Building up the temple of the Lord

The extreme makeover team has not even a chance against team UAE!

For the first two days of the outreach,the team was given the opportunity to display love in action through a building project. A widow and her ill daughter were living in poor conditions, in a home that desperately needed upkeep.With the permission of the family, the 9 member team, as well as people from their hosting church, arrived to replace kitchen benches, fix roofs and paint walls. It was not only the family themselves who were affected by the team's generous actions.

One neighbour visited the "makeover team" with tears in her eyes. "I have been praying for this family," she said."I didn't know how they were going to survive. God is good!"

A contrasting reaction was received from a neighbour on the other side of the house. "Why are you only helping them?"he asked. "We are all poor on this street.What makes them any different?" The team did their best to explain the situation to the man. In the end, whilst maybe still not quite undesrtanding their motivations, of his own volition he erected lighting equipment around the house so that the team could see to paint in the evening.

The highlight of the excercise, the team agreed, was explaining to the many spectators why they would give up so much, travel from countries all around the world, spend money on equipment and work so hard, just for one little family."Did a church send you?"

"No."

"Are you doing this for some special organisation?"

"No"

"Then who sent you?"

God. God sent them. The same God who numbers the hairs on our heads, and knows when a single sparrow falls from the sky, decided he wanted to paint the living room of a lady from Durban. May we all learn to recognise the personal, all-encompassing love of the creator God in the same way that one family in Durban learned it this week.