Home Based Care

This morning, we took Annagail to Zenzele Counseling Project in Finetown. We spent the morning doing home based care visits with the caregivers there. We broke into groups and my group visited 5 or 6 homes of people who were sick and hurting. We visited a middle-aged man who was HIV positive and also had TB. We visited a woman who was paralyzed from the waist down. We visited a young boy who had cerebral palsy and couldn't speak or walk. We also visited a woman who had recently had successful surgery to remove a tumor in her stomach. With all of the severe cases we saw today, it was nice to see a success story. But, even in the tough situations, we were able to pray with the patients and we were able to talk to them and love on them, which was awesome. In the afternoon, we worked to set up the sound system and get things ready for the concert at the Youth United event next Wednesday.

Day One

Annagail arrived last night with no complications in the airport or anywhere else. The traveling went really smoothly. We took them back from the airport and got them situated at the seminary and talked for about a half hour about what to expect and just some basic things they would need to know for their time here and then we sent them to bed.
This morning was a little earlier than they would have preferred with breakfast at 7:15, but they managed. We had group devotions and then headed out to King's Hope, a care center in the township of Oleivenhoutbosh. We spent about two hours there taking a tour of the place and getting an idea of what they're doing in the community and how they're helping people who are sick and dying. We spent some time praying with the patients in the hospice and we toured the clinic that is currently under construction on their property.
From there, we headed to an orphanage that houses 46 kids called Phahella that is run by an amazing woman named Grace. She's gone through a lot for the sake of the kids in her care, even losing her husband because he couldn't handle the strain of all of the kids being everywhere. But, through it all, Grace has kept a great attitude and God has truly blessed her ministry. The band played a few songs for the kids and then we hung out with them for about an hour before we had to head home. Today was the beginning of an overview for the team of what South Africa looks like.

Finalizing

Well, Annagail arrives tomorrow, so today was all about finalizing the schedule and thinking through any last minute details. Annagail is a band from the Holland area that will be joining us here in South Africa from tomorrow until Saturday, February 9. They will be playing at our Youth United event in the local high school and they will also be playing at various churches and care centers throughout their time here. I'm really looking forward to having them here and I'm excited to see how God uses them and how He challenges them and changes their lives.

Gotta Love the Power Outages

Well, this morning, I found out that the little caulk job on the leaky parts of the car was mostly successful. I say mostly because it stopped about 90% of the water that would have gotten into the car yesterday, so there's still some work to be done. After this slightly encouraging finding, our team headed up to Pretoria for a meeting with the director of World Mission Center to hear from him about what they're doing. Their organization exists to help train ministers and then send them out to plant churches. They've developed a great system that involves sending their curriculum (in DVD format) out to churches all over the world so that they can put members of their congregation through the 6 month course. Their goal is to reach 1,000,000 people in hopes that a minimum of 10% of them wind up going out and planting churches. It was inspiring to see the hearts of the employees and to hear the stories of how God's using them.
From this presentation, I drove Paul to the computer training class that he's teaching. Through November and December, he was teaching a class-full of the future teachers of the class. Today was the second session for the public training. We got there a couple of minutes late, but that was really the least of our issues. The main problem was that there was no power in the area. So, we waited around for about an hour talking with the students and hoping for the power to return, but we had no luck. Today's lesson has been moved to Tuesday; hopefully this will be the last time class is cancelled on account of power.

Airport Run and Some

This morning, I picked Laura up from the airport. She just got back from Cape Town after spending 5 days with the Spring Arbor Team that was here a week or so ago. After we got back from the airport, I was out running errands with Paul in order to finalize some things for the first public computer training coarse this afternoon. He was needing an XP disk in order to get the computers all set for this afternoon. Then, this afternoon, I was working on the car. Water has been leaking into the trunk lately through the top of the back windshield and through one of the brake-lights. The car has been smelling a little strange for a couple of weeks and I didn't know exactly what the deal was until I opened the trunk yesterday and smelled the wet carpet. So, I've been working to take the carpet out and clean and dry it and fix the leaks. Fixing stuff isn't something that I'm particularly good at, but I think I was able to make things happen this afternoon. Right now, it's 10 at night and it's raining pretty hard and the car is outside, so I guess we'll find out if today's little project was a success or a failure.

Making it Happen

Today was basically a follow-up day for yesterday's meetings. I made a bunch of phone calls and secured nearly every piece of equipment that the band will need when they arrive next week. I felt really good about having that stuff taken care of (or nearly taken care of). I also worked on getting a report on the youth event last Saturday sent out to the leadership and those involved. I don't think I've posted the numbers here yet, but we had 62 people commit to abstinence and 51 people give their lives to Christ and 60 made recommitments. Those numbers are a little hard to interpret considering that a number of people indicated that they had made a first-time commitment and a recommitment as well. However, what I do know for sure is that many young people made life-changing commitments!

Meetings

This morning, we had a team meeting to give and update on where we are in our various areas of ministry. We spent a good bit of time praying for our families back at home and praying for each other. It was a great morning and I really appreciated the fresh take on giving updates on what's happening back at home and taking time as a team to lift up one another's families. From there, we caught up on what's happening and we talked about the incoming teams that will be here over the next two weeks. Next Tuesday, a band arrives that Laura and I will be taking around and involving in Youth United stuff. Also, a team is coming from WJQ and they'll be doing an audio and video update at the end of each day. The audio snippets will actually be broadcast daily while they're here, so that will really allow us the chance to expose more people to what's going on and to what God's doing.
After our meeting, I spent a good chunk of the afternoon working with Molly on getting the team's schedule in place. Organization isn't one of my strong suits, so it was really helpful to have her input and advice as we pieced together what would be important to cover with a team. I'm feeling really good about where the schedule is right now - and there's a whole week before the team comes! That's unusually far in advance for me to be prepared, and it feels really good.

Great News

Yesterday, Laura and Lazarus and I went into a couple of local high schools and tried to set up meetings with their principals and/or vice principals. We decided that if we hold our Youth United events in the schools instead of in different locations around the community, then we're reaching a ton of kids that wouldn't have come otherwise. Well, we had these two conversations and so far, we got one school that is fully on board with the idea of having us come and the other school is running the idea by their board. There are a minimum of 1,000 kids between those two schools, so I'm really excited about the possibilities of going there an talking to kids about making healthy choices, about abstinence, and about Christ. It's so cool that we can freely talk about these things in public schools around here, and that schools are excited to have us come. Yesterday was a great day with some great news coming and hopefully some more great news on the way.

Back At It

This morning, Laura and I had a meeting with Lazarus, a pastor from a church up the road. We were planning an event with him in a park right outside of the township of Wattville, but we're beginning to re-evaluate the way we do these events because of the fact that we have been putting in so much work on advertising and not too many people have been showing up. In light of that fact, we're looking into taking the exact same event and doing it in a school assembly. We have the names and numbers of the three area schools and we're working to get appointments scheduled with all of their principals. Because it's perfectly okay to talk about Christ in schools around here and because administrators know how desperate the need is for youth to have a fighting chance in the war against HIV/AIDS, we don't really think it will be much of an issue to get into the schools with the message that we have hope in the face of HIV because of Christ. We will continue to talk about making healthy choices and about abstinence. I'm excited to see what comes of this and I'll be sure to keep you posted.

Youth Rally

We had a Youth United event this morning in the township of Soweto. It went really well after we got started. It took a while for people to filter in, but we ended up with around 100 kids, which was pretty exciting. We were hoping for more because we went and advertised at 4 different high schools on Thursday. We probably talked to around 1,000 kids, so we had hoped to have around 300 or so come out today, but it's all good. As we were getting started, the power went out, so our new sound system really didn't get much of a test. We went on without the power, so the music group we had come in actually did an acapella performance. I spoke today about making choices and called the youth the commitments to abstinence and to living for Christ. I don't know the exact numbers right now, but a number of people responded with commitments to both. God was definitely at work today and it was fun to be a part of it. However, I don't feel like I've had a break in about the past two weeks, so if you don't hear from me for a couple of days again, know it's because I'm taking it easy. Thanks for all of your prayers.

Catchup

Here's a quick update of what I've been up to lately with the team from Spring Arbor. On Sunday, we went to a couple of different churches rather than descend on one church with a group of 20 some people. I actually went to the church that is hosting our Youth United event on Saturday, but I met up with the team after lunch. From there, we took them to the Apartheid Museum. On Monday, we did a tour of Soweto with Mpho, a pastor friend of ours. He showed us around the township and spoke in depth about political and other issues facing those in the communities. I never leave a conversation with Mpho without learning something new. He's an absolute fountain of information, so it's great to have teams come by and hang out with him. Then, today, we took the team to a game park and drove around looking for animals for a while. We saw a lion, hyaena, a few rhinos, giraffes and elephants, so it was a good day. My vehicle also almost got kicked out of the park for having our door open in order to get a better picture of a lion, but that's a story for a different day...

Spring Arbor's Here

Early on Friday morning, Spring Arbor's team arrived and I've spent most of my time with them since. We did home care visits yesterday to give them a bit of an introduction to the reality of what the country is dealing with and what we're aiming our efforts at. We spent a good chunk of time doing that and then we let the team go for the night after dinner so they could try to get onto their new sleeping schedule. Today, we went to the hospice that Paul and I went to on Christmas and we went around and prayed for the patients. It was awesome because the team is made up of 17 people, so all of the patients were able to get some real personal attention. From there, we went out and did a prayer walk in a township where we're holding a Youth United rally in February. It was a great experience and I think that the team really got a taste of what a township is all about. There were people all over the place and the community was really active. We walked through and prayed for the event and for the community and it was a great afternoon. On a different note, it's been great to be surrounded by people that are in the same phase of life that I'm in. I didn't really realize how much I missed the company of so many people my own age until the team arrived and I got to hang out with them.

Prayer Meeting

Today, I went to a prayer meeting in Soweto in preparation for the Youth United rally we will be holding there next Saturday. We gathered and spent time praying that many young people would come to the event and that they would be impacted by God's love and by the call to abstinence. We prayed that many young people would come to know Christ and would commit to staying sexually pure until marriage. We prayed that the Devil would not gain victory in the lives of anyone in the community and that nobody would be blinded from the truth by his lies any longer. After the prayer meeting, I found out that tomorrow night from 8-Midnight, the church has organized a prayer time. They're encouraging people, wherever they are, to join in prayer in anticipation of this event. That's 1-4 EST and I'd love to invite anybody who's reading this to join with all of us in prayer during that time.