I'm Home

Sorry I didn't get to posting this right away. I made it back safely and I'm pretty worn out. I slept late today and was basically tired from when I woke up until now. I think this jet lag may take longer to get over than I'd hoped. Anyway, if you see me and get a chance, come say hi...I'd love to talk.

Tomorrow

Tomorrow at 8:15 PM, my plane will be heading out from Johannesburg. I'll have a five and a half layover in London before departing for Chicago. I'll be back in the US at 2 on Monday afternoon. I'm going to the church in Soweto that's become my home church to say all of my goodbyes there and it's a really strange feeling. It hasn't hit me yet that I'm really leaving. I'm guessing it won't until I'm sitting on the plane. At any rate, I'll post sometime on Monday night to let you know I made it safely. Beyond that, if you're looking for new updates, come talk to me or give me a call or shoot me an email because I doubt I'll have much else to blog about that will be reasonably interesting.

Goodbyes

I'm spending time this week packing my stuff up, picking up the last-minute purchases and saying good-bye to all of my friends here. It's great getting around and seeing my friends, but it definitely is difficult to say goodbye. I'm hoping to be back as soon as possible even if it's just for a week or so, but leaving is still difficult. These are people that I've grown close to and it's really weird to think that it's quite possible that I may never see some of them again. I know that part of that is the nature of the work I'm doing, but it's not something I'm particularly happy about. I love the idea that's so prevalent here that you build a friendship with people that you work with.

Have You Ever...

Have you ever driven by a large, angry mob of people? I had that experience today. The municipal workers in our town and a few of the surrounding areas are on strike right now, so there are some roads that have garbage strewn all over the place and the towns just look bad in general. Well, today, for a change of pace, a groups of probably 150-200 of the striking workers gathered in front of a building (which I assume was a city office building) in the town of Benoni. But, they weren't content to just stand around and hold their signs. They instead opted to block off three lanes of a four lane one way road through town. Then, they threw garbage into the one lane they weren't totally blocking in order to get their point across. Because I needed to get through to where I was going, I decided to drive through the "garbage lane". This did not please these workers.
When I say these folks were upset, I think I'm probably understating things. Some people were holding signs...others were holding ten foot long two by fours which they waved menacingly at any car stupid enough to try to drive through their barricade. Like I said, I needed to get through this little gathering, so I slowed down a little and headed to the far right to try to maneuver through the people and the garbage. As I passed the group, I got a few threatening gestures and too many threatening looks to count, but I made it without incident. Here's hoping they get what they want before too long...

Vacation

I realized that I forgot to post about the fact that I'd be gone for most of this week. I'm haven't posted, but it isn't laziness, I was just away from my computer since Tuesday night. I went with the Kings to a place on the coast called Durban. It was sort of like Miami. A nice, warm city on the beach - and the architecture even looked similar. We spent a few days there before heading in the mountains for Ethan's soccer tournament. He had games yesterday and today and we arrived home around 5 this afternoon. It was a great vacation and I'm grateful that I got to see those parts of South Africa before I leave. By the way, I'm flying home next Sunday night. See you soon.

Training, Part 2

Yesterday afternoon, I went back to Hope of Glory, the church in Wattville that is helping out with some of the follow-up from our event in a nearby school. We spent time working on preparing a Bible Study lesson for a small group setting. We focused primarily on observing the passage and we broke up into small groups to dissect the words in the passage and to pick out the key phrases. Then, we got back together in a big group and shared our observations. After we had done this, I challenged them to come up with some practical applications. I pointed out that studying for the sake of studying wasn't doing us a whole lot of good if we didn't apply what we learned.
At this point, I looked down at my phone and realized that I was already 15 minutes late to help get things set up for a going away party for myself and the Kehrers. We had some friends over to the seminary that's down the road from us and had a great time hanging out and having good food with good friends. As much as I'm looking forward to being home with my family and friends, it's definitely going to be hard to leave my close friends here.

Loose Ends

Today was all about going over the things that still need to be taken care of before I leave in a few weeks. From phone calls to meetings to proposals that need to be submitted. But, the definite highlight of my day was labeling and inventorying the sound system that we purchased for Youth United events. This consisted of recording the model and serial numbers of all the individual items as well as the purchase price and date of purchase. In case anybody missed it, that was sarcasm. I didn't especially enjoy doing this, but it is something that is necessary...I guess. We're preparing to store the entire sound system in the back room of a local business run by a friend from a church near us. He has generously offered to let us store the equipment there because we know that if it's left in most other places, a mic will get borrowed and then a few cables here and there and before you know it, you go to use your equipment and you're missing a few vital pieces and you're sunk. So, to avoid that situation and to ensure that we have all items inventoried for insurance purposes, today was "labeling day".

Happy Memorial Day

I hope the extended weekend gave everybody as much of a chance to relax as it did for me. Today, we had some friends who work at the U.S. Embassy over for brunch. They hung out for a while and then I went out for dinner with my good friend Navy, his wife Zodwa, and their two kids - Lushamo and Luse. Enjoy spending this time with friends and family!

Training, Part 1

After going to an under-9s soccer game this morning, I came back home and began to prepare for part 1 of a leadership/Bible study training session for this afternoon. At the time, I was not aware that it would be only part 1, but there was something else scheduled that cut our time short, so we'll finish up next Sunday afternoon. Despite the event being shorter than preferred, it went incredibly well. Around 11 or 12 people showed up, which was beyond my wildest dreams. They were all excited about leading a small group and had great questions and feedback that they offered as we spoke about leadership topics. I'll keep you posted on part 2. Tomorrow, I'll continue making the rounds to try to get to all the churches I need to visit in my last few weeks here.

Xenophobia

It means fear of foreigners, and it's quite a big deal around South Africa as of late. South Africans are feeling like the Zimbabweans, Mozambicans, Malawians, Zambians, Somalians, Swazis, Ethiopians, etc are stealing jobs and are causing crimes. So, throughout various townships, there are people going door-to-door and attacking anybody who is not a South African. This violence is not affecting white non-South Africans as the violence is isolated to the townships and black African immigrants are being attacked, robbed, and even killed simply for moving to a new country to try to better their lives. I'm really at a loss for words. I'm devastated and I'm heartbroken for what's going on. We have developed a number of relationships with "foreigners" whose lives are now in danger. One good friend of mine had three people killed on his street before he was able to flee to safety with his family. Please join us in praying for understanding and compassion to sweep across this country and that these senseless acts of violence would come to an end. I want to reiterate - we are not in any danger, but a number of our friends are. Please pray.

Here's a broad overview of what's happening, and if you poke around here, you'll find a number of articles. This site is providing updated news headlines in real time.

Forgive Me

There has been plenty going on to blog about, but once you get out of the habit, it's pretty hard to get back into it. Anyway, we've now got both our sound guy and our event coordinator committed to working with us for the 5 upcoming events over the course of the next year. We're still at 4 of 5 South African churches and the meeting with the fifth is on Thursday. We've spoken to 3 Stateside churches about the possibility of bringing a team sometime over the next year, and I'm tentatively planning on bringing a group of people from IWU over Spring Break. We're making great headway on everything that's covered in our "exit strategy" to ensure that Youth United will keep going strong. I'm pumped about the progress and I'm excited to see what's in store for the future of Youth United.

4 out of 5 ain't bad...

Planning is moving along well for the 5 Youth United events this coming year. We've confirmed with 4 of the 5 South African churches we're hoping to work with and the meeting with the fifth is on Friday. The next step will be working to find teams/churches in the States who would be interested in coming to South Africa for a week or so to work with the churches here on these Youth United events.
Usually I'm the kind of guy who would be thinking of this stuff the last week before it was time for me to leave, so it's been a huge blessing to have nearly a month and a half to prepare things so that the transition is seamless.

Looking Ahead

We're continuing to get a clearer picture of what the next month and a half looks like. As of now, the plan is to work to schedule 5 Youth United events between July '08 and July '09. We've got two of the churches we were brainstorming about on board and we'll contact the others within the week. So, the next couple of weeks will be meetings and discussions about the details, but the main stuff is agreed upon (or will be soon...). I'm feeling like we're in a really good place and I'm so thankful for Brian's insight into this process and his ability to look ahead to my transitioning out. I'm terrible at thinking ahead to things like that, so I'm very grateful for his leadership during this time.

Good News

Today was a great day. I think some things are falling into place and I'm really excited about that. I talked to a youth leader in Wattville about helping us out with some follow-up in one of the high schools we were in and she was all about it. We have a meeting next week Saturday to do some training for the kids - and the best part is that the standout kids in her youth group that will be helping out go to this high school. I'm waiting until this happens to begin celebrating fully, but I'm really pumped about it for now. I think we've also got a good lead on another high school's follow up as well. I'll post more on that when I know more.

Crazy

This past week has been a little bit crazy. I don't particularly want to get into rehashing all of the details, but there was a time when we were under the impression that my life and/or my physical well-being was potentially in danger. For those who knew about the ordeal and were praying, I want to thank you. I really don't know how to characterize events at this point and I'm still trying to work through things and figure out what was going on and so forth. As we move forward and seek to learn from this event, we're working on holding a little tighter to some of our safety guidelines - particularly traveling together and doing our best to be out and about sparingly after dark. I guess that's all I've got. I apologize to those who may read this and just be dying to know exactly what went down, but suffice it to say, I'm fine and I plan to stay that way.

Follow Up

Yesterday, we spent the day working on figuring out how to best follow up on these students who are looking to get into small groups. Some of the kids indicated that they wanted to go to church this Sunday, so we called them yesterday, but with no luck. None of the kids picked up their phones, so we're back to the beginning there. We also found out that there is currently a Bible study program going on in the school and we're looking to get the kids hooked into that.

Youth United Event

Yesterday, we had a Youth United event at a place called J.E. Malepe Secondary School. It's located in a township called Tsakane. I would say that yesterday was the best event we've had yet. The principal introduced us and got the kids to quiet down and actually sit down before we started things. Also, in another change, I spoke first. Normally, we open with games like Name That Tune. But, we've found that music gets the kids all riled up, so we decided to try the message before the games. I think it was a combination of the principal's discipline and the message before the music, but whatever it was, the kids were very attentive. Of course, with over 1,000 kids jammed in a tiny courtyard there will be some who aren't interested, but the vast majority were listening and connecting with me as I spoke. It was so awesome to see people taking this seriously. After we finished, we had over 80 kids come and sign up to be a part of a small group. That blew me away. I'm so thrilled that God showed up in a major way yesterday!

Not Quite There Yet

I am feeling a ton better, but I'm still not quite back. I'm still just weak enough that I feel like doing too much would just be setting myself up to be back in bed for longer. So, for now, that's why you're not hearing much of anything from me - I'm not doing much of anything.

It's Bronchitis

I've been feeling bad since Monday morning. It started with what felt like a sinus infection and on Wednesday night, I was left with a hacking cough. Well, I finally got it checked out this morning after four days of hoping I could sleep it off. Turns out you can sleep off bronchitis.

Elevation

The team from Central's youth group arrived yesterday. The plan was scheduled to arrive at 4:30 PM, but arrived at 11:30 PM instead. We got them back to the Seminary and arrived home around 2:30. Today, we slept in a little and got started at 9. Needless to say, I'm thrilled they're here, but I'm also exhausted. Once I catch up on a little sleep, I'll do my best to post more info.

Car Trouble

This week, I learned what an alternator is...the hard way. On Friday night, I was stuck on the side of the road ten minutes of highway driving away from home with a dead battery on my cell phone. Somebody stopped and after unsuccessfully trying to give me a jump, decided he would just tow me home. By now it's close to 10:30 and South Africa isn't the safest place to be stopping to pick up hitchhikers. Despite this, Renier insists on towing me back to my house where he helped me push the car into the garage. From there, we got to talking and found out that we both work with youth. He's a youth leader at his church and he's looking to get the kids in the youth group involved in ministry. How awesome is that! We decided to part ways (it's now around 11:45pm) and call each other to set up a time to connect. Well, tonight, he's going to come pick me up and take me to his youth meeting to talk to the youth about what we're doing and to invite them to come and join us. The timing could not be any better because a team of students is arriving Friday from Central Wesleyan. We're looking to connect with these students while that team is here and do some ministry together. I'm continually blown away by how God works. (also, $40 later and one full day of work later, the car is back up and running)

Hunting Art

Well, Vox is holding an art auction in Holland towards the end of April, so we've been spending some time on and off for the past couple of months working to compile some pieces to sell. We've been able to get around 30 pieces donated so far and we're still going. We're making a final push this week so that we can send all of the stuff home with the team coming in from Central Wesleyan in two weeks. I'll be spending a good chunk of tomorrow and Thursday going around to galleries around Joburg and asking people to donate to help us raise money for projects here. I don't particularly enjoy asking people for giveaways, but so far people have been unbelievably willing, so I'm hoping that spirit keeps showing up.

Mom's Home

I talked to my Mom yesterday night as she arrived in the airport. It was awesome having her here and letting her get a chance to see what's going on and what the heck I'm talking about most of the time. It was helpful for her to be able to piece some things together and hopefully if anybody reading this has any questions, she can help you out with those. Anyway, I spent today with the couple of people we had in from a church in Washington D.C. called Crosscurrent. We went to the Soweto Vineyard Church and we had the chance to interact after the message with most everybody in the church because it was cold (around 50) and rainy outside, so everybody was a little reluctant to leave. It was awesome to get to hang around and chat even longer than usual.

Some Good News and Some Bad News

I'm really starting to get bad at posting here regularly. I'm going to do my best to get a handle on that soon. First of all, it's been great having my Mom here. We've been tagging along with the team and checking out some of the things Vox is involved in, but we also took a day to go to Kruger National Park and we saw some cool animals. So, that's the good news.
However, the bad news is this: the Youth United event we had scheduled for today fell through. The students are spending this week taking midterms before their month-long break starts. So, unfortunately, the team in here didn't get a chance to see what these events are like. I'm definitely disappointed about that, but we were able to reschedule, so it's not like the school is missing out on an event, but we won't have this team around to help out and they won't get the chance to see one.

Student's Perspective

Laura and I had a meeting this afternoon with a girl named Rifiloe. She's a student at Progress High School in Soweto - the location of our last Youth United event. She's an incredibly sharp girl who wants to figure out a way to get involved with what we're doing and she took some time this afternoon to sit down with us and let us know what the event was like from a student's perspective. She had a lot of great things to say, but two of the points she made really jumped out at me. First of all, she said that around half of the kids didn't understand what was being said. Despite the fact that all classes are taught in English and all textbooks are in English, some students feel that learning English makes them "snobby". Others are not strong in English despite their efforts, so it's hard for them to keep up with a message in real time. So, for the next event, we're looking to find a translator so that kids can hear the message in either Zulu or Sotho (the two main languages around Joburg). The second point she made was about having music and giveaways at the beginning of the event. For us, it makes sense to put that stuff at the beginning because it's designed to be attention-getting and to allow kids to get involved in the program. However, Rifiloe said that once the kids get all riled up or after they receive a giveaway, their attention is actually lost. So, we were trying to get their attention with games, music and giveaways, but she's saying that we're actually setting ourselves up for failure by doing that. We're planning to switch things up for the next event and see if what she's saying will put us on the right track. The next event in Wednesday the 12th, so I'll let you know then.