This is our LAST day in the States, and we fly out to South Africa in just a few hours. It has been such a wonderful time in Georgia, connecting with so many friends, hanging out with family, and enjoying our first WHITE Christmas! Emi had so much fun here - especially with her grandparents and cousins. She has grown up a lot here - in the last 2 1/2 months she has learned to walk, then run, then climb; to say lots of new words, and to make a ton of animal sounds too! We want to thank all of you for showing us so much love and hospitality while we were home. So many of you have also graciously continued supporting us, and we say again that we couldn't do this without you.
This will be our last blog from AIM. Our two year commitment has ended, and we are now being sent out by our good friends at SERV (www.servintl.org). We will hit the ground running, and will be joining forces with Global Challenge (www.gcex.org) as soon as we get there. We're very excited about helping to train these young leaders as they serve orphans and other needs around the globe. Jodi will be working in a local community center with orphans and refugee children, and she's very excited to be a part of that.
Please pray for our safe flight (and equally important a peaceful flight for little Emi as 17 hours is a long time for a toddler to be still!). Please pray for us as we will also be finding a rental house and moving in the first 3 days we arrive, right before training starts.
We love you and appreciate your partnership with us in making a huge difference in orphans' lives! We hope you have an amazing New Year and that 2011 is FULL of love, joy, and the awesome peace of God in the midst of whatever you're going through.
love,
Marius, Jodi and Baby Emi
p.s. My new blog updates will come from jodideetlefs@yahoo.com or jodideetlefs@mac.com, as we will no longer use our adventures (AIM) email account, so be on the lookout. I will send same blog from the new account so you can see the new format.
This is what YOU were a part of this year in Swaziland. YOUR prayers and YOUR monthly donations mean that kids lives are changed. Here is a great video from the CHC annual conference that shows some of the actual lives in Swaziland that YOU helped to feed, clothe, disciple, provide fresh water for and love. Please don't stop making a difference! We need YOUR help to keep on making a difference in 2011...
Please don't forget to come see Marius, Jodi & Baby Emi
TOMORROW. We would love to see you
guys, but can't see everyone - so please come see us! We're just here once a
year, so try and come hear some great stories and see a few inspiring
video clips of our last year in Swaziland!
What: Dessert Night with the Deetlefs
Who:Supporters, Friends, Everyone
When: Sunday, November 14th, 6:30pm
Where: Young Life, Sharptop Cove Jasper
Why: Because it's going to be an awesome night
and
you don't want to miss it!
*6:30pm
- Ice Cream and Brownies. *7:15pm-Video, Sharing, Jodi will sing
Directions from Atlanta:
Take
75North to 575 North to 515 North
Turn
RIGHT onto Hwy 53 East towards Jasper
Turn
LEFT onto Burnt Mtn. Rd. across from Walgreens
Turn
RIGHT onto Cove Rd. at 3 way stop
Turn
LEFT onto Grandview Road by old country store. Go 2 miles
Turn
RIGHT onto Windy Ridge Rd. Go 0.5 miles
Stay
RIGHT at fork and turn RIGHT onto GA Baptist Rd. Go 2 very curvy miles to
Dining Hall
It is so nice to be with my family for the last few weeks, and
we've been able to connect with friends at Trinity, and His House, and at our
friend Kelly's small group. Also, I celebrated my birthday on the 26th,
our anniversary was yesterday, and Emi's 1st Birthday is TODAY!
There's so much going on, and so many people we want to see in the short time
we are here in the States and not enough time to get everywhere, so........ you
can come see us!
YOU ARE OFFICIALLY INVITED to Dessert
Night with the Deetlefs on Sunday,
November 14th at 6:30 p.m. at Sharptop Cove in Jasper, GA. For those
of you who knew us then, this is the location of the Young Life camp where we
got married 5 years ago. We know it is a busy time of year, so we want to give
you fair notice that we would REALLY love it if you could come to this evening.
It's free dessert and coffee and a time for us to share pictures and a few stories
of our last two years in Swaziland, Africa. I will also be singing for the first time in a long time, so
don't miss that. :}
Many of you have been partnering
with us with your prayers and finances, and we want you to see what YOU have
been a part of, and hear what is next for us in South Africa. Feel free to
bring a friend along too -the more the merrier. More details and directions below. Please RSVP to jodideetlefs@yahoo.com by Nov. 10th
so we know how much dessert to prepare.
We love you and want to see you,
so please come!
Jodi, Marius & 1 year old Emi
What: Dessert Night
with the Deetlefs
When: Sunday,
November 14th, 6:30pm
Where: Young Life (Sharptop Cove) Jasper, GA
How: By Car, Bus,
or Helicopter
Why: Because it's
going to be an awesome night and you don't want to miss it!
Directions coming from I-75 North (Marietta/Atlanta)
I-75 North to I-575 North
I-575 North becomes I-515 North
At 4th traffic light on 515 North, turn RIGHT onto 53
East in Jasper.
Turn LEFT onto Burnt Mtn. Rd. (at light by Walgreen's)
Turn RIGHT onto Cove Road at 3-way stop sign (by Citgo Station).
Go 2.3 miles
Turn LEFT onto Grandview Road. Go 2 miles
Turn RIGHT onto Windy Ridge Rd. Go 0.5 miles
Stay RIGHT at
fork and turn RIGHT onto GA Baptist Rd. Go 2 very curvy miles.
Even though it was extremely sad to say goodbye to Swaziland last week, Marius and Emi and I touched down in Atlanta on Tuesday, and it's so nice to be with family again. We already ate some Cracker Barrel, Mexican, and Chinese!
We are really looking forward to seeing you in the next few months. We're going to be speaking at several churches between now and mid-December, and we'll let you know where and when as we finalize all of the dates. We just wanted to let you know we are here! Thank you so much for being part of our journey and we look forward to sharing with you the fruit of this last year, as well as the exciting adventures that are ahead....
Love from Jasper, Georgia,
Jodi, Marius and Baby Emi
I posted a blog last month about meeting the king, and being part of the wonderful team from Liquid Worldwide. They were here to make a movie of Swaziland called "Never Neverland" saying that Swaziland will never become a neverland.
Here is a link to the trailer http://www.nnlfilm.com/. Please take a moment and check it out. Its really incredible.
Some of you already know this, but we want to let all of our dear friends and supporters know that Marius and I were approached in June by one of our ministry friends in South Africa to come and work with them. After several months of prayer, fasting, and seeking God, we have decided to make the move. We are finishing up our 2-year commitment with AIM and will be transitioning to Global Challenge (www.gcex.org) and moving to South Africa at the beginning of the year.
As much as we LOVE Swaziland (and we do so LOVE this place!), we both feel that this is a "God-promotion" for us. We've been ministering to orphans in this little country and now we get to expand our territory and do it globally!
The teams we will help to train work with orphans both locally (in South Africa where we will be based), and also in 7 other African nations and in India (where just one of the orphanages where they serve houses 10,000 orphans!). It's an incredible organization, and Marius has known and been friends with the founder, Anna-Marie Franken, for 20 years. She actually was very instrumental in his faith after he graduated from high school!
Marius has been asked to be the Personnel Manager and help oversee the 35+ full-time staff there, as well as to help train over a hundred mission participants each year. He is very excited to have the opportunity to do creative teaching again. He also hopes to take some classes via correspondence to work on a Bible degree.
I will be helping to work at a community center called Ithemba where they take care of orphans and other vulnerable and refugee children. (photo below)
I've also been asked to help develop a Biblical curriculum for the teams and work with the worship leaders to help prepare them. I am particularly excited about this, as I will get to sing again, which I haven't had the chance to do in our 2 years here in Swaziland.
While Global Challenge is developing young people to serve long-term in countries all around the world, they are also quite busy serving locally. Last year they opened a private high school where 1/3 of the 100 students are local orphans who are receiving scholarships. Their vision is to see these orphans raised up as leaders, and one day themselves be the ones traveling globally to share the good news and serve other orphans! I think this is such a neat concept!
This will of course be another non-paid full-time ministry position, so we are heading back to raise support for the cost of living change. We are so excited, and we hope to connect with many of you soon. We will be home mid-October til' mid-December. I promise to let you know where we will be speaking so hopefully we can connect with as many friends as possible.
Please pray for us as we make preparations to come back to the States, move all of our stuff into storage, finish up our job responsibilities and say goodbye to our dear friends here in Swaziland, (all without a car I might add.) Yeah, still no car, but we believe God is going to provide wheels for us before we come back to Africa at the end of the year. Emi is getting really good at hitch-hiking.
We love you guys dearly. Thank you for continuing to be a part of our lives here in Africa (Swaziland, South Africa and beyond......)
Whew....there is a lot going on in the Deetlefs family. So, you have already heard about our car dying by the side of the road last week. Our mechanic says we may be able to sell parts of it for scrap and get a few bucks for it. Our friend in South Africa sold Marius's motorcycle for him in 2 days! So, we are still without a car, but we are able to use one of the AIM cars for a few more weeks.
We came to South Africa to check out Emi's chin with a dermatologist. She was born with a little bump on her chin, and we've been keeping an eye on it. She referred us to a plastic surgeon, and said that the polyp on her chin needed to be removed. The surgeon said it was growing rapidly and that she was concerned about it. So, little Emi had surgery on Monday and the polyp was removed from her chin and is at pathology now. She came through the surgery well, and her nervous parents were so relieved!
On the day of Emi's surgery, I had an appointment with the knee doctor because my right knee has been hurting quite badly for the past 3 months. I was thinking "cortisone shot", but after the exam he immediately scheduled arthroscopic surgery as there was a tear in my meniscus. (I injured my knee playing basketball back in high school and the doctor had to remove quite a bit of my meniscus then.) So, I had knee surgery yesterday, and spent the night in the hospital. That wasn't so bad, but the surgeon came back to me today with some pretty bad news. He said that while he was able to fix the tear in my meniscus, there is considerable degeneration in my cartilage because of the years of wear and tear without a meniscus, and that sometime in the next 5-7 years, I will have to have a full knee-replacement! Crazy huh? A knee replacement at 41!! He says I have the right knee of a 65 year old - not the greatest compliment I have had lately.
It's really crazy around here. But, in spite of the craziness, I still have peace. I really do. It's unexplainable how much peace we have! We are really putting our faith in God, and learning to trust Him when circumstances are not going our way.
I just wanted to ask you, our dear friends, to please lift our little family up in prayer. Our Capital One card now has 2 unexpected surgeries on it, and we have about ½ the money that we need to get a car (the other ½ would have come from the sale of our Pajero).
So, please pray, and if any of you has recently come into a windfall and you would like to make a donation towards the" Deetlefs Family Car Fund" it would be greatly appreciated. You can give online here on this AIM page under "support Marius and Jodi" tab. If you do send a gift towards the car, you need to send an email to our boss, Scott Borg (scottborg@adventures.org), and let him know that we may use your donation towards the purchase of a car for us. We appreciate your prayers in this crazy time!
Yesterday, on our way to an AIM staff retreat in South Africa, our Pajero broke down. We were stuck alongside the road. For those of you from South Africa, we don't need to tell you that is not a good place to be. To our American friends, just think "sitting duck". There are even signs posted in various areas by the roads to tell drivers for their own safety not to stop. In a word, it's dangerous. There are many hijackings and theft and worse.
I looked in my rearview mirror, saw Jodi and Baby Emi, and realized that this could potentially be a very bad situation and that we really needed the Lord. Before I could even say anything, a car pulled up behind us and I looked into the eyes of the kindest man, and had an unexplainable peace and I knew that we were going to be ok.
This older gentleman, Phillip, wanted to know if we were ok, if we needed help, and if we needed water or food. He said that he drove by and the Lord told him to turn around and help us. So he did. Jodi and I both wondered if he were real or an angel. Seriously, he was so kind, and caring. He phoned his wife and she phoned around for a tow truck, and he waited with us by the side of the road for three hours! Who has time to do that? He never left our side for one moment. He told us some of his incredible testimony while we waited, about the overwhelming love of Jesus that he has experienced. Jodi had tears streaming down her face and I had chill bumps. Jodi truly thought this man was an angel. When the tow truck arrived, he loaded Jodi, baby Emi and myself into his car and followed the tow truck 21 kilometers up a mountain to the next town where the Mitsubishi dealership was.
The mechanic ran some tests and came to tell us with a smile that this car would never run again. We thought he was joking and laughed. He wasn't joking. He told us the best we could do was sell it for spare parts - that the engine was irreparable.
The irony is 2 days ago I took my motorcycle to South Africa and put it up for sale, in hopes that we could sell my bike and sell our Pajero and with that money buy a newer, safer car, as our Pajero is/was 14 years old. Those of you who know me well, know that this wasn't an easy decision to sell the bike, but the thought of getting stranded with Baby Emi and Jodi alongside a South African road was enough motivation for me. Not to mention our fuel costs have practically equaled our rent lately. Irony number two is the fact that we had a buyer for our Pajero who was supposed to transfer the money to our account TODAY!
So, our friends who are also here for the retreat came to fetch us at the dealership as we were now car-less. As Jodi and I were getting all of our personal belongings out of the car, we looked at one another and there was absolutely no fear, no despair, no anxiety, but just an incredible sense of peace, and that everything was going to be ok. Still now, as we're writing this blog, we are overwhelmed with God's peace.
The reality is we have no car. We are in South Africa with our bags at this retreat, and we have no car, but we do have peace. This is one of the most amazing experiences we have ever had. We wanted to share with you so you can be praying with us, because we are sure there is going to be a miracle! We can only experience the awesome provision and care of God when we don't have the means to fix it ourselves. We praise God for protecting us, and for sending us an encouraging, helpful messenger to remind us of God's love for us and increase our faith. We will keep you posted as this journey continues (maybe on foot).
I had one of the most incredible weeks since I came to Swaziland. It was refreshing, life giving, encouraging, and filled with sincerity. I helped with a group from California that consisted of two ladies, Elkin Antoniou and Carolynn McGraw from Liquid Worldwide (http://www.Liquidww.com), and their amazing team from Hollywood including director Helmut Schleppi and actress Janna Fassaert. They came to make a documentary on Swaziland and focus on all the good that is happening here and what the leaders in Swaziland are doing right. They were such a great group of people and such a pleasure to be around.
We met at the airport and I just fell in love with their hearts for their project, their love for the Swazi people, and their gift of encouraging everyone they met. Their focus was really on the people of Swaziland and not on having a "feel-good" trip for themselves. It was like watching dominoes fall everywhere they went. They met one guy who introduced them to a Member of Parliament who introduced them to the King of Swaziland who then agreed to do an interview. You just cannot make this stuff up! Many people here in Swaziland have been wanting or trying to meet the King for years, and they come in and in three days have a meeting with the King himself! The favor of God was on them and I was so encouraged.
Because of this interview, I had the WONDERFUL opportunity to meet the King of Swaziland!!! He was so pleasant and such an amazing guy that I couldn't help but have compassion for him. It is easy to have an opinion about someone until you meet them and realize that at the end of the day they are also just a man, a father, a husband, and not just the king of a nation. I left there feeling encouraged for the future of Swaziland, and had a renewed hope for what GOD is doing here through so many of the people we rub shoulders with daily. Jodi and I love being part of God's plan here in Africa. Thanks again for being part of it with us.
This will be our last blog from AIM. Our two year commitment has ended, and we are now being sent out by our good friends at SERV (www.servintl.org). We will hit the ground running, and will be joining forces with Global Challenge (www.gcex.org) as soon as we get there. We're very excited about helping to train these young leaders as they serve orphans and other needs around the globe. Jodi will be working in a local community center with orphans and refugee children, and she's very excited to be a part of that.
