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.