After
just under three months we’ve left the continent of Africa
and have moved on to Central
America.
It’s completely different…landscape, race, language, ministry
opportunities, team and squad dynamics. Before we get too far in to
these last three months, though, I thought I‘d
give a brief recap of what went down during our time in South
Africa
and Swaziland
(and a few other stops on the way over here).
Toward
the end of January
we flew from Hong
Kong
to Johannesburg,
South
Africa,
and immediately headed to Swaziland
for some debriefings and teachings by Gary
and Lisa
Black
and Mike
Pascall.
Gary and Lisa
and their six kids were living in Swaziland
at that time and had many contacts throughout southern Africa,
so after about a week with them our teams split and headed to very
different areas. My team ended up on a train on our way to Cape
Town
(if you’re looking at a map, Swaziland
is at one end of South
Africa
and Cape
Town
is at the complete opposite side). We stayed with Tom
and Cindy
Sipling,
friends of the Blacks,
and learned about and practiced solitude. We also had some fun while
we were there: we visited cape point and saw penguins, shopped at the
largest mall in the southern hemisphere, and went wine tasting in the
famous Stellenbosch
region. The month we spent there was a great time of re-energizing
for our team – we came back so much closer to each other and to God.
We
were able to rent a car and drive ourselves back up to
Swaziland…which
turned out to be quite an adventure. We stopped at a conferencein
Jeffrey’s Bay, South Africa
for a few days and met others our age who were doing ministry
all throughout southern Africa
and had some amazing worship and teaching times with them, as well as
fellowship with non-world-racers. We continued our road trip and had
a few mishaps along the way (watch my
teammate Renee’s
video to get the full scoop), and arrived in Swaziland
about two weeks before Easter.
We
were able to have some more teachings from Gary
while we stayed in Manzini,
then we went down to a town called Nsoko
for the dedication of a church-plant on Easter
Sunday.
Though it was an incredibly muddy day, we celebrated the
resurrection in a very meaningful way. Our
whole squad came together to dedicate this community to God, to
dedicate the community center and see the beginning of the church in
Nsoko, and to ordain Pastor Gift in to his position there. The whole
community came out for the big event (I don’t know what drew them
most – the big tent, free lunch, or if they actually came because
they wanted to hear about God, but there were probably close to 500
people there).
After Easter
weekend we split our time between Manzini
and Nsoko,
and were able to help clean all the kids at the Nsoko
carepoints and put brand new outfits on them just before we left
Swaziland.
We
spent our last “ministry week” in Nelspruit,
South
Africa,
with people that team seven:eleven had worked with earlier in our
Africa
time. We did outreach in the community, an afternoon feeding
program, painting at a preschool, and a Sunday
church service. Just before we left
there, we met another team from the states and were able to visit a
house church with them and have an incredible time of prophecy and
worship
and intercession – it was very encouraging to spend time with other
missionaries from the states why had a similar passion and heart for
God’s people in South Africa.
Our
final week in Africa
was spent in a tiny mountain town called Badplaas. We were blessed
to be able to stay in a retreat center and were able to relax a bit
before flying out to Central America. The January world race squad
flew in on the night of the 18th (some of us stayed up til 3am to
welcome them and help them get their stuff into the cottages!), and
then we were able to spend the 19th with them, swapping stories and
worshipping together and praying over each other. It was amazing to
hear the things they have done in the little more than three months
they have been out on the field (you can read their updates by going
to the world race website). Our time in Africa ended on the 20th of
April – we drove 5 hours to the Johannesburg airport and flew out at
about 7pm.
Here
is where the fun starts: our first flight was from Johannesburg
to Zurich, Switzerland…and eight of us were privileged enough to
get a six hour layover in Zurich, so we took the train in to the city
and spent some time walking around and just enjoying the
early-morning mountain air. Then we flew to Madrid, Spain and had 26
hours to run around the city and see whatever we wanted. We stayed
in a nice hostel, and I went to a huge picasso exhibit at an art
museum there (we also walked around a ton but I don’t remember the
names of places we saw). Then
all
25 of us got on a plane to Bogota, Columbia and spent 13 hours in the
airport there (we didn’t leave the airport for safety reasons, plus
it was free to sleep in the airport and not free to go get a hotel
for the night). And then
we finally took a short flight over to Costa Rica, where we arrived
last week wednesday. (So if you’re counting, that was five
countries, four continents, in three days – crazy!!)
This
first week in Costa
Rica has been amazing. God has definitely given me a heart for the
people here and has allowed me to use the little bit of Spanish that
I know (i’m also getting tutored while we’re here in San
Jose…mostly basic stuff, but it’s still helpful. Our team is still
praying about where God wants us here, and we’re waiting to hear back
from an ecotourism farm that we may go volunteer at (not your
“traditional” world race ministry, but that’s what we’re
all so excited about). It looks like we’ll be in Costa Rica through
the end of May, then head to Panama for about a month, and then up to
Nicaragua for a month (including our final debrief and flight back to
the states), but plans are very flexible right now. I’ll be flying
in to Fort Lauderdale, Florida with my squad on July 24th and up to
Detroit, MI on the 25th.
Some prayer
points for the last few months:
-
Pray
that i’ll be able to communicate effectively in Spanish
and that God will allow me to re-learn and learn new words and
phrases quickly
-
Pray that we
won’t get lazy as we’re in the last three months of the world race -
Pray for
continued team unity for both my small team and my whole squad -
Pray about
donating financially – I still need about $700 to cover the cost of
the trip beyond what is already pledged, and would like to raise
extra money to cover my plane ticket home, my vaccines I had to get,
and my travel insurance (probably about $1000 total). -
Pray
for my future: i’m flying back to Michigan
after the world race but at this point have no idea exactly where
God wants me or what He wants me to be doing.
Thanks for continuing to follow along with my blogs throughout this year. God bless!
