Amazing Grace

Hello Nadeau family!

This is my first post on the Nadeau blog - and my first post as a Nadeau! Very exciting :)

I've been wanting to post this for a long time - about a month now. It's been that long since I returned from my trip to South Africa, and it's taken that long for me to even begin to process through the experience. This trip was unlike any other. Even after eight years, each trip brings new challenges and new joys. As some of you know, last year our team experienced two major motor vehicle accidents. No one was hurt (God's grace!!) but one of the trucks used by the missionaries we serve with in South Africa - the Mafus - was totaled and we're still working on getting them a new one. The year before that, the airline "lost" 19 of our bags full of over $70,000 worth of medicine. God provided - just enough - for us to conduct the clinics, and the airlines paid us back for the lost medicine. But the challenges of those trips tested my faith like nothing else I've experienced.

So this year, I had no idea what to expect. Even through all those challenges we saw God working. We knew and believed that following God wasn't supposed to be easy, and that God's grace was wholly sufficient to see us through the most difficult times. And so we decided this year to make "grace" our theme. To focus our study and worship on God's grace - how to accept it, how to be strengthened and renewed by it, how to live in it, and how to share it. If you've never read it, I strongly recommend the book "What's So Amazing About Grace" by Philip Yancey. The team read that book this year while on the trip, and it's one of my favorites.

Where the last two years (or more) were challenge-filled and faith-testing, this year was a year of Jubilee. This year I tasted, and felt, and experienced grace. Grace from God in giving me what I don't deserve (blessings beyond measure, an amazing husband, a wonderful new family, safe travel, incredible teammates, forgiveness of my sins- even the ones I commit over and over again.....the list goes on). Grace from teammates in loving me right where I am, sins and all. Grace from the South African officials who allowed us to come and supported our work. Grace from you all through your prayers, encouragement and financial support. As we worked through the trip, and read through the book, and worshiped as a team and with our South African brothers and sisters, God's grace began to sink in. I still don't fully understand it, nor do I fully live in it. But this trip marked me and my teammates in new and powerful ways and we pray that God will continue to grow us in our understanding of His amazing grace, and empower us to share it with those around us.

Thank you simply is not enough. But I am truly and deeply thankful for you all. What a blessing you have all been to me, welcoming me so warmly and fully into your family. Your support made this trip possible and I cannot thank you enough for that, and for all you've done in the few short months I've known most of you. Ngiabonga kukhulu kukhulu (which is Zulu for "I thank you very, very much").

Here are just a few pics from the trip. More will be posted, hopefully, soon. Perhaps on Picasa. And my beloved husband has helped me create a little slideshow as well so I'll have to share when we all see each other again.

The "waiting room"

Sabelo preaching before a clinic

Sarah at the "pharmacy"

The Team (including my brother Andy (far left), nephew Tony (far left top!), and dad David (bald guy in back ;)