This is Jesus' invitation to all of us. What does it mean to you?

When I first got the invitation, it meant repenting and asking Jesus to be my savior. Later, it meant seeking His will for my life. I went from attending church and Bible study to a search for something more significant. My first taste of ministry was with Walk to Emmaus and then KAIROS. They were both great, but I wanted something more. I took my first mission trip to Peru, and then to Kenya – twice. With each new adventure, I longed for more. Then came the World Race. Eleven countries (technically thirteen) in eleven months! What could possibly top that?

From there, things took a surprising twist. I found myself in Georgia; the state, not the country. It wasn't exactly what I had in mind. Where was the adventure in that? Yet, God met me there in ways I least expected. There wasn't a lot of glamour or adventure. Actually, most of it was really hard. But God met me there and continued the process of exposing my heart and building something in me that I still can't quite explain. He was preparing me for a future that I couldn't even see yet.

The next turn was even more surprising. The doors closed in Georgia, and I found myself feeling a bit aimless and desperate. I searched for grand opportunities overseas; a leadership school in Spain, ministry in Africa, and considered many other options as well. I was even accepted at the school in Spain, but I didn't have peace about any of them. I kept feeling this nagging and unrelenting push to go back to Pennsylvania where I grew up.

I had left Lancaster County as soon as I was old enough to be on my own. I had dream of living in the big city, and felt quite at home there. Then after traveling overseas, I fell in love with foreign cultures as well. I would have rather moved just about anywhere than home. Moving home felt like failing somehow. But God wasn't budging on the issue, so I had to suck it up and go. What choice did I have? What good could possibly come from ignoring God?

What I have found, is that when I opened my heart to what God was doing, He began to change mine. I began to appreciate Lancaster County again, and have seen the little details that are unique to that area. I've been able to see it with new eyes, and explore it as I never had before.

In addition to that, God is revealing a lot of the brokenness in myself and in my family that I had apparently been running away from all these years. Even better, He is beginning to heal and restore us. I had the wonderful privilege of spending the whole holiday season with family this year instead of only flying in for a week. I only got to see my sister for a few days, but I'm hoping to remedy that soon. I never realized how much I actually wanted, and needed that. I thought I was content with the fly-by holidays, but I was missing out.

What I am beginning to realize, is that this is where God brought me. This is where He asked me to follow Him too. Not to the city, not overseas, and not even really doing that much "ministry". He led me to where I least wanted to be, and where I most need to be.

I suspect that those other places and desire still play a role in my future, but what matters is where He is leading me now, in this moment.

So my question to you is this. Where is He asking you to follow Him to? Where are you hesitant to go, or flat set against it. The chances are pretty good that if there is somewhere that you have said, "anywhere but there," that is probably exactly where you need to go. And one thing I have learned, although I am not always quick to follow, is that when you say yes to God, you will never lose!

If you feel a nudging for something more; listen. I want to take you on a journey. I promise that it will be challenging.  I promise that it will lead to places that you may not want to go. And I promise that it will change your life. Will you come with me?

Entitled "The Pretenders," the series draws attention to the biblical time when Jesus went not to the red light district, the nightclub or the boardroom to confront the hypocrites but to church.

"[Jesus'] main problem with the ... religious leaders in his day is that they were hypocrites," said Kyle Idleman, teaching minister at Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Ky. "That's what he calls them to their face."

Over the weekend, Idleman addressed the hypocrites in the church today saying, "There are pretenders among us. They're putting on a performance. ...They've learned to wear this mask in church."

There are unmarried couples who are "sitting next to each other in church pretending that their relationship was just as pure last night as it appears to be right now," he noted. "There are pretenders who will sing amazing grace with tear-filled eyes but they refuse to extend that same grace to a family member who hurt them."

"There are pretenders who have become experts at separating their faith from their political views ... from their money management ... and from their entertainment preferences," he added. "There are pretenders who spend an hour and a half every day in front of a mirror making sure everything looks great on the outside but just can't seem to find 10 minutes to read their Bible or to pray.

"There are pretenders who are so quick to point out and condemn the sexual immorality in their culture but don't seem too concerned about their lust."

Studies conducted by LifeWay Research in 2007 have shown that most people outside and inside the church believe hypocrisy is prevalent among believers. Among the unchurched, 72 percent said they think the church is full of hypocrites, and 67 percent of 20- to 29-year-olds said the same.

There are two groups of hypocrites Christians tend to fall into, Idleman observed. They include the Sadducees and the Pharisees, who made up the religious ruling body in Jesus' time. The Sadducees made up the chief priests and elders and were born into that position. The Pharisees, meanwhile, were Jews who studied their way into their position.

Many pretenders today see their faith as something they were born into and never chose, Idleman explained.

"You know how to act, you know what to say, you know what to do ... but you never chose it," the Southeast minister said. "You got the part down but it was never real."

"As long as you could remember you've always had that mask. In fact, you've had it so long that you don't even know what you look like without it," he added.

To such pretenders, Jesus would say "woe to you, you hypocrites," Idleman said.

But a lot of pretenders are more like the Pharisees, Idleman believes. They see their faith as "intellectual knowledge and behavioral compliance."

Such Christians may say all the right things and follow all the rules, but their hearts don't reflect that, he indicated.

"It's not enough just to know the right things and to say the right things. [Jesus] wants it to be in your heart," the minister stressed. "Jesus summed up the Pharisees in this way – they honor me with their lips but their hearts are far from me."

Just as Jesus was upfront and harsh in rebuking the hypocrisy among the religious leaders, Idleman urged Christians to also be brutal with themselves.

"Be brutal. Be broken," he encouraged. "Jesus is trying to hold up a mirror and tell us the truth."

The cure for pretending, he said, is confessing one's sins.

"When you take the mask off ... you find a peace for your soul that just doesn't come when you're faking it," said Idleman.

She Knows Not a Man by Pastor Gift

The Real Life Team has left for Manzini and I am sitted in my house with Mxolisi playing a game of cards. I'm trying to tone down in preparation for the Young Adult coming with Morgan. Phumzile, a shop keeper from the small grocery shop across the street comes running into the house as if something is after her. "Pastor, they have sent me to call you. Maswane is very sick and they need your help", she announces.

We immidiately stop playing and the much needed toning down and rush
for the Matsenjwa homestead which is not more than 4 kilometres from the Community Center. We find this 19 year old girl writhing in pain and her grandmother begins to tell us what is wrong with her. I began to observe her from a distance and realized what was wrong with her. I then drove back home to get my first aid kit and a book loaned to me by Isabel 'When the Doctor is Away'. Maswane has a terrible skin problem. Her skin looks like a rough snake or lizard skin and has sores that are full of abscess all over the body. Her breasts are covered in scales that are hard to look at. Putting gloves in my hands I began to imagine the pain she was going through and wanted to know all about where it began. After having washed her sores, applied sore cream to them, I then gave her antibiotics and pain tablets. We used a vitamin c drink to wash them down her throat and waited. When she looked calm and settled I ordered everyone out so I could talk to her. Here is what transpired:

"Tell me Maswane what happened to you when you were young?", I asked. 

"Pastor, I have been meaning to talk to someone about this before I die. When I was almost six years old, in the year 2000, I was raped by my martenal cousin. It happened right here in this house. Every one was away and I was not schooling then. He came to the house early in the morning and he raped me. The issue was reported to the police and I was taken to Saint Philips clinic for examination. But to this day nothing has happened to my cousin Zakhele. I hear he has done a similar thing to another five year old. They say he has completely damaged the young girl womanhood. No wonder, he damaged me too. They even say he is now on the most wanted police list because he raped an older woman.

Pastor, there is something else I must tell you. Not only Zakhele raped me but also my uncle. He is my father 's brother because they share the same mother but they have different fathers. He died in December but after a long illness. The scales you see on my body started soon after Zakhele raped me, but I think I got HIV from my uncle. I have only one wish now, to see Zakhele, my cousin paying for his sins. My uncle is dead and I cannot do anything about it now. However, can you help me pastor make sure the police find Zakhele and put him in jail."

"Where is he?"

"I hear he is up the mountain with relatives in South Africa. It is possible to get to him. You know what pastor. One thing that is painful in this whole thing is that I have never had a man have me because I consented. All the men that have been with me they had done so by force. My privates parts were damaged from young and now I DO NOT KNOW A MAN."

When she said this, I was already weeping and could not imagine the amount of emotional pain she is going through even as I write. Maswane is a real person and this is a true story. It is not fiction at all as it might seem. The Real Life Team while in Nsoko visited with Maswane on several occassions. In fact there is one girl who struck some kind of a relationship with her. We praise God for these teams because they help by spending time with the dying in Nsoko. I believe for Maswane to open up to me is because of the ground work that has been done by the team members.

Her mother came to me in the afternoon to say thank you for helping her daughter while she was at the farms working. She narrated how painful it is to leave her daughter alone in the morning for work. There is nothing she could do since she is the bread winner. She confirmed Maswane's rape by the cousin and how that created animosity in the family. She was surprised to learn that she was also raped by the late uncle and we began to cry together. We cried with no one to comfort us. I'm not sure why I was crying. May be because crying was the only thing I could do. She cried right by the training ground where she found me and it hurt so deep to see a mother weeping for a daughter that knows not a man.

Maswane gave me permission to use her story and her real name so people could realize the level of child abuse have come to in Swaziland.  I do not know how to react. I do not know what to do. I do not know what to think. How can we stop this? How can one fulfill Maswane's wish?

Pray!