So friends first of all I want to THANK YOU for coming alongside me in this mission and supporting me. Whether in prayer, e-mails, comments on facebook, or financially all of these things have been felt and appreciated dearly!! Thanks to your generosity and by God's grace I can now say that I am FULLY FUNDED!!!! Looking back one year ago I can see God's enduring faithfulness and His goodness in my life. Although $14,300 is a lot of money to raise and seemed to be a giant in my life, God is still in the business of slaying the giants. It has been a rocky road, but through it all I have seen how wonderful it is to trust and to lean wholey on the promises of our everlasting Father.
Anyways, this month my team is in Coffee Bay, South Africa a sleepy tourist town with tons of potential for the Gospel to be preached. We are here working with our contact Mandy to teach soccer and surfing to the local children as well as other ministries we are doing with the local churches. It has been really rewarding working in the region known to South Africans as the Transkei (pronounced Tran-SKA) and to see lives being changed by the light of Christ. Th beauty of this place reminds me of what Eden may have been like. Right on the beach, seeing whales jumping out of the ocean, massive cliffs and hills everywhere. We are camping this month which has been an awesome experience save for a few interesting moments including one with a wild pig… let me explain further.
I had apples in my tent. The wild pigs apparently smelled aformentioned apples. Pigs proceded to force their bodies through the mesh in my tent to get said apples. Pig left with only a tiny hint of their entering unwelcomed into my tent (my water bottle holder/sling was hanging out of the tent). A hole was left on the side of my tent which I promptly duct taped together. Moral of the story: don't leave apples in your tent or a wild pig will break into your tent, rip a hole in it and steal your apples.
In other news we went to a "local church" on sunday and we quickly awakened to the reality of spiritual warfare. We had actually come to a witch doctors church!! I felt physically sick within a minute of walking into the clay hut where the "church" was, looked at the "witch dotor" laughing chillingly (he wore sunglasses, and a leopard print robe of some sort), saw the animal sacrifice laying on the floor and I had walked in praying so the spiritual darkness there felt that light entered in when my team came into that place. I can't explain much more than to say that we as a team were not "prepared for battle" and so we left. We probably won't return on this trip but we will be praying. When I get another chance at good internet I will be posting on spiritual warfare in the Third World so stay tuned!!
