i'm still here

sorry i haven't posted lately, this is the first time i have had internet access since last post. since then, Brian and I had a meeting with the pastor from the community that Zenzele is in. he told us about some of the things to be aware of as we begin to partner with them and he gave us some good ideas about how to go about it. I also spoke with the youth pastor at that church and we talked about the youth rally idea and he was really on board with that. he wants to do a community rally with many different churches in the community involved, which i think is a great idea. he and i really get along great and it's an answer to prayer that we are both on the same page like this. i'm continuing to work out what the rallies look like and how the leadership and Bible Study training fits in to the preparation for youth leaders prior to the rallies themselves.
on friday night we went with our neighbors to a rugby game. I learned that rugby is probably the most violent sport around because there is tackling like in football, but the only padding you are allowed to wear is an earguard so that your ears don't get smashed between your head and somebody else's. a guy broke his leg within one minute of the game starting. the final score was 62-5 with the home team getting slaughtered, but the game itself was a riot - and it was only like $1.50 after my student discount. i could get into going to rugby games more often...
i spent most of the day saturday working on my finances with receipts, filing, and organizing things. i hate doing stuff like that, which is why saturday was the first time i had done anything with all of that stuff, which made it that much worse. Then on saturday night, we had the World Hope South Africa representative and her family over for dinner. the representative's name is Elske and her husband's name is Yaku. we had a riot together. we ended up sitting and talking for probably around 4 1/2 hours and it didn't feel nearly that long because we had some much fun with them. i wish we could have them over more often, but they live over an hour away, so that probably won't happen too often.
on sunday, we went to Rhema South Family Church, a church of about 3-4 thousand each week. the service itself reminded me a lot of Ridgepoint with the seamless incorporation of drama and dance numbers into the service. also, this church has an opportunity every week for people to make a decision to follow Christ. this week, i would say that probably 35 people came forward - it was awesome! also, this was far and away the most culturally diverse and integrated church that i have ever attended. the fact that it's integrated is impressive because the country is still majorly feeling the strain from Apartheid. i realize that i haven't really posted much about that here because i've been here before, so i figure that everybody else already knows what's going on, too. sorry about that for those who are a bit in the dark. i'll make sure to spend some time in the near future giving some background information on the country and my experiences here.
this morning, Mike, Brian, Jason and I had a meeting to get updates on how everyone is doing and where all the projects are at the moment. I'll spend the rest of today reading through a great HIV prevention curriculum that Pastor Vessie loaned me when we met with him on Wednesday.