Happy Easter!

I can't quite believe the time has gone so fast - it seems like yesterday that I was sitting in the internet cafe in Arusha typing a Christmas message! It's 5.15am, I've been up for a while taking advantage of a speedier internet connection (when too many people are on the wireless network, it takes forever) and waiting for 6 when we'll set out carrying our cross up the hill behind the base. It'll be a taste of home - except the road up the hill is slightly different from Sutton High Street....slightly fewer people, more trees and monkeys...unless we're allowed to walk through the school that's up at the top, which would be good - we can invite them to join in!

The last couple of weeks have been an interesting learning experience - somehow I'm still not fully able to trust God with my life and the lives of those closest to me, even though He's always proved His faithfulness. I was worried not only about my gran's health, but also about the decision I had to make in either staying here or flying over to Austria to be with them - I wasn't sure if the family would be upset that I was "too religious" to give up the work here even when one of them was in hospital, but I didn't feel God's peace about coming! As ever, He worked it all out anyway - why do i worry?! Nobody wanted me to come home for just a few weeks, as it would have been a waste of money, and they also weren't expecting me to cut the year short....so as long as my gran stays stable, it's ok for me to stay here! Please continue to pray for her though, as her left side is still paralysed and i'm not sure she's even doing the exercises, or is able to do them....

Other than that, I've also been learning more about the brain - how it develops and functions for emotional control, and how we end up with addictions. This week's topic is sexual addictions, and it's been completely eye-opening as I never understood what drives people to become addicted to pornography, what makes people have affairs and even abuse children. So often we''re told that these people are evil or that it's their own fault - but what if they really want to stop, and can't? Paul writes about this in Romans 7:14-15, where he talks about being a slave to sin and instead of doing the good that we want to do, we end up doing the evil we hate. Hearing from some addicts' testimonies, it strikes me that we judge far too quickly - nobody is born evil, because we are made in God's image and are therefore good...it's what happens during life, even in the first few years that we have no memory of, that can either develop or damage our brains and set us up for healthy relationships or dysfunctional ones. Maybe we don't talk about these things enough, and many people don't get the help they need to begin recovery and start again.

Today is the day we celebrate Jesus's ultimate sacrifice for all of us, the day He defeated all sin and death. That doesn't mean sin isn't still around - but we can now overcome it with Jesus' help! But need to face up to the fact that we will always be sinners, and we need each others' support in our individual struggles.