Kay Lorentz
If ever I could relate to the scripture of the Spirit jumping in Elizabeth when Mary, pregnant with Jesus came to visit her, it was when I drove onto this land in April 2011. The place I had dreamed of about for just over 4 years could be housed on this property in Fisantekraal.
I had been dreaming of a property to do community development since 2007. In 2008 I made a poster of the place I envisioned to share with others, later I received a prophetic word, from someone who had no idea about it that confirmed to me that what I was dreaming was dreaming with God.
By 2009 I was convinced that it was going to happen any day. We looked at various properties but we found nothing suitable that would house the “vision”. After years of praying for funding for Fisantekraal to do the Resilient Kids program and counselling training we received funding at the end of 2009. In 2010 we focused on Fistantekraal (full story on www.resilientkidssa.org.za) Having a property in this area was an impossible dream.
We carried on running camps at hired campsites and continued to be dissatisfied with not having a therapeutic space to work with children and youth as we dreamed. The partnership with School of Ministry students working with us in Fisantekraal was the start of the unfolding of the dream. We looked for a venue.
By April this year we were desperate to have a place to work out the vision we were carrying in our hearts. I voiced this to the staff of the Father’s House after our camp at Rocklands Campsite (a stunning campsite, but not suited for the work with the kind of children we focus on) On this camp we had children that I then described as “hardened criminals” and they were only 10 years old. I was desperate to have a space & time to work with this kind of child.
At our church the SOM had also got to point where a need for residential space had become critical. Richard then took us out to the land – it was a delight when it turned out that it was in the community where we all had already been working. None of us even knew about it? The facility could be used immediately. The buildings we still in good running order etc.
However, in the months of preparation, working out the trust, doing business plans etc. the property has been seriously vandalised. Copper wire, fittings, plumbing stolen. This has been very difficult to see and I have not understood. The words we get for this land speak of healing and justice. The words speak of refreshment and beauty – why then was it getting so run down? When all paper work was in place for us to go live with our capital campaign, more than one person told us that perhaps it was not the best time of the year!
In a prayer meeting last week a lady in our church again brought the scripture Isaiah 61 in the context of this land. This is a scripture that we have prayed and used for years as a blueprint. Why was it going to ruins? Why were our supposed sources of funding not able to fund it now?
Yesterday, I met with a lady who was involved with the project that ran there before us. It was a church and it had an outreach element, a big dream that never was fulfilled… the dream very similar to what is in our hearts. I came home and prayed and reread the scriptures God had given about the land and then it dawned on me.
This land will be a real life parable. The Christian community of Fisantekraal knew of this church and her vision. The vision was lost because of financial planning that went wrong. The entire thing was lost. The sense is that it was literally rob, killed and destroyed. BUT God has a plan for this land… He loves the people of Fisantekraal and what a testimony it will be when this is restored and the vision is restored? God is restoring God, a God whose mercies are new every morning… He never revokes His purposes and plans. He does this for a land because of the purpose of that land.
He can do this for every human being. The enemy plunders peoples lives all the time. He makes sure that he messes up God concepts and frustrates the vision of God for people coming to pass. Sin messes with the original plan, but God has a desire to restore every human being to His likeness and their original purpose.
This will be the message we will give on the opening of this project doors in February 2012. God is a healer, redeemer and He wants to restore every individual and the place of Fisantekraal.
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