All is well here in Pemba. I am a little behind on updating you all and I am sorry about that. Staffing takes up lots of time and energy and I finally have the time to sit down and write a real update.

 School is already finished with its second week! Students are getting charged up and are very much ready for all God has for them in this season.

 Before the school started I was praying and asking God what He had in this season I heard Him say, “I am taking this school from “there is always enough” to there is more than enough!” I know the students feel it now and as they continue to grow and change they will see the “more than enough” so clear.

 The school has been divided into 21 one color groups and are being sent out weekly and daily into the bush, village, and to the one in front of them. The color group I am leading was just got back from something we call emersion. Which is where we send out students into the village with a “mama” or a Pastor to learn about the culture and live for 24 hours with a Mozambican Family. Recently the government has not been happy with the masses of people that come in from around the world to attend Harvest School and has set up many rules that the students are required to follow. Yesterday before my team was heading out on emersion the government called and permitted us from staying the night because they said it was a holiday and it was to dangerous. However, we had a blast made the best out of the situation. The Mama we went home with was named, Philomena, and she has 4 children. We walked about 20 minutes through the village to her house and then spent the day hanging out, chatting, painting nails, and playing many games. It was very disappointing for the students to not be able to stay the night and really experience daily life with the mama in the village, but we did our best bless their family as much as possible.

 Please be praying for rest for me… I am in a really unnecessarily difficult season with God right now. I am longing to just go away with Him and not do anything else, but am really feeling the wait of responsibility of running the school, being a house mom, and a color group leader. I could really use prayer in this area. I am still in process of learning how to Rest even in the work… One thing I die everyday to.

 Also God has handed me an amazing opportunity to go to Holland in about 8 days for the Mission Possible Conference. I wrote something about it a month or so ago. Within 42 hours of last school God had completely covered all of the expenses for the conference and flights there and back to Pemba! I was so blown away and I cannot wait to go and tell you all everything that happens!


 At the end of this school I will be headed to Thailand to lead outreach until the 30th of December. I am so extremely excited about this. I know and can feel God has so much in store for my time there. I am still waiting on the finances to come in to actually buy my plane tickets, which are going to cost roughly $900.00 dollars to get there one way. I am still praying about what will happen after that, but direction will come in the right time.

 My hope, after outreach, is to join a small team that will be heading to a closed Northern Asian country in mid January. I am really asking for your prayers in this time. North Korea has been a huge desire of my heart for the past three years. I believe I will see and be apart of a huge revival there. I was told about a few people planning a trip and was asked if I wanted to join. I said “of course!!” Since then I have not heard any plans, but I am still in contact with the other people and will see them in Holland in just 8 days!! I do believe I will still go. And I would really love your prayers and spiritual covering in this time. I have waited sometime to tell people about this part of my journey because of the heaviness this country has had on my heart for so long. I really hope you all will be partnering with me especially in prayer! I believe God has put that country on my heart for a reason and as I grow deeper into Him my heart gets bigger for them.

 My life has one direction and one plan and that is to run full force into my God’s arms everyday. Wherever He takes me from there is up to Him. I am willing and everyday becoming more and more able. I cannot wait to update you more! Right now I am just living the dream life in Pemba. Pouring into 300 students from 42 different nations of the world and watching as their lives are completely transformed! Everyday I am so thankful for the life God has given to me. With out Him I would never be where I am today. I miss you all and love you all… I think about you all everyday. I am always praying for the amazing community God blessed me with and the family I have been placed in. Love and Blessings, Rachael Michelle Singleton
 

Held Hostage In Jobeurg

9 days in Joberg and a few weeks in America. 

I am sorry I have not been better about writing this sooner. The time just escaped my grasp to quickly for me to keep up. 

After my 10 days in the bush I was really tired. Physically and mentally. I was ready to be home in America with friends and family and feeling very blessed that I even got the opportunity to do so. 

Finally out of Pemba I landed in Johannesburg. I had an over night layover until my next flight so I made plans to stay with another staff members family, who have a ministry in the city, over night.

The family was amazing and so generous! They drove me back to the airport the next night. Because it is so much cheaper I typically get buddy pass tickets when flying home from places. A buddy pass is acquired from someone who works for or is retired from certain airlines and are given extremely discounted prices on flights, but they are standby tickets. Before now I had never had a problem getting onto a flight and have even been given a first class a couple of times. However, a fire had broken out a month or so earlier In the Nairobi airport causing all flights through that airlines terminal to be redirected in Johannesburg. As well it was school starting season so many people were flying back to America to go back to school. Causing the air traffic from Joberg to America, specifically to ATL, to be extremely over crowded. Making everyone on standby the absolute last priority.  

I arrive at the airport that night very expectant to get on, but that is not what happened. And that was not what for 9 more nights.... 

The first night I ran into one of the students from my 10 day bush team, Julian. He was also flying standby back to ATL and it looked like we were stuck together. We called some friends we new and they were so kind to pick us. Day after day... After day we were so hopeful of getting home. Our friends picked us up and drove us back to the airport every night. Never complaining or asking us to get a taxi. Always willing and when we didn't get on they would pray with us and thank God for another night together.... It totally wrecked me. I have never felt so taken care of in the midst of such emotional trauma. I have also never lived out that verse in proverbs that says "hope differed makes the heart sick." I learned all to well exactly what that verse meant. 

God was totally teaching me something... I just had no clue what it was, but I also felt the peace in not knowing and that one day I would.

  

I was going stir crazy and my soul was just longing to be back in America.  I felt totally useless emotionally.  I was spent and really the only thing I had to lean on was God.  Every morning I would wake up and say “thank you God for this day, thank you that you are in control, and thank you that I can trust you.”  It was the only thing that kept me from going completely mental.  And I am not exaggerating on that.

While there, I didn’t just waste my time away.  I was given many opportunities to pour what little I had left into the city of Johannesburg.  The place where Julian and I stayed the majority of the nights was at a rehab ministry for people who had been hardcore drug addicts and are now clean, but struggling and who want to give a year to God to receive more healing and understanding.

Living with those people made my life seem so ridiculous and the way they were so generous with their space and time was completely the heart of God. Papa Dennis the father of my bush co-leader and the owner of the ministry let us come with him to share with the homeless and feed the men on the streets looking for work.  He also gave everything he had to us whenever he could.  He is such a beautiful man and it was an incredible honor to be with him and his family.

We also got to go to a lion park and pet lions! 

On that same day Bob Johnson (Bill Johnson’s brother) was doing a conference in a neighboring city.  We decided to go and they were going to go “treasure hunting” after Bob spoke.  Dennis, Julian, and I were hungry so we decided to go find something to eat and then go to the lion park. We were asking God where we should go and we landed at this strange gated German restaurant called “Marco Polo”.  

We drove in the gate and the first person to walk up to us was a prostitute.  Quickly we realized we had just driven into this brothel, bar, and restaurant, where all of the workers were in prostitution.  I sat down with the woman who first approached us and she began to tell me about her life and kept asking if I was okay.  I think she was concerned I was mixed up with the wrong crowd.  I told her I was great and very safe.  She told me how she wanted to quit drinking and smoking.  I was able to pray with her for that and chat with her for a bit before she wandered off to where the guys were looking at the menu.  Papa Dennis was able to release the Father’s love to her and really just be a papa to her when no one else ever had.  We also met the owner who was a very old rich German man and he was very confused by us which was funny, but he told us to come back anytime!

After 10 days and 9 nights in Johannesburg trying to get home I told God that if I didn’t get on this flight I would assume I wasn’t meant to go home and I would just get a new visa for Pemba and head back there.  Even though I knew God had told me I was to go home, I began to really second guess what I thought I had heard.  My body physically broke down that night at the airport.  I could no longer hold myself up on my feet.  Tears were flooding my eyes against my own will and my breathing increased drastically. I couldn’t take the stress of it all anymore and I was at my breaking point.  I pleaded that God would have mercy and do something, anything, to put me and the 20 others who had been waiting, on that flight.  And He did.  Everyone but 5 people got on that last flight.  I had never been so happy in my entire life, for anything.  I had never wanted to leave a country so badly.

I think God was really showing me that my home was in Him and nowhere else.  That He was my safety and my place of rest—no one else and nothing else.  No person, not even my own strength could get me where I needed to go without His hand on me.

I got less time at home than I thought I wanted, but it was exactly what I need.