This week has flown by for me. I was sick yesterday (21st) and am still fighting it today but I am winning the battle. It came on so quickly, I woke up yesterday with soar throat, fever, and body aches and was down and out most of the day. I didn't go into masi but instead stayed home and slept, which most of you know if I sleeping and it is day, I am sick. So then I woke up today kind of still feeling bad but nothing like the day before and by now (5pm) I am feeling pretty good. Still have a bit of soar throat but hanging in there. I plan to lay low for the rest of the day and see how I feel in the morning.
Class this week was good. We continued our study in Acts and the journey Paul took but when we came to a church in the book we then went to that book of the Bible and studied it. Here's an example: Paul journyed to Thessalonica and so then we turned to I Thess and studied that book. It was a pretty cool was to study the Bible and one method of study I had never done before.
We also learned in class this week how to lead worship with no instruments. It was pretty cool. I guess when you think about it there are going to be alot of places that missionaries will travel and you can't really carry a sound system or guitar with you everywhere you go. Also we talked about when you go into a country that doesn't allow missionaries and you need to hold church in secret. This way you can still have worship without being loud or even noticeable. For that matter you can hold church and not be noticed.
In Masi this week I only went in once instead of my normal 3 days. One day I was sick, and one day I babysat for a couple so they could go into their township together which they had never gotten the chance to do. On the day I did go into Masi, we held our kids Bible Club for the VC. It went really well. We started out with about 20 and grew slowly to about 40 kids. It was a more manageable number than the week before number of 67! We are teaching them the God story and are right now on creation. They are loving it. This week the kids did a bit more as far as being involved, they prayed, they lead the songs. It was a good start to what we hope will be the older kids taking on more responsibility.
Next week in Masi we will be starting a teen girls Bible study. Please be praying with us that it will come together and also that one of the girls will be an obvious leader we can hand this off too.
OK so this week was the last week that Sylvia is cooking for us. She is officially on maturnity leave. No baby yet but I am hoping and praying it will be soon. Her due date is the 23rd, tomorrow. I have my cell phone plastered to me so I don't miss the call. her husband Cedric is supposed to come pick me up and I will be there for the birth of their third child. They are hoping for a boy who's name will be Cole after me. I can't wait for this, I will have camera in hand to take pictures of Cole and his first hours. Sylvia is going to talk to the nurses so I can come into the delivery room. Please be praying that all this works out. I really want to be a part of this delivery. I have always wanted to see a baby born and everything works out I just might get my chance.
Outreach...........
Still no details. I know it's frustrating, trust me I am right there with you. As soon as I have more details I will be in communication with you. Here is what I have so far, I am lame so I copy and pasted a group email I sent out. So, if you didn't get it here ya go, if ya did so sorry it's all I have .......still.
I will be leaving sometime around April 23rd and coming back at the end of June. There are 7 in my team and of all the teams we are the most culturally diverse, all strong people with strong personalities, and most of the team are prayer warriors. I am the only american on the team, which I think is awesome( I can hold my own:) ) This is going to be interesting. I am so excited to see how God uses us as a team. What I know so far is that we will be staying in Livingstone somewhere in the bush for 5 days of tribal living, no ac, cooking by the river, and staying in tents in whatever tribe we are visiting at the time. Then we will come into town for 2 days and will be staying with a couple Dan and Regina (full time missionaries with all nations) who will be hosting us while we are there. We will get to shower, clean up, regroup and get ready to head back out for 5 more days. I've been on google like a fiend looking up Zambia and reading all about it. We will be very close to the boarder of Zimbabwe and very close to Victoria Falls (it's one of the 7 wonders of the world). I think if I get a chance to see it and takes pictures there it will be like God saying to me, "Thank you for being faithful". I've been told but will need to see this for myself, that it isn't uncommon to wake up and hear and see elephants and see giraffes !!! We shall see.
Please be praying for our team......unity, strength, health, guidance, hearing the Lord, low conflict, communication.
The above prayer request for our team still stand and feel free to pray for us. I will update them as needed. I am not sure what communication will look like when I am in Zambia so that can also be another prayer request as I would like to keep this blog going at the very least.
I do have some information on my team members:
Nceba (co-leader) a black South African from Kimberly, South Africa
Suretha (co-leader) a white South Africanner
Lucas a white South Africanner
Tesfaye a pastor from Ethiopia
Vovo a black South African from Masi
Abel a coloured South African from Pretoria
Vooyani a black South African from Masi
Lalli a white girl from America
This is our team and I believe we are going to be a strong force to recon with, I sure wouldn't want to get in our way :)
Prayer requests:
My Zambia Team
Health
My prayer time with God would increase
Lagistics and details to be worked out easily for all the groups leaving on outreach
wisdom for the staff of All Nations
wisdom for me as we travel
This is a typical window in South Africa. This picture was taken inside my room. The window is open in this picture. So to close the window you would stick your arm through the bars and grab the sliding lock in the middle of the window, hang onto it and pull toward you bringing the window shut then slide the lever down to lock it. Notice the absence of screens and yes we keep them open 24/7.
This is the prayer shack. I am standing at the opening and taking the picture looking in. It is open anytime for anyone to come and pray. The signs hanging all over have stuff on them about each township and their are pictures of people from each township. It's pretty cool. You can take communion there as well as sing or do whatever to worship the Lord. There is also another little room at the very back where you can go for more privacy if you want it.
Here are the grounds of Africa House. They are actually bigger than this but this is the best angle I could get. To the right, the prayer shack and another windy house used for small meetings. Behind me, a set of bathrooms, one bedroom housing some of the guys, and our classroom. To the left, is Africa House and the main entrance into it. What you are looking at here is where we usually eat all of our meals together and in the morning where alot of people do their quiet time. The two little brown half shack looking things are just used for shade where you can sit, talk, eat, whatever. It took me a while to figure out what they were for.
There are things about Africa that I have yet to talk about on my blog, mainly because I haven't thought about including it. "IT" would be the darker side of Africa, every continent has one. I will try to include some things in my blog form now on that may not be so nice to hear but are the truth. I will try to keep my facts directed to South Africa only because that is where I am now. I want everyone to have a well rounded sense about South Africa just like I would want someone to have the same sense about America or Florida, not everything is roses.
Trafficking in women and children for sexual exploitation is a significant problem in Southern Africa
Women seeking refugee status in South Africa from other African countries are trafficked by refugees already living there. Mozambican girls and young women are trafficked into major cities. An estimated 1000 Mozambican girls are trafficked to Johannesburg each year and sold as sex slaves or as wives to the Mozambican mine workers. Young women have been trafficked from Thailand and China to South Africa. When identified by police in South Africa victims of trafficking are deported as illegal immigrants. Victims are afraid of law enforcement and do not trust the police to assist them. South Africa has no public services specifically designed to assist victims of trafficking. . Trafficking in South Africa appears to be closely linked with the highly sophisticated global sex industry.
http://www.sacbc.org.za/Site/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=286&Itemid=111
Approximately 1000 girls ages between 14 and 24 re trafficked from Mozambique to work as prostitutes in South Africa each year.
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