Confessions of a Booty Shaking Missionary

Thank God for Beyonce’! I sat down to write this blog with the intention of writing about the heart wrenching pain I experienced when I left my daughters last week in Kenya for my 2 month furlough. I was going to write about the tears and how my heart has been ripped to pieces since being away from them. I was going to detail the long  ride to the airport and the look in their eyes as they said “Goodbye Mama, promise us you’ll come back” and then I was going to go into some deep parallel about Jesus. I was then going to share with you about how my first few days here in South Africa were filled with flashbacks of horrific rape stories, paranoia, and just intense reactions from the severe trauma I’ve experienced in Kenya. It was going to be good. It was going to be deep. You might have cried… But then Beyonce’ happened… and I mean, sometimes it’s just not that deep is it? Sometimes its just not about the deep Jesus parallel, sometimes its just about Beyonce’. I mean, it’s both right?… Yes, I did just say its sometimes about Beyonce’ and not the Jesus parallel. Uh oh, I hope the real Christians don’t read this one :/

What I mean is over the past three years since Ive been a Christian whenever I come home from Africa I feel this pressure. It’s like, everyone is expecting me to be this deep Christian missionary lady. And oh God, I guess in some ways I am! But like, I’m still me. I’m actually afraid of the deep Christian missionary ladies. If they found out that im prancing about abusing their title I think they would be very sad, and pray for me for a really long time. Like today, I sat down to write this blog and I got out my ipod and realized oh no! I only have deep Christian missionary lady music! Ah! What is this?! I’m on vacation! I don’t wanna be deep. I wanna dance! So I went and got my friends ipad and turned on Beyonce. Not gunna lie, I felt a little ashamed. As if all the deep Christian missionary ladies in all the world knew that I skipped my worship time today to shake my booty to Beyonce. But as I was cooking my breakfast, Bible closed, deep Christian missionary lady music out of sight, shaking my booty and singing at the top of my lungs to Beyonce I felt happy. And I felt like my friend Jesus was happy too! So I put the spatula down for a minute and listened. And I felt God saying to me that He loves it when I let go of that false responsibility I feel to be like everyone else, like every other Christian, like every other missionary. Yes, I’ve laid down my entire life for Him because that’s what He asked for. I’m in love with Him and I want to give Him anything He asks. But the beautiful thing is when I gave Him my old life, He gave me a new one. And this new life is fun because He is fun! And yes, sometimes its deep and its about rescuing sex slaves and counseling rape victims, but sometimes its also about closing the Bible, putting the “Christian music” away and going into the kitchen and shaking my booty to Beyonce with Jesus while frying my eggs. It’s both!

That’s what this week has reminded me of. I think I got so caught up in my life and raising our girls at home in Kenya that I almost lost my uniqueness. I almost lost what made me uniquely Brittanie and I don’t think that pleases God. He didn’t save me and then make me a carbon copy of most people that live the kind of life that I do. And honestly, its hard because many times I try to be that carbon copy especially at home in Kenya because I feel like that’s what im supposed to do. Isnt that how it goes? The young single missionary goes to a foreign land somewhere, becomes a mother of many, starts wearing long dresses and reads the Bible all day? Maybe for most people, but not for me. I know Him, I know my Jesus and I know that He loves me for who I am because He created me this way. In fact, I know that He likes to dance in the kitchen to Beyonce with me because I saw Him. I see Him. I see Him in the being a mom of rescued child prostitutes and sex slaves, and I see Him in the booty shaking :)

This trip has been so restorative for me. My God is so good, and He brought me here to South Africa and totally spoiled me! Ive had so much fun! And its only going to get better as I leave for America today. I will be there for 6 weeks. I love how when you give your life away to Him He always rewards you even when you least expect it! I miss my girls very much of course and much of my time is spent on the phone and the computer chatting to them and emailing with them about school and swimming and what they ate for dinner. But that is my pleasure. Its what I love. I love my dinner dates being interrupted by my 13 year old yelling into my phone “Hi Mama, what are you doing? Guess what happened at school today”! I live for that. I actually enjoy having to sneak out of the movie theatre in the middle of the movie to read an email from my 9 year old because im just too excited to read it to wait for the movie to finish first. I love not buying that pair of shoes I see in the mall because I want so badly to put our girls in a better school. It actually just really brings me so much joy. And even in the missing them, in the longing for the ones the Lord has chosen to trust me with, my sweet girls who turned my whole world upside down, I am reminded of the both. I also really got joy out of the full body massage and facial that I was blessed with in Cape Town this weekend. I also got lots of joy from meeting up with old friends and laughing and sharing like old times. I enjoyed last night when I had dinner with my girlfriends and we ate dessert, drank cosmos, and talked about boys. I love that its both. I love that its not always that deep, because then when it is its an absolute joy!

"Mama, You're Pregnant!"

Her name is Beauty. Well, not really, but we'll call her that for now. She's ten years old. She's pocket-sized, cute as a button. Her waist is tiny and she dangles her skinny little legs in her blue jean skirt as she speaks to me. The moment we met she looked at me and whispered to my oldest daughter "She looks like my mom". Her biological mother died when she was just days old. She only knows what she looks like because of pictures and because of something familiar that she saw in my eyes the moment our gazes met. I wanted her. I wanted her so bad. I said to God out loud, "Please God, give me this girl for Christmas". My oldest daughter said to Beauty "Tell Mama what happened. You can trust her." She looked up at me so bashfully and didn't say anything. I reached my arms out to her and gestured for her to come sit on my lap. She came and at first she was as stiff as a board. But then she looked in my eyes again and her body melted. She leaned into my neck and she told me. She told me her story. She let me in just a little of what life as a 10 year old prostitute is like. First she lied and said it only happened twice, but the more time we spent together and the more she came to trust me the truth began to come out. Dingy hotel rooms, being smuggled into nightclubs, holding the 50KSH (less than $1) payment in your hand  after its all over. My heart absolutely broke. I looked at her tiny waist, her flat chest, her chubby cheeks and tried to imagine how anyone could ever be sexually attracted to her. She's just a baby. She's a kid. I couldn't understand how a man could even lay on top of her without crushing her to pieces. Then there He was again- Hope himself. I intentionally stopped looking at the tragedy of the situation and switched my gaze back to Jesus. I told myself that I could cry about this later, but for now I had to figure out how to help this little girl, this precious little girl that started calling me Mama after just 2 meetings.

After a few meetings with Beauty my heart began to fill with intense joy. I was hoping and scheming to bring her home with me to live here at Bella House. I'd finally gotten permission from all the necessary people and I was ecstatic! I would lay in bed at night and imagine there being six  goodnight hugs instead of five, sixty goodnight kisses instead of fifty (they like 10 each). Which bed would she choose? What will her favorite color be? How many times a day would I get to tell her I loved her? What will her laugh sound like? What's her favorite food? About two days before I was planning on bringing her home my joy was bubbling over everywhere and my kids noticed that something was different. They sat me down one day in the sitting room and asked very seriously "Mama, why are you so happy?!". I told them that is was a surprise and I would tell them tomorrow. Then out of nowhere one of my 13 years olds blurted out in KiSwahili "Mama, u na mimba!" (Mama, you are pregnant). Then they all looked at me and it was like a light came on for all of them. "Yes! Yes! Yes, Mama! U na mimba! We are getting a new sister!! Ahhhhh!!!" Those words pierced my heart and I broke down and told them the truth, yes, in just 2 days I would be bringing a new girl home. I was in fact "pregnant". They all rejoiced and were so excited.

Unfortunately this story doesn't end the way I'd hoped it would. Beauty didn't come home with me that Friday. I got the news that she wasn't coming on Thursday after doing a final interview with her. I cant describe how that felt. Inside she was already my daughter. I loved her already. Each of my daughters is engraved into my heart forever, I felt the Lord etching Beauty's name in right beside the other five names. I cant describe what that feels like. I guess many of you reading this will understand that because you are parents yourself. When I got the news that she wasnt coming I begged and I pleaded and I did all I could to stand up for my baby girl. But it didnt work. It felt as if someone had ripped my child right out of my arms. After the meeting I had to take her back home barely able to touch her or look into her eyes because the pain of loosing her was just too much. I managed one last glance into her eyes when she jumped out of the vehicle to go home. When I looked up I expected to see a face as sad as mine was. But instead I was met with a huge smile and an excited wave goodbye. I promised her that I would pay for her to go to school and help her grandmother start a business so they could have food everyday without her having to sell her 10 year old body. Then I did the only thing I could do: I left and kept loving. This time choosing to keep loving really hurt because it looked like letting go. It looked like walking into our huge, beautiful, safe, house where we eat three times a day and former child  prostitutes spend their time studying and worshiping Jesus, where we have three empty beds waiting to be filled, and knowing that my Beauty still lives in a small mud house, sleeps in a small bed with four other children, and chances are that she'll still go out at night and sell her 10 year old body when the food runs out and she remembers what she can buy with that 50KSH (less than $1). I considered just trying to forget her. I considered just throwing some money at the situation and running away from the relationship because I didn't think I could bear it because I love her so much.God has given me this crazy supernatural love for my girls that I just cant explain. But, as I was considering running away from love I felt Holy Spirit asking me that same question He's been asking me since this all began. What does adoption look like? Family is forever. You can't be un-adopted. As I was thinking about this I was shocked at my selfishness in wanting to run away from a child that I know God has given me as my own, weather she lives with me or not. I was shocked at how quickly I would choose abandonment over love. I'd rather abandon her to keep myself from hurting than give just a few extra hours per week to going to her home and loving her anyway. Loving her even though it hurts, loving her even when I see her hurting, loving her even when I already know the answer to the question "what did you do last night". I don't want to love with a wimpy love. I want a "love anyway" kind of love. The same love that saved me. The same love that loved me anyway. The same love that continues to love me anyway. I'm such a mess, but He loves me anyway. Sometimes I forget to buy food for breakfast and I burn lunch, but He loves me anyway. Sometimes I pretend to be checking my kids' homework, but really im just staring at the paper and daydreaming about eating a brownie or drinking a momosa, but He loves me anyway. Sometimes i'm impatient and have to count to 10 quietly in my head before answering my 13 year old when she asks me for the millionth time "Mama, when you go to America are you coming back?" or else I will explode... but He loves me anyway. He even loved me before I came home into His heart. He loves me weather I live in His house or not. Little Beauty will not be coming to live with me in Bella House, but that doesn't change the fact that she's my daughter and just like I pour out my life for my other girls, I want to pour out hours and hours and days and years of my life loving her anyway....
For Love's sake

To help me send Beauty to school and help her grandmother start a small business to feed the family please click the "donate" button.

Family is Forever

"Hahahahahaha!!!! You can't catch me, you can't catch me ahhhh!!! Brittanie! Brittanie! Mama Brittanie come here, look! Hey, stop that! Ouch! Help! Joooooyyy!!! Mama Joy tell Em to stop hitting me!! I'm hungry Brittanie, what's for supper? Joy can you please reach that for me? Mama Brittanie why do you have to leave us during the day? Mama Joy can I talk to you about something? Brittanieeeee!!! Jooooooooy!!!!!!!! Mamaaaaaa!!!!"

Welcome to the Bella House! There is never a dull moment. At any given time there's an emergency of some kind, whether its two sisters so angry at each other that they vow to never EVER talk to one another ever again... until five minutes later when they are chasing each other excitedly around the house, or whether its that Mama Joy bought bananas home today! Yay! What a treat, and definitely reason enough for a dance party in the kitchen! Bella House is full of life, laughter, and love. Sometimes the emergency is two tired mamas too exhausted for another game of treasure hunt. That's when the fun really begins because Holy Spirit crashes in and fills in for us where we lack. As you can see, Bella House is not at all what I expected. It isn't a project. It's not a missions field. It's a family. It's a home. It's our family, our home.

A lot has changed since the last time I wrote. Firstly, we have brought five girls home, and hope to be getting 3 more really soon! Just writing that sentence makes my heart leap! As I type this I am watching them all cuddled up on the couch together tired from our pizza and worship party.They look so comfortable, and happy, and loved. Every once in a while one of them glance over at me... just to make sure i'm still here. Wow, this feeling is indescribable. I have never been able to understand the love a mother has for her children. Now I do. Having children changes everything. I love our girls in a way that I wasn't able to love before. The way only a mother can love. I didn't know this kind of love existed. The amazing thing is that what i'm feeling for our daughters is just a portion, just a preview of the love my Heavenly Father has for me. Wow!!!

Believe it or not, our day to day life here is pretty much like every other family. We wake up, eat breakfast, have devotions, the kids have some education time, then an extracurricular activity, play time, dinner time, then family time and worship, then bed time. Then we do it all again the next day. On Saturdays we go on an outing and on Sundays we have a home church. The main differences (pause as our 11 year old just came crashing into my lap because she saw a wasp)... As I was saying, the main differences between our family and other families is that we have to talk about sex and sexuality a lot more than most families do. Our girls all have painful sexual histories. Bella House is a rescue and rehabilitation home for children forced into prostitution, sex slavery, and other forms of sexual exploitation. Therefore our girls are going from being forced to sleep with up to 20 men per night or being stuffed into a suitcase and snuck into a hotel room where beer is forced down your 11 year old throat and you are used as a human sex toy to living in Bella House where you are taught that your body belongs to you and no one has the right to touch it without your permission. The transition has been difficult and is requiring lots of talking, listening, praying, crying and lots and lots of laughing the pain away. Laughter is actually probably the most unique thing about our family. I believe that God is using laughter to heal because our house is almost always so full of laughter. We tease each other, play pranks, have silly dance parties, and make fun of ourselves all the time in Bella House. We have actually gotten two complaints (one from the chairman of our area) that there is too much laughter coming from our house all the time and asking that we laugh less. Haha! We found that really funny!
Another big difference is that our family is all women. The girls sometimes joke with Joy (our house mom) and I and say "Mama, when are you gunna bring us home a papa?" They are always trying to set us up lol. I plan on visiting the States in a few months and they keep begging me to fall in love and get married and bring them back an American dad. These girls are so silly!

But besides a couple of exceptions we are just like any family, where love looks like finding Jesus even in the mundane of everyday life. I must say that this is absolutely the most challenging thing I have ever done, but also the thing that has brought me the most joy. When we were dreaming for Bella House and preparing to open it I just didn't realize how crazy what we are doing actually is. I'm 26 years old, Joy is 27, neither of us are married, and almost everyday at least one of our five kids climbs into one of our beds and reminds us "Brittanie, you said family is forever. So, you're never going to leave me right? You're not going to get tired of me one day and move back to America and leave me here are you Mama Brittanie? Because that's what the last American that came did" or "Mama Joy, you're the best mom ever. I don't want anyone else to come here and take care of us. You're always going to be our mama right?" It's so scary when the true answer to those questions are "I have no idea" but that's absolutely not an acceptable answer to the little girl who you picked up from the dirt, looked in the eye and said "You're coming home with me now. You don't have to be hurt by those men anymore. I'm going to take care of you". Everyday somehow my visit to America comes up and I have to continually reassure them that its only for 2 months and then ill be back home. We have started a family and yes they are right, family is forever. That's huge. It's a huge commitment, especially because I also have another family that I love dearly and miss so much in America. A few months ago I didn't ever even dream i'd ever come to Kenya for a visit, and now Love has tied me to Kenya forever. Whether i'm here or not, there will always be 5 girls who understand the true meaning of adoption. It's a heart thing. It comes from God. Adoption looks like seeing a wasp and knowing exactly whose lap to run into. It looks like being hungry and knowing who to ask what you are eating for dinner. Our girls know that just like Papa God adopted us as His sons and daughters they have been adopted into our hearts. They can't be un-adopted. Family is forever.

I'd love to write more, but the kids are begging to go for a walk. Joy is in Nairobi so i've been here alone with the girls for the past couple days. I've been saying "give me five more minutes" for about 20 minutes now so I should go. To everyone that has donated for Christmas and to all that have been sending me support thank you sooooo much! I have been overwhelmed by your generosity to me and to our girls. Bless you bless you bless you! You have truly been an answered prayer!

Because of your extreme kindness we now have enough gifts to give the girls on Christmas Day itself. If you'd still like to donate for Christmas and haven't yet we would LOVE to accept your donation and it can go toward one of two things 1) a Christmas tree and decorations or 2) gifts for the girls that will not be given to them on Christmas Day but will be spread out over a few weeks and given to them slowly. The reason for this is because we want to love our girls extravagantly, but we also don't want to teach them that Christmas is all about presents. Most of them have never had a Christmas before and we want to really focus on Love himself that day and not get them too distracted by all their fancy new stuff. FYI their biggest wish that hasn't come in yet is a swing set for our yard :)

I'm off to take a walk with my girls :) Many blessings!

This Whole "Losing My Life" Thing

He who finds his life will lose it, but he who loses his life for my sake will find it (Matt 10:39)

I lost my sister's phone number again. It's really annoying. I need to call her tomorrow because tomorrow is my nephew's second birthday. I also lost my black guitar pick. I really need to keep up with my other two because I have no idea where I can buy them here. One of my earrings that Joshua bought me from Zimbabwe is also missing. Ugh! I had already lost the other pair he bought me and was hoping to hold on to this pair for a while... Its seems like everything is going missing lately.

The last couple weeks have been a roller coaster of emotions for me. We have watched dreams die and new ones come to life. We have also watched our old dreams that had died be resurrected right before our eyes. Our little family of 3 has grown by one and will be growing again in just a couple of days. I now feel comfortable and adjusted to living here in Kenya. I know how to get around and am learning the language relatively quickly. Many of our projects that were at a standstill are now in full swing again. When I first arrived here we were doing many home visits to our girls in the village and therefore hearing many tragic stories and seeing such poverty frequently. Because of that we got pretty overwhelmed (and maybe a little traumatized by one too many rape stories) so we stopped doing them for a while. We took some time and rested and got rejuvenated and now we are back at visiting girls frequently and carrying heaven with us! Our Thursday meetings with the girls are also going incredibly well. We've been doing lots of artwork lately which they love! Bella House had also been brought to a halt because we were really struggling to find girls that fit our criteria and then we had resistance from the government regarding our registration paperwork. But Bella House is now back in motion yaaay! We just received approval that we can officially begin moving girls into our home and we have  found some girls that fit our criteria and have very quickly snuck their ways into our hearts forever with just a smile or glance of their eyes. How can we not bring them home with us?

The most exciting progression we have made lately though (in my opinion) is definitely the "Can't Be Bought Campaign". We officially launched it yesterday! The CBBC is a series of empowerment workshops that we are doing in schools aimed at stopping child prostitution,exploitation and sexual abuse before it starts. We use tools such as interactive games, drama, music, movement etc to teach girls about their value and empower them with the truth that they are not for sale, that they are priceless and no amount of money can buy them! We work with each grade level once per week in several different schools for 15 week cycles . Right now the program runs Mon-Fri. Each session is about 45 minutes long. We also touch on themes such as boundaries, self-esteem, sex education, body image and dreams/purpose. My big dream for this project is to present it in every school in our village during the week and on Saturdays hold "Cant Be Bought" sessions in a local community center for girls who can not afford to go to school. By doing this we will be able to reach every single girl in all of Mtwapa with this message. Every. Single. One. And im sure that as a result the child sex industry which is destroying Mtwapa will significantly decrease and freedom and laughter and love will increase. Let it be so!

This is all very very exciting! But as I mentioned above, the last two weeks have been a roller coaster of emotions. Roller coasters have their highs and they also have their lows. Since leaving Harvest School I just feel like i've been losing a lot, not just my sister's phone number and my guitar pick, but big things... things that seem huge to me even if they seem small to you. When I came to Kenya I was not planning to stay. I bought one tiny suitcase and my guitar. That's it. But when I got here God asked me to stay. I love it here and so staying is no problem. Its actually a great joy! But, because we are pioneering there is so much work to be done and things that need to be started and nurtured as they grow, so God also asked me to stay here and continue working while Cassandra is in America... she will be in America for 2 and a half months. I have had my heart and my hope so set on going home to the States for the holidays to hug and kiss my nephew and see everyone I love, but I had to loose that. Cassandra and I became good friends and hung out everyday while she was here and really worked and played hard together. I had to lose her too. She left last night. At least its only for a few months. Sometimes when I walk through our big empty house with beds and furniture and everything ready for kids to come I get a bit sad because there are still no kids in it, and it reminds me of something else I lost- my dream for mothering those 42 precious children in Cameroon. I thought id be holding dozens of little Cameroonian treasures in my arms every night by now, but at bedtime I say goodnight to the rest of the team  and I go to my room alone and sleep in my single bed. My best friend of 14 years had a baby before I left the States. Dreams of being there to watch him grow are lost. I lost my boyfriend. I lost the opportunity to be at my nephew's second birthday party. I just feel like i'm losing so many things.

When I think about the loss I get sad, but I try not to think about the loss much. I try to think more about who's sake i'm loosing everything for. The truth is that im loosing these things for the sake of a man who lost His life for me. And its only in losing that I can be found. My greatest joy in life is finding Jesus. I look for Him in everything, every situation, every emotion, every project. I'm constantly looking for my Love. And yes, I truly do find Him in everything. He's a God that likes to be found. But I realize that I find Him most in loss. As I've lost all these things i've gained so much more of Him, and having Him is worth more than having any of these things. Im willing to give up any of  them to pursue the depths of His love any day! On Sunday I was riding through the village on a piki piki (a motorbike used as a taxi) to church and no matter how hard I tried I couldnt hold back tears of joy. As we were driving the hot wind was blowing in my face and my butt was sore from bumping along the dirt road and I was looking out and I just saw Him everywhere. I saw Him in the simple  mud huts we were driving past and the little faces that excitedly yell "jambo!!!" as we pass. I was Him smiling at me as He sat next to an old lady sitting in front of her hut weaving a grass mat. I found Him in all the noise- chickens clucking, piki pikis blowing their horns, children laughing, churches praising, babies crying. I was overwhelmed with joy. We got off of the piki piki when we arrived at church and I tried to look normal before Cass saw me foolishly crying over a scene that we see all the time. We walked into church and there He was again! When all of our girls saw us and smiled and passed out hugs and handshakes I found Him. When the church members welcomed us so warmly and even old mamas got out of their seats in the front to let us sit in the "seats of honor" I was just wrecked. I saw Jesus. I saw His beautiful heart. I wasn't thinking about going home for the holidays, or Cameroon, or my ex-boyfriend, or my nephew's second birthday party. Because none of that can compare to His heart. And its moments like that when the loss doesn't feel like loss at all. For His sake im willing to "lose" anything if only I can have His heart- in the bumpy piki piki rides and in the mud huts and in the rape stories and in the Can't Be Bought lessons and in the warm smiles at church on Sunday- if  only I can have His heart then I have found exactly what i'm looking for and what i'm living for. And no matter what the cost, its worth it!
The thing about a roller coaster is that the lower you go, the more exhilarating the high part is. The high part is only high if you first go low. I'm learning that more everyday. Enjoying the "going low", enjoying the "losing" and then relishing in the high part and in being found.

10 Things You Didn't Want to Know

"... His banner over me is love" Song of Songs 2:4
One thing that really wrecks me about God's love is that its truly unconditional and sometimes its totally inappropriate and against the rules. I love that Jesus' favorite places to hang out are like porn shops, crack houses, and leaper colonies and His favorite thing to do is hang out with rapists, murderers, prostitutes and all the other people that we turn our noses up at. One of our young girls who used to sleep around and be a thief and an alcoholic told me yesterday about how even when she was drunk and had been stealing all day, before she went to sleep Jesus would come to her and sing her beautiful songs and laugh with her as she fell asleep. This is the Jesus I love. This Jesus is extremely compassionate, fiercely accepting, and millions of miles away from being a prude or fitting into any kind of box. He was made perfect for me, not the other way around. He's not afraid of my mess. He cleans up my messes and makes me clean. I don't have to clean myself up to come to Him. I come to Him messy and He cleanses me. Any good that people see in me is not my own, its actually all His. Any good that I do is not of myself, all my goodness comes from Him. My point is that without Jesus i'm really not all that special. In fact without Him i'm dead. Its Him that gives me life and makes me beautiful.

I am writing this post because over the past couple days I have been receiving many beautiful emails from very kind people that have made me feel so humbled, grateful, and loved telling me how much they appreciate the work I am doing and admire my love for Jesus etc. Most of these have been from people I don't know. Its been a hard week so I've really needed the encouragement. Thank you everyone, from the bottom of my heart :) At the same time, some of these emails have compelled me to write this post. I want to make sure that i'm always  extremely honest and transparent with you all. Most of the things you read on here are all happy and deep and spiritual because the point of this blog is to keep you updated on the amazing things God is doing through me here in Africa. I also use this blog to share the love of Jesus in hopes that as people read it they will feel His love through the words. But, that being said, I don't at all mean to give the impression that i'm some perfect cookie-cutter Christian angel girl who
does everything right and spends every waking hour praying and saving the world... i'm really not. I'm very far from that. I'm just a normal crazy 25 year old chick that's madly in love with Jesus. As I said earlier, apart from Him, i'm nothing special at all. So, just to normalize this blog a bit and make me less amazing and Him more amazing i've compiled a list of 10 things about myself that I normally don't put on this blog. These are the things I normally leave out because they aren't cool or exciting or amazing or deep. They are just normal things, and imperfect things and potentially offensive things. But that's me: normal, imperfect, and potentially offensive. Its only fair to you if you not only read the good things about me but also the normal things so you get a more accurate picture.  I wanna share all the amazing things God is doing, but I don't want to hoax you all into thinking i'm Mother Theresa or something. So, here we go!

1. Right now i'm really in love with the new Taylor Swift song and my friend and I frequently blast it and sing it really loud around our house and pretend like sex slavery and child prostitution doesn't exist for that 3 and a half minutes

2. Sometimes when i'm sad or feeling lonely I walk right past the crippled beggar on the street asking for money for food and I go into the store and buy myself a chocolate bar instead.

3. I spend too much time on facebook

4. When i'm in America one of my favorite things to do is call my girlfriends and have them meet me at swanky restaurants for cocktails and food with prices so high I could feed a family of 5 for a week here

5. I never exercise and I eat as much bread as I want.

6.When i'm worshiping Jesus alone I often tell Him that He's "so bad ass", but in public around other Christians I never say things like that because i'm afraid they will judge me. That's probably a bit hypocritical.

7. To deal with the trauma of hearing so many rape stories all the time here I watch at least one episode of Friends per day and laugh really hard

8. Sometimes when I think i'm hearing God i'm wrong. I thought I knew who I was going to marry twice and i'm no longer with either of those people. I prayed really hard both times and thought God was saying yes.

9. I hate doing dishes so when I live alone I let dirty dishes sit in the sink for days at a time... not as servant-hearted as you thought

10. Even though I act really brave and confident I actually am really sensitive and easily feel insecure and left out in groups of people

Love,
your normal ordinary 25 year old who just so happens to be chosen by Jesus to do radical things with her life, but without Him she's nothing special

Prostitutes and Popcorn

A strong cappuccino and a sweet chocolate croissant with my favorite blonde Congolese/Kenyan/Canadian/American girl in a posh cafe with free fast internet and high prices to match. Its so needed. Momentary escape. Momentary release from the real world- from our world where 10 year old little girls sell their bodies for a bag of popcorn.

As most of you already know God totally rerouted me after Mozambique. I thought I was going to Cameroon, but I sit here in Mombasa, Kenya as I write this post. Kenya couldn't have been more of  a surprise to me. I've never thought about living in Kenya. I've never even really had any desire to visit Kenya. It simply wasn't on my radar for deep dark nations I wanted to adventure to. But, then Jesus happened. Once again He came in, ruined my life, and wrecked all my plans the way He always does. I love when He does that! And He offered me better plans than I could have imagined for myself. So here I am, in Kenya :)

Before going to the school in Mozambique I had expectations of what it would be like and what me and Jesus would talk about. Well, I was wrong about that too. In fact I had no idea what I was in for. The main topic Papa God and I discussed while I was in Mozambique was quite unexpected: sex. God talked to me about sex for 3 months straight. We talked about good sex and we talked about bad sex... then we talked about really really bad sex. The kind where one person wants it and the other does not. And the kind where one person is the slave and the other is the owner. And the kind where one person is a grown man with lots and lots of money, and the other is a tiny little girl with lots and lots of innocence. We talked about little girls living in cages and working as sex slaves. We talked about brothels. We talked about rape. We talked about prostitutes. And we cried together. We cried for both the prostitute and the pimp. We cried for the rape victim and the rapist. We cried for the sex slave and the owner. We cried for the innocent little girl and the rich man. Then came the best part. We talked about hope.

You see, the truth is that God is crazy madly in love with every single one of these people and He so wants to show them the fullness of His love, and He wants to use people like you and me to do it. He showed me the part of His heart where the little girl lives, the one who had all the innocence before the rich man raped it away. He keeps her there, deep inside of His love along with all the other ones just like her. He told me that He has a plan to rescue all these little girls out of their cages (physically and spiritually) and bring them into their true identity as daughters of Papa God and brides of the Lover himself, King Jesus. But the plan includes people like me and people like you. He's just waiting for us to say yes. So He asked me if I was willing to play my part in His plan. And I looked deep into His heart and saw His daughters and His brides- the ones who used to be slaves and rape victims and prostitutes- jumping rope and laughing til their bellies hurt... and without even thinking twice, I smiled and said yes!

Now I must admit, at the time I didn't realize the magnitude of that "yes". I thought maybe one day far far from now I would be working with child sex slaves or child prostitutes or some group of children who have been sexually violated in some way in some country somewhere doing something. When? I didn't know. Just really far from now. Where? No clue. Just definitely not Kenya. How? No freakin' idea.

But much to my surprise the timing was now. I now live in Kenya in a village called Mtwapa and I am working with a friend of mine named Cassandra whom I met when she came to speak at my school in Mozambique (www.pursuingnormal.com). God broke her heart for this place years ago when she heard about the outrageous statistics regarding child prostitution, child sex slavery, and sexual exploitation here in Mtwapa and along the coast of Kenya. Since then she has been working here part time (she works mostly in Congo starting schools in rebel territory and rescuing child soldiers) in an effort to rescue child prostitutes and sex slaves as well as stop child prostitution and sexual exploitation as a whole... I know, she's amazing! Praise God! Recently she began renting a house here in Mtwapa which brings me to the reason I am here. We call the house "Bella House" and we are working to make the house a rescue and rehabilitation home for child prostitutes under the age of 13. Our criteria for which girls we take into the home is very specific. There are many child prostitutes under 13 here in Mtwapa, but we want to take in girls who are either orphaned and therefore resort to selling their bodies in order to survive or girls who are forced into prostitution by their parents. We are starting with 6 girls and as Holy Spirit leads we will take in more. But we want to start small so we can give each girl the attention she needs.

We are still in the beginnings stages. We literally just put up our curtains last night and at this very moment there is a welder putting a lock on our door, 2 carpenters outside building us a dining room table and school desks for our girls, the bedspreads for the girls beds are at the tailor and will be ready tomorrow, and we pick up our couch on Thursday. Our house mom moved in a few days ago. She is amazing. She is a professional counselor and works with girls with cases like ours all the time. We still have lots to do, but things are moving forward praise God! We have been working really hard to get the home all ready for our beautiful daughters and we hope and pray to have everything all ready for them to move in by this weekend. So this week (along with picking up furniture and bedspreads of course) we plan to really focus on rescuing girls to bring home. We are asking God to highlight the specific 6 He wants us to choose. We went out to the streets last night because yesterday we were informed about a nearby club where young girls are forced to perform in live sex shows and live in a nearby brothel. We are hoping to get some of those girls because that is absolutely not okay with us. But as I said, we are praying for God to send us the specific 6 He wants us to start with so we don't know what that's going to look like exactly yet. So please, join us in praying for our new home, Bella House.

So as I said, Jesus always surprises me and gives me His plans which are so much better and greater than my own. I knew that this time I was coming back to Africa to take in orphaned children.  I also knew that eventually i'd be working to stop the sexual violation of children. But He outdid me once again. Not only are we taking in orphaned children, but we're stopping prostitution at the same time, and we're doing it NOW! I'm so excited to continue to see His kingdom invade this place. I'm so excited to bring His little girls into freedom and watch them bloom inside of His love. I'm so excited to see this whole village, this whole nation changed by the power of Love. There is hope! He is our Hope and He is pouring Himself all over this place in all of His glory!

Learning What Love Looks Like in Pemba, Mozambique

Its impossible for me to put my full experience in Pemba here on this blog because its simply unexplainable, but im going to attempt to give you at least a peak into what happened to me while I was there. Before I begin I must say that the tone of my blog has to change because I have changed so much. I need to write from a more genuine and raw place without fear of judgment or having to wonder what is “appropriate” or not. This blog is my way of documenting my journey into His heart and as you read it and when I read it I want it to be the real story, not a censored one. So here we go!''


Hmmm… what do I even say? Ok, so I spent 3 months in the rurals. I lived a very basic simple life. I lived on a missions base and attended a missions school with 299 other fiery lovers of Jesus. From all outside appearances life was very basic. I lived in a tiny room with 7 other girls. If we all were standing in our room at the same time we were very crowded. There was barely enough room for all of our beds to fit. We had to walk out side to get to our bathroom and kitchen. Our bathroom had 4 toilets and 3 working showers. We shared these between 32 girls. However, there was almost never an issue with the showers or toilets being full when someone wanted to use them because we barely ever had running water so showers were a rare luxury and many times it was better to just go poop in a latrine (hole in the ground) than in the toilets because the toilets were full of numerous peoples poop piled on top of each other. The only way to flush when there was no running water was to go haul water from the well which was hard and no one ever wanted to do that so they just left their poop sitting in the toilet waiting for someone else to do the dirty work. Since we barely ever had running water for showers when I got really dirty and just had to clean myself I took bucket showers. However, we were even careful about how many bucket showers we took because if we ran out of showering water (we filled empty water bottles when the running water was on to save for showering when the water was off) again we had to go all the way to the well to haul it. So, I know you all are expecting me to say that the most spiritually enlightening part of my experience was seeing the deaf hear or food multiply or hundreds of people coming to Jesus, but it wasn’t. All of those things were wonderful. But the most spiritual things I did in Pemba was be dirty and smelly and sweaty for days at a time and then haul water from the well to take a “shower” in a bucket with one and a half bottles of cold water. That came second only to the even more spiritual experience of flushing others peoples poop with buckets of water that splashed everywhere as I tried to pour it down with enough force to push all the poop down so that I can use the toilet, or pooping in a whole in a smelly latrine as cockroaches crawled passed my toes and I tried to hold my breath because the stench was almost unbearable.

Why were these seemingly horrendous experiences the so called “most spiritual ones”? Well, because I hated them. I absolutely hated them. And because I hated them so much they made me cling on to Jesus for dear life. I know this sounds dramatic, but im being serious. Being dirty is not something that im accustomed to growing up in the States. In America, where I am from, we cover up dirtiness. We cover up anything unpleasant or messy or smelly. This applies to the inside and the outside of ourselves. We take showers daily and use nice smelly lotions and perfumes. Our bathrooms, yes BATHROOMS are spotless and smell like flowers, literally. We chew nice smelling chewing gum. We have vacuum cleaners to clean our floors, dishwashers to wash our dishes, even car washes to wash our cars. Where I grew up it was totally possible to just avoid or cover up anything that is messy or smelly or dirty. Because of this external behavior I had adapted the same principle to the inside of me, and I think most (not all) people that grew up in similar ways have done the same thing. We learn to be “polite” and “pleasant” and present ourselves well. We dare not let others see how much of a mess we really are inside. That would just be awkward and inappropriate. So we cover it up and spray on some perfume and continue trying to be perfect. Well at least that’s what I always did.


However, being in such exposed and raw situations such as the ones I explained above with the shower and toilets opened my eyes to see that without Jesus im actually just a stinky smelly mess. I have no patience without Him. I have no love without Him. I have no grace without Him. Actually, without Him I would probably find the girls who left their poop in the toilets and say some really horrible things to them that would make them feel like maggots. Honestly, without Him that’s what im like. I had to face that. I had to face the fact that without Him I think im too good to have to fetch my own water for a shower. Cant I just pay someone to do that?


There were many times where I would look down at myself and see how brown and white my feet were (brown from all the dirt and white from being so dry), how tattered and ugly my clothes were… I’d look at all the sweat spots in my shirt and the stains from dirt and food spills and kids urine and other things that just wouldn’t come out from my hand washing and I would just want to cry… ok sometimes I did I cry. Because I realized that I looked just like the people around me. The poor people. I never realized this, but all my life I thought I was better than them. I thought I was too good to wear a shirt with stains and holes in it. I liked to wear outfits that matched and looked cute to me. I thought I was too good to be one of those people who you walk by and think “eeeeewwwww”. Somewhere along the way I learned that I am better than others and I have the perfume, body lotion, and outfit that matches to prove it! How wrong I was. Not being able to shower properly or use a clean bathroom taught me what love looks like. Im not saying that love looks like being poor and dirty (although sometimes for a season it does). Im saying that loves look like seeing and feeling. I learned to see the poor and to feel compassion for them in Mozambique. I know many of you are probably thinking “Brittanie, you already did that!” But no. I didn’t. I didn’t see them. I saw their situations and threw some dollars or a hot meal at it. I never really put aside my position to get low and see each one. Before I always felt sympathy for the situation of the poor, but at Iris I learned to feel love for the individual person.


As am writing about the poor id like to point out that im not just talking about the physically poor. Even though we were living surrounded by the poorest of the poor and doing everyday life with them there were also 299 other students that I lived on the same compound with that obviously weren’t too “poor” because they made it from their nation to Mozambique and was able to pay tuition etc. In fact, by my standard some of these people were physically rich. But living among the poor and getting low and becoming like little children and seeing them and feeling genuine love and compassion actually revealed the spiritual poverty in each of us. It revealed how lacking we really are without Jesus. It revealed that we only can love because of Him. We can only hold a baby sick with scabies and not catch it because of Him. We can only visit an old lonely granny in her mud hut because of Him. We can only forgive a child who stole our camera or purse or flip flops and then turned around and asked for money for food because of Him. Without Him we have no love or compassion or patience or desire for good. All good comes from Jesus. This is what I understand spiritual poverty to be, total dependence on Jesus. Because our poverty and the poverty of our classmates and the poverty of the local people were revealed to us and we finally saw, excepted and embraced it we saw the kingdom of heaven break out just like Math 5:3 promises. (Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven). Again I want to reiterate that when I use the word poverty I am speaking of a spiritual poverty which recognizes that without Jesus you can do nothing. I’m not saying that we all need to be poor. Physical poverty is not our inheritance.





What did the kingdom of heaven breaking out look like? RICHES! Our true inheritance! It looked liked supernatural grace for all of us to get along and love each other even when it was hard. It looked like victory over anger and offense. It looked like amazing miracles such as the deaf people receiving their hearing, blind people receiving their sight, food multiplication, money falling from heaven, people sick and stuck in bed suddenly getting up and walking, crossed eyes becoming straight, a swollen lip shrinking, witchdoctors being set free, thousand coming to the love of Jesus, and many many more. The most obvious thing it looked like was JOY. I mean, we were so insanely happy haha. I laughed more in those 3 months than I have laughed in my entire life. We were full of joy when we were full and when we were hungry, when we were sick and when we were well. The physically rich were full of joy. The physically poor were full of joy. The adults were full of joy. The kids were full of joy. People with parents were full of joy. Children who were orphaned were full of joy. I cant even explain it. We would spend hours per day LAUGHING! The kingdom looked like fullness of joy, and that is true riches! We were so satisfied in His presence. We lived a very simple life so all the things that I usually do when im bored or want a thrill I couldn’t do. God is what we did all the time lol. It was so fun. When were bored we worshiped God. When we wanted a thrill or to throw a wild party, we did! In God! We didn’t have all the other stuff. Like, at any time of the day I would just stop what I was doing and sit and take a drink of the Holy Spirit and get totally wasted and that was totally okay. In fact it was normal. We had a 3 month long joy filled, crazy, drunken, Holy Spirit love party! It was like heaven.






There’s so much more I could say, but this blog is already really long. So if you want to hear more lets meet up and id love to tell you more about it!