has blessed me with an opportunity to help write HIS-story
Blessings friends thank you for your support.
Wow praise God you are safe!
ReplyDeleteYou have an awesome attitude about this opportunity. I will be praying for a rich harvest from among the naughty boys and for you as you try to reach them with the gospel!
ReplyDeletepraise God for His protection indeed! And praise Him for the heart He has given you to reach these boys - will be praying for you friend!!
ReplyDeleteMissin ya, but also praising that you're away... continued prayers for protection and for eternally impactful situations to arise... sorry about the hawks ;-)
ReplyDeleteStefania Caterina was born in Genoa Italy 19 January 1959 by a Catholic family practitioner.
ReplyDeleteIn 1994 he decided to leave everything to dedicate himself totally to God and His work, by providing the gifts received from Him
You can write directly to
/ /stefania.c@versolanuovacreazione.it / / www.versolanuovacreazione.it
A dutiful introduction
Dearest Readers,
The messages Jesus is dictating to me these days and that will be published in the next months, definitely trace the path towards the events awaiting us. Therefore, I felt I had the duty to write this introduction, to help you enter more deeply in the subject you will be reading.
Up to today I shared with you the revelations I received from God. In my first book, Beyond the Great Barrier that ends with the 15th chapter entitled “The new Creation”, I amply presented to you the central message of the revelations received, that is: recapitulate in Christ all things in heaven and on earth. I tried to lead you to the events that have to do with the Earth and the universe. These days, Jesus told me that in the next months He wants to prepare us to face those events awaiting us in the immediate future.
How to face such events? I believe that in these years, through the many explanations I received and I communicated to you, we obtained the grace of understanding the interior walk which prepares us to enter the mind of Christ and to understand the mystery of God and of life, to elevate and transform us to the point of becoming new creatures. I spoke to you about this spiritual walk in particular in the book Writing History Anew – Vol. 1 In the mind of God. Furthermore, you have been accompanied by the messages published every month on this site; these messages continue and they introduce us, more and more, to a serious phase of preparation and decision making.
I cannot comment on these messages. Jesus Himself and His Holy Spirit will explain them to you in your heart. An answer is expected from you to understand the words that you will read. Finally, it is up to each one of us to commit ourselves, for the Earth and for the whole universe, so that the promises of God may be realized.
/ www.versolanuovacreazione.it
/ www.versolanuovacreazione.it /
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“My Father is at work until now, so I am at work”
(John 5:17)
“I bless you my children! Today I wish to speak to you about God’s work in these times and about the general picture in which your life and your mission is inserted.
“Try to understand, above all, that you did not happen to be in the reality in which you are by accident, but you are here because of a precise divine project. Whatever you might think about yourselves or others might think about you, know that your life is precious and irreplaceable in the time and place in which you find yourselves to be, according to God’s projects. You have been preordained for this reality, and for this reason God gave you irreplaceable and original potentialities. No one in the universe is equal to you, because God’s creativity is unlimited and inexhaustable, and because each one of you is absolutely unique in his being and in his way of acting.
“Unfortunatly, many on Earth live below their potentiality, because they do not make of themselves a gift to Me. I am the only One to know pefectly the Father’s project for each one of you, because from Him I received the order to bring to completion His work in every person. I am acting in you by the power of the Holy Spirit, who enlightens you, cloaks you, constantly inspires you pointing out the avenue towards Me, so that I might reveal to you the Will of the Father for each one of you.
Without me you shall never truly be able to know yourselves, nor to be able to understand what is asked of you to do in this life.
“The Holy Spirit and I are constantely at work in order to realize the Father’s project in each one of you, but we can do this only with the help of your freedom, that is, only when you willingly and freely choose to love and serve God and you offer to Him your life. This is the indispensable condition so that your potentialities activate and are at work. In fact, by the moment you decide to live for God and to be totally abandoned to His will, within you the action of the Holy Trinity starts working, and little by little, transforms your life and your thoughts. Thus, you are beginning to become conscious of who you are in God and to make a mark on reality, a creative mark, because it is divine creativity working in you. I wish you to be conscious about what I am saying to you, because the knowledge that God is active in you, independently from your human limitations and frailties, is determinant for your mission in the time in which you live.
“Yours is a grand time and a difficult time for the entire universe. Grandiose for the power of the events that the hand of God is preparing, and difficult because it is a time of battle with the powers of evil, an always more open battle.
All this does not refer to the planet earth alone, but to the entire creation and all the people who inhabit many other planets. I have already told you that they are children of God as you are, and that I gave My life for them as well. They are your brothers in whom the project of My Father has to be perfectly accomplished, just as it is in yours.
“What is the project of the Father? To bring back the entire creation to the state of integrity and perfection it had before original sin; to bring back every person to the dignity and glory of a child of God. All men and every creature that exists in the universe must be made free from corruption and death which infiltrated themselves in the work of God because of the sin of your forefathers. Humanity must return to a correct relationship with God, by recognizing His authority and by submitting to His guide. How is the Father going to realize this project? By recapitulating all creation in Me, since He gave Me all power in the whole universe. /www.versolanuovacreazione.it /
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“This is why I am at