The Foundation

This is a bookmark one of the South Africans I met for counseling made for me. They are so thoughtful and creative with their gifts! She added the tea bags at the bottom because I introduced her to a London Fog and she is hooked now! She told me I have been a light, which inspired the gift. I am so grateful that the Lord used me to bring some light and hope to her. Months ago the idea of starting a non-profit was on my heart. It didn’t make sense at the time. Why would I need a non-profit just to assist me with providing therapy in South Africa? I knew that my knowledge was extremely limited and that I also didn’t have the extra time to dedicate to starting one up. I remembered years ago when I wanted to start a sober living house, one of my clients connected me to a non-profit specialist. This person came to mind during this time, so I reached out to him and shared the new non-profit idea. Much to my surprise, he was helping multiple organizations in Africa. He was enthusiastic and excited for this idea. His reaction was encouraging to me and after much prayer I moved forward. I still didn’t understand but chose to trust and take a step of faith. Shortly after arriving in South Africa, I met the pastor at the church with the donation for helping with the church expansion. I shared with him the non-profit startup and he told me he had been wanting to start a non-profit but due to barriers with their government, he wasn’t able to. He said he wanted to help the people of Hennenmen and felt limited with the church’s ability to do so. In that moment, I realized that the Lord placed this on my heart to do, so that I could be a means to create this reality for the church and town. I love how the Lord uses us to do His work. We just need to be open-handed, willing and obedient. If I tried to understand or make sense of this prior to taking the step, I wouldn’t have done it. It makes me curious about times in life where I wasn’t willing to take a risk. This definitely helped strengthen my faith and trust in the Lord. I arranged a video call with BKM & Co, including the pastor, so that the town and church’s needs could be explained by someone who lived there. BKM & Co and 8 Track Designs is in the process of building a website to move my blog to, as well as a way for donations to be made directly to the non-profit, and visual content to be shared The cherry on top was on the amazing hike I was invited to, I met a South African that happened to be a videographer. He said that he was going to create a video of the hike we were on. He asked if that was okay with me, saying he would share it once it was finished (I will share this with you when I receive it!). During our hike he was asking about why I was in South Africa. I shared about counseling, my faith, the non-profit and future plans. He shared that he was inspired and wanted to help. I asked if he could help with video footage of the town. I found out that the company he worked for offered these kinds of services. He even accepted my invitation to attend church that following Sunday! I used this local company to create the following video for the non profit!! God is so good! He is so intentional. His plans are better than ours. Credit for the video goes to Hennenman’s very own, Palm Productions, and special thanks to Alwyn for a generous heart.