Seems like forever

Ok, so it seems like forever since I wrote anything. I know it has been 3 weeks or so. After returning from our long adventurous drive, we jumped right back into our ministries head first. We have had 3 teams here and another individual volunteer to come in during this time frame. Pastor John had asked me if I would cover for his PA while she was on holiday for 2 weeks and I told him I would. What I didn’t foresee was all the work that was about to come over me. A US AID conference was planned while Tracey was away and I was the person who had to be sure all the I’s were dotted and T’s were crossed. It was a 3 day conference with some high profile people and needless to say the pressure was on. With the help of a lot of people it was a great success. The conference itself was helping to network existing HIV/AIDS organizations with the funds from the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and US AID. It also gave some of the smaller organizations an opportunity to link up with bigger organizations to begin sharing the same information on a new database that would help them to gain knowledge and understanding of how the funding works. All of this ended last week.
This week we have started our second Entrepreneur class. We learned a lot from the pilot class we completed in August. We have 10 people in our class this time and we are setting different boundaries with them to be sure they really want to be entrepreneurs.
The biggest news for Living Way right now is we may finally have a place we can call home. (This is the work creation, & economic empowerment program for those that don't remember) We are in prayer for this awesome property that has been put before us but we have to go through a lot of hoops to be able to call it ours. It is unbelievable and words cannot describe it! The fire marshal came to our offices at Living Hope last week and sited us for numerous things but one of the big ones was the sewing class and computer class that we have in the multi-purpose centre. They basically shut the class down because of the wooden flooring and all of the extension cords running to the computers and the sewing machines, but we at Living Way, wanted to work hard at figuring out a way to allow them to still be able to have class. Mike and Richard have worked diligently with John to try and get temporary residency for these 2 classes at the new property. We received the go ahead today to move in temporarily. However, this doesn’t mean that we have the property because there are other people still trying to bid on it. For those of you who know the history of all the buildings of Living Hope, this would be another one of those miraculous stories that we tell on our tours. Richard, Mike and I have already picked out our offices, so you could say we have named it and claimed it!!! We will keep you updated but right now we need your prayers for the property. They will let us know in 4-6 weeks.
Lastly, Mike’s mom and sister are flying in this Wednesday to stay for 10 days so we will be flying under the radar at work and spending some time with them. We are very excited to see them and look forward to sharing with them all of the things that we love about Cape Town. We thank you for your continued prayers and support. Blessings!!!!!!

God’s Favor

We have been so blessed to have been able to take a week away from our ministry to regroup and have some quiet time together. Mike had seen a place on the east coast called, hole in the wall, and we decided to take a week and drive 16 hours up the eastern coast of South Africa. What I would consider the eastern coast would have been equivalent to leaving Miami and going towards Hilton Head. Because Africa is so big we hardly made the turn north from Cape Town. We were hoping to go far enough that we would find some warmer weather, but we really didn’t get far enough. We only had a couple of days that we were able to wear shorts. We left out with the only agenda of staying at a friend’s house for 3 days. The rest of the time we trusted God for His leading. Our 1st day of driving we went to the very tip of Africa called Cape Agulhas. (This is where the Indian and Atlantic Oceans meet) The first night we reached a place called Mossel Bay. We had no idea where to look for a place to stay, but we saw an information sign (i) and pulled in there. They gave us a couple of places and the 2nd place we looked at was great. The receptionist told us how much it was and Mike said the lady at the (i) told us it was a lot cheaper and she gave us the rate from (i). The next place we headed to was Plettenberg Bay where our friend has a house. On our way there we stopped by an Ostrich Farm where Mike and I sat on an ostrich, separately, of course! You could ride them if you wanted to but it looked very difficult so we passed. We stayed at Richard’s place for 3 days. It was nice, but cold, so we built a fire in the fireplace, read, hung out and played games. We left from there heading to Coffee Bay where hole in the wall was located. This was the longest part of our Journey it took about 10 ½ hours. We had a little car trouble, not mechanically, but finding a place on any of the roads for help was almost never, including gas stations. It just so happened where we had the trouble we were coming into Port Elizabeth, where all the car makers were. We got off at the first exit and found a repair shop right away. Unfortunately, the part that flew off our car was not in stock, but they assured us that we would be ok. We continued on our journey and arrived just before dusk. Again we didn’t have a reservation but figured we could find a place. There wasn’t a lot of choices and the first place was nice, but I thought we should go out and check the other hotel to have a comparison. When we walked back out to the car we had a flat tire. Two things here; first we decided this was where God wanted us to be and 2nd we were so taken care of because we drove about 61 kilometers off the main road and there was no place for us to have had it fixed. The hotel arranged the next morning for one of the workers to take the tire to his village and have it plugged. It was all fixed in no time! We did go over to hole in the wall, but after seeing it, Mike wasn’t sure that this was the place he was thinking of. It was still beautiful and worth seeing. It was a large rock formation with a big archway through the middle of it where the water gushed through.
On our 3rd day there we had not booked the room for that evening and we found out our room wasn’t available about 12:00. We had the option of another room but we decided that we would start back and drive about 4 hours to the next city. We asked for ideas about where to stay and one of the guys at the hotel made a suggestion, called ahead for us, and gave us a map. We packed up quickly and headed south. We arrived in a town called, East London, and the place that he suggested was a little pricey for our budget. The girl at reception told us she would give it to us for less than ½ price and we told her we would take it. We have just been so amazed at how God’s favor has been over us and as I write this we are on our last nights stay at a place called Knysna. We again didn’t have a reservation but planned on visiting the (i) for information and suggestions. The (i) was already closed and so we began driving around the area. We found a beautiful place but again it was too much so we asked the reception if she knew of another place. She told us but we weren’t sure we could find it. We headed towards the direction she told us and we got out and started walking. There just happened to be an (i) internet information and I said lets go see what this (i) is all about. Turns out the (i) came through for us again. God has a new sign (i)! We have truly been blessed and are rested and ready to get back to work. This time away has given us the opportunity to go through a Spiritual Guidance book together and allowed us to see where we need to set boundaries and focus on more specific ministries. Thanks for following us through this journey. We appreciate your prayers and support.

Days, Weeks, Months

I am so amazed at how quickly the time goes by. 2 weeks ago the Brentwood Music Team was getting ready to catch a flight to Cape Town and as I reflect on this past week they have been gone 5 days and already back at BBC on Sunday. We had a great visit with the 5 guys and had them over to our place one night for internet/phone connections. They worked very hard while they were here and did some incredible work in Belhar and Muizenburg. They, along with Avril, put together a South African Idol (almost like American Idol) in just 5 days. It was awesome. WE are truly blessed with the talent in America, Nashville and specifically in our church. Until we don’t have something, we can’t appreciate what we’ve got. We miss this soooooooo much!!!!!

We have another team that arrived on Saturday from Seattle Washington, for a week and a half, and this is their first time here. The team leader came in May 2008 to see where they would best fit at Living Hope. We have adopted a new township in the last 6 mths, in Overcome Heights, and this is where he felt God calling them to be. Mike and Avril lined up the itinerary for the team over the last couple of weeks and their first day today was incredible. They went door to door knocking inviting people to a free AIDS testing with our support group facilitators and lay counselors from Living Hope. Along with the invitation to come to the Aids testing they prayed with people and asked them if they wanted to have a relationship with Jesus and led 5 people to the Lord. They also had some crafts available for the adults and then for the afternoon they had kids club with puppets, crafts, a bible story and a snack. Mike and I joined them at the beginning of kids club and they had about 85 but by the end there were at least 135. The team brought 150 t-shirts to give away but they weren’t sure they had enough so they are going to reward those who come on time tomorrow and pass them out at the beginning!!!!

Mike and I have now been here for over 6mths. We can’t believe it! We have things we are still trying to put together for our team that should have been done months ago but things just take more time here. Like our phone and internet connection. Ha! Another thing that takes so much time is relationships. Every Monday morning we meet for devotions at the main office. We have a rotation among the employees each week and Mike and I finally got asked to participate in the rotation after 6mths. Mike spoke about two weeks ago and today was my day for devotions. God used me to talk about healing a wounded spirit. There are so many folks dealing with so much pain and unforgiveness here, and the issues here are much greater than we could ever imagine. We continue to thank God for allowing us the opportunity to share some of the things we learned in Fiji and ask Him to continue to use us as his vessels to share of God’s healing and His love and to continue to build our relationships. Thanks for sharing in our partnership here and we continue to ask that you pray for us as we seek to do God’s will for our lives.

Pastor John Thomas and President Bush

On July 15th 2008 John Thomas, founder of Living Hope, got to spend 25 minutes with President Bush in the Oval Office. The United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) funds about half the running costs of Living Hope and President Bush was keen to meet John when he visited America. No matter what people think about the way the country has been run, we have a moral President in office right now that truly cares for the poor.
Living Hope is the only church-based charity which is funded by Pepfar: Pastor John thanked President Bush for his vision in creating Pepfar and told him he believed it would be his legacy. Pastor John encouraged him to consider setting up a foundation which would continue the work of faith-based organizations, particularly Christian organizations, which would empower the church to reach out further; with less political influence. “He responded very warmly to that.”
President Bush spoke of his former alcoholism and how “he never went through a 12 step program, but a radical 1 step program where God changed his life. John said, “The words he used to describe his conversion were real and significant. John told him about Living Hope’s strategy of reaching one child at time, and about the enormous problem of vulnerable children-from aged three upwards-being sexually active. He also spoke about how “Aids is rooted in poverty and that we had to deal effectively with poverty and morality.” When John got ready to leave President Bush said, “It was his desire to come to Fish Hoek Baptist Church and Living Hope, after his Presidency.”
John also told President Bush about the strong connections Living Hope has with churches in America, especially Brentwood Baptist Church in Nashville, Tennessee.

The other picture is Senator Bob Corker from Tennessee, who visited Living Hope March 2008, Easter Weekend.

The Volunteers are dwindling, but not without seeing amazing changes in peoples lives.

We have had as many as 15 individual volunteers and 2 teams, one with17 the other with 7, here at the same time. We have been very busy making sure they get to where they are suppose to go and happy with their assignments. It has been a great journey for us thus far. We had 3 individuals in particular who were scheduled to go to Zimbabwe through the partnership that we work with called ACTS. Because of all the trouble that was going on there, ACTS had to relocate them about 2 weeks before they arrived. They asked us if we could find some work for them to do. Mike received a phone call from one of the volunteers out at the refugee camp just days before this and asked if we had any teachers available. As you may know where I am going with, it just so turned out that 2 of the 3 girls that were supposed to go to Zimbabwe were teachers from Tennessee! God had already arranged a place for these girls to work. (not a coincidence). They had a great 2 weeks and one of the girls was really allowing Jesus to work in her heart and He was revealing so much to her. She had been sprinkled as a baby but had never been baptized and really felt like the Lord wanted her to do that before she left. She asked Mike and me if we would help to make that happen. We spoke with the associate pastor at King of Kings and he suggested Mike do it since he knew her. Mike asked her if she would like to do it and she was thrilled. We made a plan and had the baptism in the tidal pool in the ocean where we had Easter Sunrise service. It was a new opportunity for Mike and a new beginning for her! What an awesome mighty God we serve.

Just the little things God does

Writing these blogs helps me to be reminded of the little things God does. It is like keeping a journal that I can look back on and see where He has worked in our lives each week. Over the last couple of weeks, we have really been discouraged with the car we bought because it was not the right car for the ministry we are doing. We initially thought we would need 2 cars going in 2 separate directions with 2 different ministries as it has turned out we are working together in both ministries. The first car we bought was a very small 2 door that would have been just fine for me but not for Mike. Once we realized we weren’t getting a second car we decided we needed something with 4 doors and a little bigger to transport people around in and easier for Mike to get in and out of! We thought we found the perfect car, but it was sold out from under us even with a contract! Last week we went into our friend that sold us the first car and he had another car that he thought we would like, and we did, but we realized that wasn’t the right car. The next car he wanted us to look at was what we would call, a mini-mini van. John Thomas has one similar to it and we drove his car one day and put 6 people in it comfortably, so we thought maybe we should look at this one. After test driving it we knew this was the car but it was a little out of our price range. We turned it over to the Lord in prayer and in just a couple of days we had 3 people to step up and offer to help pay for the shortfall of funds for the car and we got exactly what we needed. Time and time again God reveals himself through so many different things but especially in His provision for our needs.
As of today, we have taken possession of our new (used) car! Thanks to the folks that the Holy Spirit nudged to help us to get this car!

How grateful we are for YWAM’s teachings

We are so amazed at how often we use something that we learned last year while in Fiji.
Being exposed to different denominations was so difficult for me last year and I really dealt with some rebellion and unbelief about their teachings, but as always God was just preparing us for what lies ahead when He takes us through these trials. We are visiting other churches in different communities and it is so much easier for us to be able to go into these churches praising the Lord with an open mind.
We dealt with other tough situations such as leadership skills and strict guidelines and now we find ourselves in the same situations with handling volunteers and recognizing that we don’t want to be to controlling of what God has planned for them. This forces us to remember how we felt and to be sensitive to their needs while they are here.
Each week, I plan devotions for our entrepreneurial support group. 2 years ago I would have told you there is no way I can do this but because I had to do things like this in YWAM, it makes it easier for me to do this now.
When were first got here we were meeting with the Life Skill Educators each week and teaching them a skit to use at kid’s club. We haven’t been able to go for about 6 weeks, but we really didn’t feel like we were making a difference. Well just today, we went to one of the holiday clubs and as we were getting ready to leave, one of the LSE’s asked us if we would do a skit for the kids and off the cuff we taught them a skit and performed it in front of 50 kids. It was great and when we got in the car. I said now that is what it’s all about. Mike knew exactly what I was talking about. God used us for His purpose! We tell people almost on a daily basis, if they have an opportunity to do a DTS (discipleship training school) with YWAM, do it! It will change your life. Thanks again for your continued support and prayers in this awesome time of our lives.

4th of July in Cape Town

Well it’s not fireworks and hotdogs or even a day off. We are having the heaviest rains we have had all year. Even though we are working today we did take a day off this week.
This past Monday we spent the last day with the first group of volunteers, mostly from Nashville, going Shark Cage Diving. Now this isn’t something Mike and I would have suggested for things to do, but they were young and adventurous and we said, “so are we let’s go.” We started out at 6 am and we rode about 2 hours up the East coast. We watched the sun come up and got to the place for breakfast and briefing before heading to the boat. They were telling us there would be a good chance that people would be sea sick because of the rough seas. We were prepared we had pills left over from Fiji and took them when we left home. I did bring more incase they were needed. Thank goodness we didn’t get sick. The seas were choppy but it was a beautiful day about 65 degrees and we all had a lot of adrenaline pumping. We were headed to see Great White Sharks! South Africa is one of the Capitals for Great Whites. Upon arrival we dropped anchor and they advised us to go ahead and get our wetsuits on while they chummed the water to draw in the sharks. We were only there a couple of minutes when the first shark swam by. Normally it could take up to 45 minutes to see the first one. It was unbelievable! They were about 15 ft. long and the dive master was saying these were babies! We had a great time and a few got sick but all in all it was an awesome adventure. The pictures are a reflection of our fun and excitement and how Mighty is our God to create such a fascinating creature of the sea.

Reality of Life and Death and Eternal Life

It is reality of life here on earth that we will attend funerals while living here. Mike and I attended our first funeral last week. It was a coworker’s husband who passed away. We worked with her in the same office and wanted to go. We didn’t know him but it was a very sweet celebration of his life and his death and this began to make me think about the importance of eternal life. We then had our friends who are missionaries in Liberia, Africa; send us an e-mail to say they had to fly back because his dad had only a few days left to live. Lastly, Mike’s ex father in law, the kids’ grandfather, passed away on Friday. With all of the deaths this past week, it made me realize how important it is to be sure people we know and people we don’t know have the opportunity to know who Jesus is and that He died on the cross for our sins and that He is alive now and desires to have a relationship with all of us. Fortunately, every one of these people had a personal relationship with the Lord so they know that they may have suffered in this life time but now have eternal life with Jesus in Heaven. For a lot of people they don’t have that assurance. I have never been afraid of death even when I was not living my life to serve God. I should have feared Him but I didn’ I knew in my heart when I accepted Christ as my Lord and Savior that I would spend eternal life with Him. What I didn’t really understand until I rededicated my life back to Him in 2000, is that He asks us to be obedient in all we do with our lives and wants us to be in His will not in rebellion. For those years that I rebelled, I made wrong choices and had to pay the consequences for them. God allowed the bad things to happen so that I would grow in my character and be who He created me to be and for His purposes. As death is so prevalent here with people dying of HIV/AIDS, it is so important to share the Word of God with people and let them know that they are forgiven for their past mistakes, that God is a loving God, but that they need to turn from their ways and allow Him to work in their lives. I know as we continue to build relationships with the people here that have HIV/AIDS that we will probably attend one or more of their funerals. We ask that you pray for the Holy Spirit to use us as His tools to deliver the message that Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life (John 14:6) and that we are the vessels by which lives are changed.

Driving Lessons

Who is the best person for the job? Apparently, not me. (Pam) Last week, Danielle Schneider from Brentwood Baptist, asked me if I would teach her how to drive a stick shift. She is planning on being here for 1 year and realized she is going to have to get a car but will need to learn how to drive a stick and drive on the other side of the road. I told her sure we will look at doing it on Monday. Well Monday came and I took her over to an isolated dirt road and got out of the car and pulled up the emergency brake so the car wouldn’t roll on us. I said, “Danielle don’t let me forget the brake is on.”
She gets in the drivers side which is on the opposite side of the way we are used to getting in a car in America. We both started laughing and then she realizes that the mirrors were all backwards; the car was on the left side of the road, the floor had another pedal to deal with and she had to place her left hand on a gear shift and try to get the car going in a forward direction. We attempted many 1st gear starts and she got it going a couple of times but we didn’t get as far as we would have liked in our first lesson. We had a lot of laughs as many of you who know her could imagine. We then attempted reverse and I got a phone call right in the middle of all of this. I told her just keep trying while I take this call. I knew it would be hard because we were laughing so hard. While I was talking I looked down between the seats and realized the parking brake was still on. I was hysterically laughing at that point and told Danielle we might have gotten a lot further in our lesson if we had “taken the emergency brake off”. The little car was huffin and puffin and I couldn’t understand why! Now we know, I probably wasn’t the right person for the job but we had great fun and fellowship trying. I am going to persevere with her to the end but we are trying to trade cars and I don’t want the car to have to huff and puff too much. The car was making some weird noises and it could be like a ticking time bomb just waiting to go off. I will keep you posted............

Update at Soetwater, the refugee camp

The latest update from John is that the camp has gone on a hunger strike but not by choice. There was a lady that came on Saturday disguised as a UN person, but later found out she was from the Red Cross. This is what triggered some of them to take drastic means to try and get someone to listen to them. The Somalia’s have taken over the camp and want action to take place from either the UN or to be sent back home (repatriation-high cost to the govt.) or help to get back into their old communities. (This also is a high cost to the govt.) They don’t want either of the last two. They want to be sent to another country, such as America or Australia. The government doesn’t seem to want to have any involvement and so the people are trying to use desperate measures to get some attention. They have said no more volunteers aloud to come into the camps to provide food or help with medical attention. (This is a threat to outsiders) The women and children who don’t have a fight aren’t getting any food or medical attention and this is horrible for these folks. We have had special prayer times and heard news yesterday that there have been a lot of people coming to know the Lord because they have some pastors who have started worship and bible study and prayer groups within one of the tents set up out there. We know God allows bad things to happen in order to draw His people back to Him. Of the 3,100 hundred people out there 2,600 are Somalia’s, who are Muslim; the other 500 are from various countries. We pray that a revival would take place amongst all the refugees and lives could be changed. The newspaper yesterday, controlled by the government, reported yesterday that the UN had visited the camps and found people were trying to commit suicide by jumping into the very cold Atlantic waters. They said 4 people are missing but John said none of this has been confirmed yet. There was a picture of a man that had been pulled from the waters but don’t really know the whole story.
It is really difficult to understand what is right for everyone the refugees are here illegally and that is why the govt doesn’t want to spend Rands (Dollars) to incorporate them back into society. However, the moral issues and the Biblical Instruction in Isaiah 58: 6-10 tell us we must help the poor.
Mike and I have really been convicted about the issues concerning the illegal immigrants in the USA. It puts everything into perspective as we have witnessed first hand the oppression that they receive from other human beings. They are people too! I see now how our President, George Bush, has compassion for the people who have nothing to go back home to. They have no hope in life and struggle with sending them back to shacks and poor govt. and tough times in Central America. We don’t have a solution either but we can serve where we can and pray that God will’s is done all over the world.

Busyness

As I write this e-mail, I am reminded how Satan uses busyness to distract us from our fellowship with the Lord. Mike and I prayed early on that we wanted to be used for the Kingdom and asked God to help us to “get involved with community”. Well once again be careful what you ask for you might just get it. We have 12 individual volunteers, our Brentwood Leadership Team, and our Missions Minister, Scott Harris, all here at the same time. We also have Living Way really starting to take off in many different aspects and we are burning the candle at both ends. It has been wonderful to have our extended family from church here and a blessing to have Scott running around with us (running us around HA!) to really see all that we have going on at Living Hope, Way and Grace. We also had the ground breaking ceremony for the new chapel and Prevention building last Friday. That was a great time some of the children from Capricorn did a choreographed dance to some Christian music and the children from Masi sang a couple of local Christian songs. We both had a tear in our eye when the kids did this. We know this is what it is all about changing these kids lives and giving them hope and a future with our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. It was also a testimony to so many of the people that were here when Living Hope started (locals) and allowed them to see how it has grown and birthed new ministries from it.
We are very fortunate to have Mike’s nephew Aaron, who married us, down here with the team. He came over Sunday and spent the night with us and we hope he will come again before they leave. We also had a meeting today with all of the entrepreneurs from our class that we taught about 6 weeks ago and it was great. We had not had all of them together in our weekly meetings since the class. They had not gotten their business plan together as quickly as we would have liked, but hey this is Africa! They have at least gotten a Bible verse and devotion each week that goes along with the mentoring program.
Pray for us to get some balance back in our personal life.
Update on the refugee camp. All is peaceful right now. There are now about 2600 Somalia’s and 500 other foreigners from Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Congo, Mozambique, etc.
They still have no idea what they are going to do with everyone but as long as the media stays out they don’t try to put on a show. John has been able to step out of his role as the person in charge of everything but he still is very much involved on a daily basis. We have 9 of our volunteers going out every morning this week working with the children. They are singing songs, doing crafts and playing games. It is quite the opportunity for them to see such a tough lifestyle. Most of them are college students from the states and not used to seeing people in these situations. Continue to pray for these people that a solution would come soon for them.

Registration of Refugees and Blanket Sorting

Yesterday afternoon, Avril, John’s wife phoned us and asked us if we could come out to the refugee camp and help with registration. When we arrived there were approx. 500 people outside lined up to get into the gates. We first parked outside and then decided to ask the police if we could take some things into John Thomas and they told us to drive on through. When we got inside the gates, Avril immediately put us to work registering mostly Somalia’s that have been displaced. Most of these people have had their stores looted and they have been run out of the communities. It is a horrible site to see people confused and not knowing where to go next. We were told they were setting up a second camp just for the Somalia’s so the tension would not be so bad between all the foreigners. What I learned last night was that most of the Somalia’s are Muslim and trying to stick to their “laws” eating Halaal food or fasting when they are having a crisis. They had separate tents for the food and separate tents for the men and women. John Thomas was appointed to “be in charge” of the entire camp site area and this is more than a one man job. Please pray for someone to come along side or even take over, as John has asked, to take on this position. After everyone was registered John asked us to come help pass out blankets and this would help lure the Somalia’s to the other campsite. This worked and it was amazing to see how many blankets had been donated. They had organized the blankets really well and knew exactly how many blankets they had. The only problem was they didn’t know how many would show up to receive them. They had passed out some blankets the night before, but not all had gotten one. Long story short, we passed out all the blankets and there were about 10 guys that walked up and Mike said, “guys you need to make a queue” (line). John spoke up and said we are totally out of blankets guys you need to go to your Somalia brothers who have 4 or 5 and ask them to share. As they started to walk away, someone said here is another stack of blankets, and I know to most of you it won’t be a surprise because this is who God is, but the last guy was standing there and Mike asked me if we had anymore blankets and I had one more in my hand. Need I say more?
We will have more details in our newsletter in a couple of days. Pray for our safety. However, we don’t feel threatened at all.

Riots in Townships in South Africa

As I type, situations in townships all over South Africa are unfolding. There are Somalia’s, Zimbabweans, and Malawians that have moved into the country without the proper paperwork and have taken up residents in these townships. The Xhosa’s don’t like them in there because they say they are taking all the jobs away. The reality of it is the Xhosa’s don’t like to work hard and the others do. Beginning last night they began threatening them if they didn’t get out they would begin to harm them and take all their posessions. We have become friends with many of them and feel like our hands are tied behind our backs because we don’t know how to help them. Please pray that God would protect them. Approx. 80 of them go to King of Kings and they are allowing them to come to the church as a safe haven tonight but we don’t know how long it will continue or if it will ever be safe for them to move back in. It costs a lot of money for them to go back to their country which most don’t have. We are being asked for help and don’t know what to do. It is not safe for us to go into the townships because they will know we are helping them. They are desperate for help. All we can do is pray for the Lord to stop this situation before it gets out of hand. I will keep you posted

When I said no, God said yes!

The most amazing chain of events took place over the last couple of weeks and I want to share them with you. Mike saw a women’s conference in the church bulletin and suggested I attend. I went back and forth about going said I would go, then I said no. Well less than a week ago Avril, John’s wife, sent out an e-mail to about 10 ladies and yes my name was on it stating, “the ticket is already paid for reimburse whenever you can.” So you know the rest of that story. It turned out to be fabulous. I met some new ladies from the church and saw a part of town I had never been to before. But the story doesn’t end here. The two guest speakers were from America. (this conference was the Women of Faith tour) One’s name was Carol Kent and the other Anita Renfroe. Neither of which I had ever heard of I thought. Just a few days before leaving Nashville, a friend of ours Janell Fadler gave us a gift, a book titled Speaking in Public with Confidence. She knew I needed it more than Mike. I must confess I have not read the book, but I did read the testimony on the back so I knew her story. While I was sitting in the conference, and Carol started sharing her testimony I thought to myself I have heard this before but nothing clicked the first day. The second day about half way through she mentioned this book and the light came on. I could not believe the coincidence and as soon as I got home I showed Mike and he couldn’t believe it either. We had a good laugh. Anita turned out to be the Christian comedian that has hit it big with the “momsense” song on you tube and has soared to stardom. Ok it doesn’t end here either. They were giving away many door prizes and I meant to put my name in the box before we left the first night but I forgot, turns out I didn’t need to, I won something anyway. It was a start up kit for gel nails including the lamp and all. I certainly didn’t need this but the Lord knew it would be a perfect small business for Living Way to launch for a female that goes through our entrepreneurship program. I am so excited about this. Ok it still doesn’t end here! On Monday, Avril had arranged for the ladies to come to Living Hope to speak to the support group facilitators so after they had finished I went over to meet them. I took my book of course to get signed!! While chatting with Anita it turns out she knows Mark Kelly Hall, a friend of ours at Brentwood Baptist and this was how they ended up coming to Living Hope. Man it is a small world.
Ok here is the Grand Finale. Anita was asking me how long we were here and what type of work were we doing at Living Hope. I explained the Volunteer Coordinating Ministry and then told her about Living Way and the entrepreneur program. She and her husband were very interested so I went and got Mike and long story short they, including her church, are going to pray about (but she said it is basically a done deal) sponsoring some start up businesses with the capital needed to get them going. Our God is an awesome God.
I am so glad I said no because it allows me to share a testimony about how much God really is in control!!
By the way I plan to start reading the book this weekend!

Pastor John and Amos

John Thomas has been preaching from Amos the last few weeks and he has really come down on the people of South Africa in comparison to Israel. Israel did the finger pointing to everyone else but never saw them as being in trouble. (He showed us the little trick if you point your finger at something or someone there are 3 fingers pointing back at you) He is warning the locals that if we don’t turn from our wicked ways, that God could allow the happenings of Zimbabwe to happen in South Africa and all over Africa for that matter. He is challenging everyone to make a difference in the community and it has impacted a lot of people in the congregation. We have about 80 or more black people from the Masi township, (mostly Zims) that are coming to our church and he is preaching the Word of God about helping the poor. A lot of you know his heart when he comes to Nashville to share stories and he has really opened his heart to his own church. He is reminding us these people are in our back yards. Mike and I have been watching American Idol, which we never did, but this past week was Idol give back. They raised over 60 million dollars in one night to help people in Africa and other places. I can’t believe the humanitarian effort that one show can produce but if all that money was strategically placed, and people were teaching about God’s love, I believe it could bring about some change. However it is not about the money, what we have to remember is God allows things to happen for different reasons to bring His Children back to Him. God is a loving God and what He wants more than anything is for all of us to turn from our wicked ways and seek Him with all our heart, mind and soul. When we have that right relationship with Jesus, we can do all things through Christ that strengthens me. Phil 4:13
Pray for opportunities for me and Mike to make a difference and to share God’s love with someone who needs to hear that right now.

The Reality of Poverty

The last couple of weeks the reality of the poverty amongst the people that live here are
overwhelming. Yes, you see people standing at the robots (red lights) begging for money and lots of people looking for work on the sides of the roads and even people standing outside of restaurants saying, “I am hungry could you spare something for me”. This is one of the toughest things to face on a daily basis. We have been told over and over you must not give them anything or they will never learn to quit begging. That is easier said than done. Each week the maintenance man gathers up everyone’s trash and takes it to the bottom of the hill for the trash collectors to pick up early the next morning. Over the past couple of weeks on our way home from work, we started noticing middle aged men walking up and down the streets with raggedy old backpacks. We didn’t realize what they were doing until we reached our place and found a couple of guys rummaging through the bags. At first we wanted to tell them to leave the bags alone, but soon realized that as soon as that one was gone the next guy would be going through them. I was blown away by this and said to Mike, “do you realize the leftovers or things that have gone bad are being gone through?” to us it sounds disgusting to them it is a way of life. We made a decision this week that the things we throw away, will be placed in baggies (could get a little expensive but it is the least we can do) so they don’t have to sort through all the rubbish (trash).
Another reality that set in a couple of days ago is the weather. The poorest of the poor live in tin shacks where all the elements of the weather blow right through their homes.
They have sand that blows all the time and covers their floors and winds that never stop and blow coolness on them at night. 2 days ago, was the first cold, windy, rain we had and driving through the townships the next day we realized how tough it is for them to survive in the winter months. Trees were blown down and tin etc. was not where it had originally been. I can tell you how it sounded outside my concrete house with windows, but I can’t imagine what it sounded like or felt like for them. I had to get up and put a folded piece of paper in our sunroom window to keep it from rocking back and forth in its track making a loud noise. I am sure for them it sounded like a freight train coming through. All we can do is pray for them to have safety and enough cover to keep them warm.
There is yet another reality that we witnessed a couple of years ago when we were here on a short-term trip, and that was a fire in the township. They use paraffin to heat with and negligence or winds will cause fires to break out in the winter months. Because all the shacks are built against each other, it can destroy as many as 400 to 500 homes in no time. Living Hope/Way wants to have a team of volunteers in place, so as soon as a fire happens we can have the necessary supplies available to go over and help them to rebuild their homes. Please pray for us to be able to get this in place and have the volunteers available when disasters like this happen. I wanted to share some of these realities so you would have a better understanding of how to pray for them. Pray for us to continue to find ways to tell them Jesus loves them even when they are going through the toughest times.

Another Busy, Yet Rewarding Week behind Us

Beginning on Sunday of last week we visited the Anglican Church to make a presentation for Living Hope, Living Way, and Living Grace. We also had planned to be at the Masi Baptist Church for another savings club launch, for a Malawian group, after that. Do to communication issues we didn’t get to launch this one but got it scheduled for mid May. We began our first ever Entrepreneur course for Living Way on Monday and had 6 students that we knew in the community that had either started their own business or had an idea. Mike, Richard, and I met early last Thursday for a time of prayer for this group and God delivered all of our requests and so much more. We invited different races of people to the class and hoped that everyone would have unity among the group. When we see black people in America we sometimes assume they all come from the same place. Here it is quite different, just because someone has dark skin, black or colored, doesn’t mean they all get along. There is a lot of racial tension among them. One thing that sticks out about our class was at the end Mike was reviewing the course and asked if there were any cultural expectations in their neighborhood. He was really referring to the way they did business and buying and selling on credit, but one of the guys spoke up and started talking about the Somalia’s who came in and started businesses and took their customers away. This opened up an opportunity for Mike to explain why it is important to have new ideas to be welcomed into the community and also if they were to need each other say one person ran out of material or packaging they could have good relationships so they could borrow from one another instead of being at each others throats. Literally!! They all understood and I think that really made them think differently about relationships. This class also taught them how credit was not their best way of doing business, as this is part of the cultural expectation.

We also had the opportunity to share Jesus with them and what He has done in our lives. Mike started out sharing his testimony on Wednesday and by Friday morning each one of us had shared as well. We did not know who was or was not a Christian, but we told them at the beginning of the week we were a Christian organization, and we were going to open and close in prayer everyday. It turned out that all had accepted Christ as Lord and Savior over their lives. We also had the opportunity to share scripture references for teachings about business throughout the week.

After the presentation of certificates one of the ladies, Patience, got up and thanked us for giving of our time and talents to their group. She recognized that we probably had some decisions about who would be in the group and if there would be unity amongst them. How awesome is our God to provide just that for this group. You will see in the picture, the guy with his arm around the other guy is a Zimbabwean. The other guy is a Xhosa guy. He is the one who was talking about the Somalia’s coming in and taking over. He used the Somalia’s as an example but I am sure he was referring to anyone coming into the community and competing for the same customers. Everyone got along great as you can see. She like all the rest had a new appreciation for business and was excited to see how God was going to use this teaching to empower them to get out of the poverty situations they are in. Please pray for us to find the mentors that we need (business people) to come along side them in the next couple of weeks.

Busyness of Life in Cape Town

We have really gotten busy with our work here and it is almost overwhelming with all we have going on. It is a good thing though. We are launching 3 savings clubs this week in the townships and doing a week long entrepreneurial training course with 7 people from the townships beginning next week. This is a pilot course and we are using them to learn how to teach this in the fall to about 20 or more people. It is really taking me out of my comfort zone because I don’t have any background in business or marketing only common sense. (Which is not all bad)

We had a savings club that we were launching this morning and the director and a mentor from another savings club both couldn’t make it due to different circumstances so it forced me and Mike to rely on the Lord to get us through. It was quite amazing because I was uneasy and upset about it. Mike was the cool one. When we got to work two devotions popped up on my screen from 2 different sites and they were both about confidence and that Jesus will see us through. I was totally at ease from that moment forward. Phil 1:6, Matt 28:20.

The other really neat thing was that I had printed out everything that I was supposed to share in the meeting and when it was my turn to speak, the Holy Spirit just lead me right through everything. When I got back to the car to sit down my print out had fallen out of my pocket and was lying on my seat. I am so thankful that I didn’t rely on my paper to get me through.

We also are working with bringing volunteers both local and abroad to help out and all the sudden we have so many that want to come help. It is a good thing, but we have to find jobs they can do. Mike is very good at working along side the people here to see where they could use some help. Please pray for us as we are placing these volunteers that God is directing our paths for each one.
Hope everyone has a great week.

Potential for disaster turned out wonderfully with God's hand

We have had such a great week in allowing God to lead our paths with small steps.
Tuesday of this week was our second launch of a savings club in Red Hill where the fire took place when we first got here. We struggled with wanting to be involved in building houses because that was an immediate need but that was not what God had planned. He wanted us to wait to be involved in a different way. We now see the plan. When we first arrived at the church, the wrong one I might add, we couldn’t find anyone who knew about the savings club that was supposed to take place. We knew of another church in a different site so Mike took off up the hill and found another church and asked them if that was the “river of life church” they said yes and Mike came back down the hill and said he found it. We all, about 15 of us, loaded up and headed up to the other church. When we got to the other church, the person who was supposed to have cleared the church had not done it so they had no idea we were coming. I began explaining what we were doing and she was ok with letting us come in. Then we realized that the word hadn’t really gotten out, so we thought all of these people had come to help launch the club and we aren’t going to have anyone to come. God certainly had a different plan. He brought 3 people from the lower area and the lady that opened up the church to us went around and recruited about 10 more people so we have the perfect amount of people to get it started.
We have our first meeting on Monday and this will be our first opportunity to share the uniqueness of our savings club in that it is a Christian based. Please pray that the Holy Spirit will guide us through this and that those that may not be Christians will grow from the teaching and ultimately ask Jesus into their hearts!